[September 29, 2015] On this date in 1982, twelve-year old Mary Kellerman died after taking a capsule of Tylenol pain medicine laced with cyanide. It’s now been 33 years since her death and the poisoning murders of six others remain unsolved. But some good came from the murders in that it prompted improved packaging of over the counter… Read More »
[September 28, 2015] There are some leaders to which we’re drawn and others that are just simply our bosses. What is it that attracts us to certain leaders while not to others is no mystery, for it has been written about since the beginning of recorded history. Yet it remains elusive to all but a few. Those things… Read More »
[September 27, 2015] Whenever I think of the maxim that real leaders don’t panic, I’m drawn to the actions of the men of 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment at the 1965 Battle of la Drang, Vietnam. Documented in the movie, We Were Soldiers Once … And Young, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore and his men fought off a much… Read More »
[September 24, 2015] Truly great leaders are rare and they are rare for a very good reason; they thrive on ambiguity while everyone else is halted by it. The very best people that I’ve ever known are motivated, inspired, and capable of decisive action despite ambiguity and the uncertain environment that is fostered in it. Moreover, it is… Read More »
[September 23, 2015] A recent Gallup poll in the United States found that almost half say that government is an “immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.”1 While the polling data only goes back to 2003 when the question was first asked, it’s no new revelation. I’ve also written about the decline in the trust… Read More »
[September 22, 2015] This past weekend I was giving advice to teenagers who wanted to attend West Point Military Academy and become a U.S. Army officer. All five of them are 15 years old and attend public high schools here in New York City. They surprised me because I’m rarely asked about military life any more by young… Read More »
[September 17, 2015] Several years ago, several friends of mine attended a half-day seminar on the U.S. Constitution and were quickly aghast at how ordinary people like us older adults knew so little about the document. If that were the case, we figured that our children and young folks probably knew even less … and we were right.… Read More »
[September 16, 2015] If we are speaking of citizens of the Western world then the answer is an unqualified “yes” … we are too pampered and most of us want it that way. The problem with being too pampered – “coddled” or “spoiled” as some will say – is that we shut out anything that’s uncomfortable and we… Read More »
[September 14, 2015] When Abraham Lincoln reached the elected office of the President of the United States in 1861, he had not arrived at that point because of the formal training he had received but due to a life of unique experiences that educated him in the principles of leadership. Today, despite the fact that we recognize the… Read More »
[September 13, 2015] Most of us are very familiar with the story of General Armstrong Custer and how he was killed after the U.S. Civil War at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But what many people don’t realize is that he graduated last in his class at West Point. In part this explains the fact that his meteoric… Read More »