What Does Exercise Have to do with Leadership?

Exer­cise. Some of us dread it, oth­ers can’t wait to get to it. It’s true that exer­cise can become addi­tive and almost an obses­sion at times to some peo­ple (I myself have been bit­ten by the exer­cise work­out bug). When I’m forced to go more than a cou­ple of days with­out work­ing out, I find myself hav­ing more trou­ble get­ting through the day unscathed by life’s all too famil­iar stresses and chal­lenges. Read more

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25 Great Articles on How to be Empathetic

Empa­thy enables a per­son to estab­lish a con­nec­tion with oth­ers and is nec­es­sary for mutual inter­ac­tion and full com­pre­hen­sion of the expe­ri­ence. It is prob­a­bly one of the most impor­tant aspects of being a leader in every sit­u­a­tion. With­out it, a per­son is vir­tu­ally guar­an­teed to become out of touch with the envi­ron­ment, he or she is in. With­out empa­thy, a leader can­not lead. With­out empa­thy, a per­son can­not be in any type of mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship. With­out empa­thy, a per­son is basi­cally ask­ing to be com­pletely alone in life.

Have you ever wished to be more empa­thetic in order to become a bet­ter leader? In order to have a bet­ter rela­tion­ship with a friend, loved one or colleague?

There are many great and free resources about empa­thy avail­able. Here are some great arti­cles, posts and videos that talk about empa­thy and it’s impor­tance in lead­er­ship, par­ent­ing and rela­tion­ships Read more

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Sometimes It Comes Down to a Choice

Last week I was for­tu­nate enough to be a par­tic­i­pant in a two day lead­er­ship retreat. I was one of among thirty or so regional lead­ers cho­sen for a year long train­ing pro­gram where par­tic­i­pants will be involved in the devel­op­ment of a com­mu­nity based project. The two day lead­er­ship retreat was the first time every­one involved in the year long train­ing pro­gram would be get­ting together. When I found out that I was going to be one of the peo­ple cho­sen to go through the course, I was really happy and look­ing for­ward to being part of the group. That was back in Novem­ber of last year.

As the time for the retreat come closer, I began to think about how the retreat would be han­dled by the staff orga­niz­ing it. Read more

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Looking for Something To Do? Why Not Give Reading a Shot!

As I write this post, it’s snow­ing out­side, thanks to the cour­tesy of win­ter storm Albert com­ing up the East coast. My town was for­tu­nate to only get 12 to 16 inches. Some other areas of the state got over 24 inches. Due to my injury this past sum­mer, I’m still recov­er­ing and med­ically for­bid­den from all strong twist­ing motions that may cause me to re-injure myself. What does that mean? It means I’m not allowed to shovel my own dri­ve­way and side­walk so I’m let­ting some of the neigh­bor­hood kids earn a few dol­lars shov­el­ing it for me (and no I don’t own a snow­blower). In the mean­time, I’m stuck at home unable to go out until my dri­ve­way is cleared.  This made me think about what I can do with the lit­tle bit of time I have until my dri­ve­way is clear. “The secret of your future is hid­den in your daily rou­tine” is a say­ing that comes to mind. The first time I read it, I thought how pro­found yet sim­ple. The funny thing is that I rec­og­nized it to be so true. Every­one has the same 168 hours in a week. What we get out of it depends a great deal on what we do with it. At the same time, it also depends on what we don’t do with it. Read more

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An Annual Ritual: The Company Holiday Party

Today I went to an annual rit­ual enjoyed by many in the cor­po­rate world.  Today was my company’s annual hol­i­day party. Com­plete with raf­fles, cash bar and plenty of food, the atmos­phere was ripe for min­gling between col­leagues.  What I per­son­ally never fail to notice is how many peo­ple come to such par­ties and then basi­cally sit by them­selves with maybe one other col­league. At a sim­i­lar com­pany party many years ago, I asked one of my then col­leagues, who told me he pre­ferred sit­ting by him­self most of the time, why come to the event then?  His answer was, “To be seen.” He wanted oth­ers, espe­cially upper man­age­ment, to see that he was a team player and that he goes out of his way to be at the com­pany party. I couldn’t help but be a lit­tle sur­prised and puz­zled by his ratio­nal! Read more

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Part of Emotional Intelligence is Self-Awareness…Unfortunately, Not Everyone Knows That!

At a recent con­fer­ence, a series of sem­i­nars were being given on the sub­ject of Emo­tional Intel­li­gence or EQ (a.k.a  EI). I’ve been to many such sem­i­nars and so have many of my friends and col­leagues. What I find puz­zling though is how many peo­ple say they know all about emo­tional intel­li­gence and yet their acts show that they prob­a­bly haven’t got a clue of what it is and the way it can be used.

EQ is not sim­ply about read­ing and under­stand­ing other peo­ple. One of the main points of emo­tional intel­li­gence is read­ing and under­stand­ing our­selves and what makes up our own per­sonal emo­tions (both from a phys­i­cal as well as a men­tal per­spec­tive). Hav­ing an under­stand­ing of only one side of EQ defeats many of the pur­poses for it. Read more

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48 Great Sites for Leadership Tips and Ideas

The inter­net is inun­dated with web­sites that dis­cuss lead­er­ship ideas, nuggets, secrets and the like. Many require you to reg­is­ter or pay for a con­sul­ta­tion. The sites below are free and are some of my favorites when it comes to lead­er­ship ideas and tips: Read more

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Viewing Responsibilities: Obligation or Opportunity?

Do you enjoy get­ting involved with oth­ers for a cause? A busi­ness project? Or some other under­tak­ing? I’ve enjoyed get­ting involved in many orga­ni­za­tions and help­ing oth­ers suc­ceed in their endeav­ors for a while. Whether it is in busi­ness, in a com­mu­nity project or in a per­sonal mat­ter, being able to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in some­one else’s life has been a reward­ing expe­ri­ence for me. Unfor­tu­nately, that wasn’t always the case. There have been many instances where I’ve felt that I’ve worn myself too thin with all of my respon­si­bil­i­ties. Have you ever expe­ri­enced that? Have you ever gone from a feel­ing of look­ing for­ward to being involved to not car­ing as much as you know you should? Not want­ing to answer the phone when­ever it rang? Ignor­ing emails? If you have, let me Read more

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What is the Big Deal about Mentors?

If you think you don’t need one and want to “Get Ahead” in your career or busi­ness endeavor, you may want to think again. Men­tors are prob­a­bly one of the most impor­tant peo­ple you’ll have in your life. They are peo­ple who have either already nav­i­gated the land­scape that you are cur­rently work­ing your way through or can sim­ply give you sin­cere con­struc­tive crit­i­cism to help make the most of a given sce­nario. Men­tor­ship refers to a Read more

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