Most leadership books suffer from the problem that the seem to presuppose that leadership is about developing and using certain qualities (which ignores personality) that are universally valid (which ignores context). Russ Palmer, who has been CEO in… [more]

In my time at ABB the official company language (according to our CEO, Goran Lindahl) was "poor English". Native speakers cut slack for those less proficient and many of us were grateful that we didn't have to learn several languages in order to get … [more]

I attended the 3rd Business Forum for small and medium-sized enterprises on Thursday in Baden-Baden. (Nice to have a short trip for a change!) I applaud the organisers for developing this conference in what has been a pretty dull economic climate in … [more]

I've taken a break from blogging since my last entry just after our architect's suicide. It was a good way to process the emotions and keep my energy for the important day-to-day tasks in maintaining my relationship and running the business. Be… [more]

Over the past few months we have been renovating the house we bought last Autumn, so that I and my partner can have our own practices on the ground floor. Last Sunday our architect passed away suddenly. There's been lots of speculation about how and … [more]

In a recent leadership team-building workshop, we practiced giving clean feedback. Later, Jane asked me during a break for a chat about how to deal with another participant who had blocked her attempt at giving feedback on a behaviour causing a lot o… [more]

Knowledge@Wharton has brought an English-based network of knowledge communities to my attention, knuru, that offers a natural language search engine, mainly for business topics. The search returns two lists on tabbed pages: the first from the Knowled… [more]

McKinsey offers an excerpt entitled Building The Civilized Workplace (you need to register in order to read this) from Robert Sutton's new book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace And Surviving One That Isn't. The article includes a … [more]

If you've ever wondered why your boss hates you, then read this article from today's Guardian; it lists ten common reasons. The boss, as described, could do with some sculpting, or at least some leadership development. They seem to be victim to the a… [more]

A great resource I've come across, thanks to registering at technorati, is the leadership blog slow leadership. The approach is inspired by slow food and the approach fits beautifully to sculpting. Here's some useful information on stress from this w… [more]

Today's New York Times reports on the latest research findings on multitasking and workplace interruption. Neuroscientists have a better idea of how much efficiency is lost when people attempt to handle even two tasks at the same time, so even that h… [more]

Too often, feedback is a codeword for criticism. Many managers want to know how to criticise their staff. Many years ago, one of my manager's, let's call him Gernot, noticed my tendency for self-critical reflection. He deliberately focused on giving … [more]

In leadership development programs I run, I am often asked how I rate President George W. Bush. An article by John J. McSheffrey in this weekend's International Herald Tribune, describing his response to being on a plane carrying a military coffin, p… [more]

There a many reasons why leadership careers go off course. Most of them have the same root: denial. It's human to have blind spots about our behaviour and other personality traits. The problem occurs when we don't try and find out about these blind s… [more]