I am extremely excited for today, because it’s the official release date for my newest book, How to Lead When Your Boss Can’t (or Won’t). It’s an abridgment of my book, The 360-Degree Leader, distilling my best teaching on the concept of leading up within an organization. I’ve been studying leadership for over fifty years,…

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A few years ago, I was considering a crazy idea. I was thinking about retirement. I was in my late sixties, and things were going well. It was the right time for my team and myself to think about the future and what it was going to look like. As we talked, it seemed like…

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What happens when you don’t prepare? Take a minute to think about it—and be honest with yourself. In my leadership, the results of being unprepared are predictable. Things I hoped wouldn’t happen do happen—and occur with greater frequency than the things I hoped would happen. The reason is simple: being unprepared puts me out of…

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For the past two weeks, I’ve been sharing my thoughts on the financial seasons of life that we all experience. The first week, I introduced the seasons: Increased learning (usually ages 0-25), increased earning (usually 25-55), and increased returning (usually 55+). Last week we delved into the Learning Season. And today I want to discuss…

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It’s officially March, which means that winter is almost over, and the most anticipated season of the year is right around the corner. Many of us spend the better part of the winter planning for this time. Some people scramble like maniacs to get themselves into good shape. Some have been preparing for it since…

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Have you ever seen the “You had one job!” joke? It’s usually a picture like the one of the sign above, with a crazy error like “Please slow drively.” Or like spelling “STOP” S-O-T-P, or hanging a stair railing upside-down. Google it and you’ll see thousands of examples, because apparently there are a lot of…

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I’m starting with the man in the mirrorI’m asking him to change his ways And no message could have been any clearer If you wanna make the world a better place Take a look at yourself, and then make a change ~ Michael Jackson “Man in the Mirror” In leadership, the first person we must…

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When it comes to job performance, there’s really not much difference between an ordinary person and an extraordinary person. Consider the game of baseball. Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers had the best batting average in the major leagues last season at around .350. That is, when he came to the plate, Cabrera got a…

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In my first leadership position, I didn’t delegate much. I didn’t need to; I had lots of energy, and the load wasn’t too heavy. But as time passed, and I moved on to positions with greater leadership demands, I was confronted with the fact that I had limits. I realized that I needed to focus…

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