Geoff Ramsey is a good friend and CEO of eMarketer in New York.  eMarketer has become “the authority” on research and trends in online marketing, and it’s charts and data regularly appear in national newspapers, magazines and advertising industry periodicals.  Geoff himself is considered a leading spokesman for his industry and is frequently invited to [...]

“Lieutenant McKinnon, you are dead!”

I’ll never forget those words, barked at me by the Captain evaluating me on a dusty, hot morning at Fort Knox, Kentucky, early in my officer training. I was leading a six-man team of fellow officers through a series of Leadership Simulation Exercises — the Army’s version of leadership training scenarios like you might encounter in an Outward Bound-type setting. We had a problem, in this case, getting our entire team to the other side of a “room” laced with tripwires and “explosives,” that we had to solve in a limited amount of time. Rapid-fire assessment, delegation, direction-setting, monitoring and action were demanded in a pressure-filled, time-limited environment. The grade would either by Mission Accomplished or Mission Failure — no in-between.

Sound like one of your days at the office?

I’ve grown weary of reading the bad news in the print and internet media over the past week (see what I did about it at the bottom of this post).  So I decided to look at the Leaders I see in action around me who are writing their own headlines . . .
CEO, CFO review [...]

“Fear, like joy or curiosity, is contagious among beasts and birds, as it is among men . . . . Animals are afraid on general principles.  Anything new and strange excites their suspicions.  In a herd of animals, cattle or horses, fear quickly becomes a panic and rages like a conflagration.  Cattle men in the [...]

A new leadership tool is at hand this week. It’s summertime.

Despite the demands of this challenging economy, things are just different. There’s less traffic on the road in the mornings. Less people in the office because of vacations. Everyone knows you have to get major deals closed by mid-July because key decision-makers will be hard to assemble until after Labor Day. Inevitably there’s more recreation and leisure in your schedule.

All this presents Leaders with opportunities to “shift with the season” — to experiment, create, learn, reboot. And when Labor Day gets here (80 days and counting), you can decide to stop or continue. Will you take advantage of it?

A Sampling of Wall Street Journal Headlines from the past week . . .

* New Fears Jolt Credit Markets (March 6)

* Housing, Bank Troubles Deepen (March 7)

* Jobs Data Suggest U.S. Is in Recession (March

* Grim Reaper of Jobs Stalks the Street (March 11)

How do these affect your thinking first thing in the morning . . . as you head in to lead your company?

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” — Jewish Proverb

Leaders must be intentional about their thought life. Everything they DO is traceable to how they THINK.