Nothing motivates like success. While academics, consultants and gurus are preoccupied with coming up with great insights and seminal ideas, usually they don't realize that making things happen, achieving operational excellence, moving the organization from uncertainty to clarity, from red ink to black, is what really creates hope for a better future. Therefore, great leadership always involves great ideas and real actions that reinforce a strong belief in the excellence of the decision makers and in the viability of the organization itself.

The Psychological Recession is the cluster of feelings that the present is really scary and the future will likely be worse. It comes from the sense you have no control over what's happening to you and you don't see a way to get your life back under control. It's the feeling that life is unfair; you paid your dues, you worked hard, and you ended up naked and vulnerable. There is no comfort to be found in the dismissal of the Psychological Recession as being just an idea; it is a real phenomenon with real consequences, all of them bad.

The ways in which management can express appreciation for an employee's contribution are without end; the key is to act in ways that communicate Thanks! That was a great job! We can really count on you! It's great having you here! While some people love having plaques to hang on their personal Wall of Fame and they adore being acknowledged at a formal Recognition Banquet and some people are only interested in money, I find the most effective forms of recognition are personal and either spontaneous or very close in time to a significant accomplishment.

Leaders evoke emotional connections in followers only to the extent that the followers are emotionally needy.

The need for challenge, the need to burst through the constrictions of tasks and situations already seen and mastered, can affect anyone, even those enjoying the greatest gains from success.

The subject matter of Entitlement remains relevant. Entitlement is an attitude: it is the assumption, I am owed what I get. It's a nasty attitude because people are not grateful for what they get. Instead, greed prevails and is expressed as, What have you done for me lately?

The balanced life is a goal, but for us it is mostly a myth.