[September 10, 2016] Tomorrow is the 15th anniversary of the attacks against United States’ civilians by Islamic terrorists. Within recent memory, this event cements into our minds that no one is indispensable. Yet many leaders think that they personally are essential and as such explains, in part, why those leaders hide themselves away in their offices. “The cemeteries… Read More »
[September 7, 2016] Strategy is the purview of senior leaders. They have the training, relevant experience, and authority to establish ends, ways, and means to accomplish the organization’s strategy. Yet, when senior leaders make tactical decisions, things can go unexpectedly wrong. During the Vietnam War, to use just one example, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and members of his… Read More »
[September 4, 2016] Someone long ago said that the most dangerous type of leader is a person who is a leader but refuses to acknowledge it. People go to them for answers and guidance but are rejected time and again. These are not the most dangerous. Leaders that put people at risk the most – and are thus… Read More »
[September 3, 2016] From the ranks of those who study leadership, lessons from some of the most admired military leaders of all time has been summarized for us. After hundreds of interviews with current military leaders from across the globe, research has shown that there are special nuggets that inform and teach us what makes a person successful… Read More »
[September 03, 2016] Happy “3rd” Anniversary to the Leader Maker! Special thanks to all my regular and new readers who have all made this leadership blog so successful. I began theLeaderMaker to provide a easily accessible site that addresses leadership issues and where any person could go to quickly gain some advice on leader principles. The site reinforces… Read More »
[September 1, 2016] My introduction to sports was as a very young child and as a participant in large family gatherings to watch baseball’s Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and the New York Yankees play and win the World Series. We never missed a game watching the 1958 series. Their leadership on the field was legendary and… Read More »
[August 31, 2016] New evidence has recently surfaced that 72 mass graves were discovered and contain Islamic State victims of industrial-scale murder.1 There are indicators of many more sites but due to ISIS presence, those locations are too dangerous to visit. What students of leadership should review, however, is how world leaders have failed to agree on a… Read More »
[August 25, 2016] As the Staff Sergeant walked in the new Afghanistan combat operations center in the heart of the Division headquarters, he saw plastered everywhere the printed words, ‘Who needs to know?” He was new to combat and so he asked the closest person working on the security staff what it meant. The sergeant was to discover… Read More »
[August 23, 2016] Looking back on the many many leaders I served under for the past 40-plus years, the ones I admired most were the ones that showed perpetual selflessness in carrying out their duties. Studies on important traits of leadership consistently conclude that selflessness is a leader trait people like the most. A number of historical studies… Read More »
[August 22, 2016] Most Americans have heard of John Walker, the infamous traitor responsible for spying for the KGB of the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985. Of all traitors from the United States since Benedict Arnold, John Walker’s espionage was likely the most destructive and was the biggest cryptographic failure in military history. And Walker did it… Read More »