Tag: leadership development
Hubris and Hyperbole
“Hyperbole is not easily dealt with. Usually, it collapses under its own weight.” —Gwen Ifill “Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.” —P.J. O’Rourke “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities” —Voltaire My little town in Northern Michigan is conducting a capital campaign to raise 5 million dollars for a library expansion. The current library is situated on a beautiful island in a pristine community on lovely Lake Michigan. Read More
Spiritual Leadership
After searching for great leaders around the world, I stumbled across some of the best I have ever found in Traverse City, Michigan—a humble community bordering one of the Great Lakes. Really, I’m not exaggerating. I’ve worked with leaders in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and North America and, just when I was about to retire in this pristine Northern Michigan community, I accidentally encountered the most inspiring leaders I have ever met. Who knew? Read More
Sanity 101
A 21-year-old white nationalist drives 600 miles to El Paso, Texas and kills 22 men, women and children with his assault weapon because he hates immigrants―particularly Hispanics. If this isn’t insanity, I don’t know what is. Let’s face it. We now find ourselves in the ranks of the insane.
Marianne Williamson cites a “dark psychic force” happening in America. Russ Douthat describes a “black spiritual hole” as the source of the hatred and violence ripping apart our hearts and our heartland. Read More
Systematic Sensitization
“Have we raised the threshold of horror so high that nothing short of a nuclear strike qualifies as a ‘real’ war? Are we to spend the rest of our lives in this state of high alert with guns pointed at each other’s heads and fingers trembling on the trigger?” ― Suzanna Arundhati Roy “The Cherokee used to fear that taking a photo would make them lose their souls. Over exposure and desensitization is pretty close Read More
Freeing Genius and Healing Madness
“There is no great genius without some touch of madness.” —Aristotle “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” —Nietzsche “A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.” —Nikos Kazantzakis I have always been willing to tolerate idiosyncrasies in people whom I believe have deep substance or a higher perspective. This willingness has sometimes created conflicts in Read More
![The Library of Congress Hughey Gold [child with football]](https://rickbellingham.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/hugheygoldfb-2.jpg)
Football Culture
“When I won the world championship, in 1972, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, a baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country.” —Bobby Fischer Well Bobby, I guess the more things change the more they remain the same. Speaking of football, my family was recently watching the annual Ohio State vs. Michigan football game that would determine who would go to the Rose Bowl and Read More
Doing the Work
“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.” —Gordon B. Hinckley I just finished reading five books that gave me a much deeper appreciation of the situation we are confronting. I recommend them highly: These Truths by Jill Lepore Fear by Bob Woodward Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis The World as It Is by Ben Rhodes I chose these books because all of the authors have done the heavy Read More
Leading Change
In you have been wondering about what life might look like by the end of the 21st century, you may want to read a few of Ray Kurzweil’s books. Kurzweil, a pre-eminent futurist who graduated from MIT, formed multiple companies, and now works for Google as “Director of Engineering,” has shown that change is exploding exponentially, even though we cling to the belief that change is happening linearly.
Being Authentic in an Inauthentic World
“If you think dealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.” —Brené Brown OK, I’m embarrassed. In preparation for this post, I was searching for brainy quotes on authenticity and came across a full spectrum of pithy comments to profound insights. The most pithy and inauthentic quote Read More
Style and Substance
I just finished plowing through all 959 pages of Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S. Grant. The New York Times reviewed the book as vast, panoramic, and essential with an eerie resemblance to our current times. For me, it was like a guided tour through the Civil War and three Presidencies: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Grant. This book not only made the top five non-fiction list for 2017, but also the top ten for Read More
Tribes and Teams
“Before the rise of the nation-state, the world was mostly tribal. Tribes were united by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and often warred against them.” —Robert Reich When I conduct teambuilding sessions, I often start by administering a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) so that I can understand the different personality styles on the team. The idea is to identify and leverage differences to achieve optimal performance. The MBTI has a continuum Read More
No Dancing in These Halls
“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” —Nietzsche On a big gig with big Pharma, I brought my older daughter to help with collecting data and gathering impressions. After a week of intensive focus groups and walking through the corporate headquarters, she dryly commented, “Hmmm, there’s no dancing in these halls!” By that time in my career, I had worked with hundreds of organizations around the world, Read More
Marketing and Leadership
“When you are made a leader, you aren’t given a crown; you are given the responsibility to bring out the best in others.” —Jack Welch, Former CEO of General Electric There is an old adage that leaders are born not made. That myth became popular as people observed that most leaders had personality traits such as intelligence, charisma, attractive appearance, and confidence. I believe the truth is that effective leaders are typically born AND made, Read More
Inspiration and Aspiration
“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” —Khalil Gibran, The Madman I once worked for a company that aspired to be a $10B corporation. I said to the executives at that time, “That may be a good goal but it surely isn’t a compelling vision, and it does nothing to inspire me.” I left the company after two years. Part Read More
Reciprocity
Are the facts you think you know about immigration in the U.S. actually myths?–and what does the psychological concept of reciprocity have to do with the concept of being an American?
Gauging Gurus
As Lao Tzu suggests, “when a person crowns himself as a guru, he is not.”
We should always be able to ask and answer: At what level are the people we entrust with power operating? In this post, I share my guide to evaluating leaders, gurus, and practitioners.
Assessing Leadership Potential
We are currently in a dark period resulting from dark forces (Trump himself, Comey, Putin, racism, sexism, homophobia, white supremacy, and ignorance).
In the midst of this darkness, we all need to take responsibility for growing whatever light we can find within ourselves and in the people we love.
P and E Trump I and S
When I was a kid growing up in the 50s, my whole life revolved around kickball, basketball, running, climbing and hanging out with a neighborhood full of friends. My community consisted entirely of white, Christian, straight (as far as I knew) people. My world was physical and emotional. I measured success by goals scored and games won, and by how many friends I had in the In-Group.
Three Types of Trust
I’ve been married to the same woman for 46 years, and I can say unequivocally that I totally trust her. I trust her to do the right thing, I trust her to not throw me the under the bus (even though I have given her many opportunities), and I trust her to stand up for people in need of special help. When she makes a statement, I know it is based on sound research; she Read More
Thinking and Believing
Believe me—Daniel Kahneman got it right: we are more likely to find stories that support our beliefs than seek out evidence in the pursuit of truth. Kahneman is a professor emeritus at Princeton University who wrote the best selling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. His work is focused on the psychology of judgment and decision-making for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. His findings challenge the assumption of human rationality. Clearly, Read More
Thank you, thank you, thank you
Every morning in my daily meditation, I give thanks for the earth, water, the sun, air, the time I have on this planet, the knowledge I have access to, the vastness of space, the healing energy of Light, my ability to think and process, sounds that I hear, love that I feel, hope that I cling to, the senses that let me experience the world, my sexuality, and my roots. Yup, starting the day with Read More
Concepts and Skills
Stephen Ambrose, in his new book describing the construction of the Transcontinental railroad, Nothing Like It In the World, suggests that trains were the primary vehicle for introducing the industrial revolution. He quotes an engineer who said, “where a mule can go, I can make a locomotive go.” The poetry of engineering requires both the imagination to conceive and the skills to execute. We use concepts to frame our imagination, we use skills to build Read More
Reckless and Righteous
Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, is a real hero to me. He goes where few journalists dare venture to report on atrocity and abuse. He raises uncomfortable subjects we would prefer to keep hidden or out of our consciousness. He confronts his fellow progressives on our blind spots. He challenges us not to be reckless in our language or righteous in our beliefs. In a recent NYT article, Peter Baker discusses how carelessly Read More
The Three Dimensions of Leadership Development
Everyone has an opinion on leadership. Amazon offers over 300,000 books with “leadership” in the title and about 4 new books per day are published by aspiring gurus or established academics. It seems like leadership commands as much curiosity as religion. Why is that? I think there are three reasons. First, readers are looking for different solutions for their particular needs. Some want to learn the secrets of a one-minute manager. Others want an in-depth Read More