Leadership Traps: Communication Without Communicating
Depending upon where you’re from, or what generation you are part of, your view of what a leader should and should not be will vary. There are those who say changing times call for changes in leadership styles. While that may be true for some areas of leadership, many basic characteristics of leadership still hold true today as they did back with previous generations.
A crucial area that has not changed is the ability to communicate. Communication has added new tools to its repertoire over the last couple of decades (such as email and instant messaging), but time tested communication methods are still needed today. To substitute these time tested communication methods with email and/or instant messaging would be to ask your team and peers to begin alienating themselves from you. Why Read more
Winning Friends and Influencing People
It’s interesting how many people out there want to rewrite the rules in life. They want to rewrite them so that it fits their chosen lifestyle. Some even say, “I play by my rules”. Have you ever heard anyone say that? One can say that’s a courageous attitude to take. Others may say that’s a very unrealistic, even childish attitude to take. It’s OK to make your own rules, just be prepared for when the rest of the world confronts you about them (and doesn’t agree). Some rules of life are rules that cannot be changed or altered. Why? Because people are people!
One of my favorite books is Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. It’s probably one of the most read books when it comes to the art of relationship building. If you’re a person who truly wants to learn about understanding people (as well as yourself) better, then this is a book that I highly recommend. I periodically re-read this book in order to not become rusty on the teachings it provides. Here are a few golden nuggets Read more
How Do You Wish to be Treated?
Last evening I was fortunate enough to be with a large gathering of friends and acquaintances for an after work social. It was a truly enjoyable event such as most socials can be. Unfortunately, it never ceases to amaze me how every now and then there is a person in such a crowd who (giving them the benefit of the doubt) doesn’t realize that they are coming off as having a “holier than thou” type attitude. Why am I mentioning this? I’m mentioning this because I ran into such a person last night. The reason I use such a term to describe this person is because when I said hello to a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a long time, the person next to him stopped talking with the person he was speaking with and without really looking at me (not looking at me in the eye as would be the polite thing to do when meeting someone but looking past me) said, “Well, hello Gil” in a somewhat patronizing tone. After he said this to me, he proceeded to Read more
