Lead ThySelf

Elon Musk has been quoted as saying, “I think it’s possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.” Now, whether you view him as the real-life Tony Stark, most of us view him as an exception among the humble stock of this planet. But even Elon  Iron-Man  Musk believes that any ordinary person -- you included -- can become extraordinary. As someone who was far below average, I had to scratch and claw just to reach mediocrity. But by that point I had put so much effort in that I figured, “Why not just go all the way?” So I improved my skills as a writer and coach with a goal of never-stopping, and I succeeded in making an excellent living doing what I loved most. I like to call this process  extraordinification . And if you’ll stick with me for an article, I’ll teach you it to you. Spoiler alert:   You definitely won’t turn into Musk/Stark, and you probably won’t amass a hundredth of his fortune. But that’s not...

Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership. More companies die because of the rigidity of their leaders than any other single cause.  —PETER DRUCKER  A ccording to an article in   Forbes   by Dina Gerdeman, s he points out that less than 0.1 percent of firms in the United States make it to the age of 40 years. Amazingly, only 10 percent of firms founded in 1976 were still operating in 1986. In addition, we are all well aware of those large, longstanding, seemingly infallible companies that collapsed: Polaroid (started in 1937), RCA (which was twice the size of IBM in 1955), Blockbuster, RadioShack, Borders, and many others. The lack of agility of the leaders in these organizations, perhaps combined with poor planning and execution of strategies for changing markets, led to their downfall. Gerdeman cites the work of Harvard Business professor Michael Tushman and Stanford...

Consider the stressed, tired, overwhelmed manager. Will she notice the early warning signs of trouble? Will he be able to handle the situations from the taxonomy of trouble in a way that transforms the troublesome to tremendous? How can you handle the maverick, cynic, or diva when you are consistently having a “difficult day” yourself? It is possible, but it is also unlikely. If you truly want to be an exceptional leader who can consistently provide great value, to have positive impact, and even to transform troublesome situations to tremendous, then the focus must start with your inner game of leadership. The following are some of the symptoms of someone who has not yet taken control of his or her own leadership. Rate yourself on each one of these. I have worked with many leaders who identified deeply with this list of symptoms. Many of them were actually very good leaders. Nevertheless, they often felt like they were constantly battling to accomplish what needed to...