Successful leaders are great askers

If I were to give off-the-cuff advice to anyone trying to institute change, I would say, "How clear is the metaphor?"

A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people's lives, for better or worse, sometime forever and ever.

A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless... someone's got to make a wake up call.

Some of the strongest resistance to necessary change is the result of what Jim O'Toole has so aptly characterized as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."

People in great groups have blinders on. Their work is all they see. They value failures as learning opportunities. They are optimistic, not realistic, as they proceed from one challenge and crisis to the next.

The learning person looks forward to failure or mistakes. The worst problem in leadership is basically early success.