June 2008

What Will YOU Ask Our Candidates?

I've written recently about my experience at the Leadership and the Next Presidency session at Harvard. Our deliverable for the day was a list of 15 interview questions for the presidential candidates. These aren't questions about policy; rather, they seek to uncover the candidates' leadership qualities and characteristics.

Now it's your turn to join in the process of both refining the questions and getting them asked (and answered) by the next president of the United States.

Here's what you do:

1. Watch the five-minute video (below) about the dialogue we've begun.
2. Go to Harvard's Center for Public Leadership site at www.howyoulead.org and read the 15 questions.
3. Tell us (and the candidates) whether you think these questions should be asked by responding on CPL's blog.
4. Forward this post to your friends and business colleagues so that they too can join this conversation about Leadership & the Next Presidency.

Posted by steve at 06.27.2008 | Comments (0)

HR World's Top 100

I'm honored to say that this site has been named as one of HR World's "Top 100 Management and Leadership Blogs that All Managers Should Bookmark."

Thank you, editors. I'm grateful for the mention.

Posted by steve at 06.22.2008 | Comments (2)

Your GTY Project

The essence of the principle of Greater Than Yourself (GTY) is this:

Your own greatness as a leader (or in just about any other role, for that matter) lies, paradoxically, in your ability to cause others to be greater than yourself.

You could argue that this is just the right way for one decent human being to act towards another, and I'd whole-heartedly agree, but let's set altruism aside for a moment.

Is there a personal payoff for you? A benefit other than a warm, toasty feeling in your chest?

Oh, yeah.

Consider this: If you get a reputation for being the one who elevates people, for being the one who gives freely to others at work, and, as a result, for turning out superstar after superstar, what’s going to happen?

Everyone will want to work with you, that's what. And because of that, you’ll be able to accomplish anything you set out to do. Anytime you want or need to get anything done—any idea that you want to pursue, any venture, you’ll put out the word and they’ll all come running to help. And for good reason: everyone will know that by the time your project is completed, your idea implemented, your vision realized, they’ll be all that much better for having worked with you, because you will have given them far more than they’ve given you.

And so it goes, over and over again. Give; get more. Give more; get even more. Consider the possibilities and you’ll see why keeping others down is eminently unproductive and—to be blunt—just freaking stupid.

So, here's my challenge to you:

Build your GTY legacy. Starting right now.

Don’t worry—I’m going to make it easy for you. Great, lasting legacies are built one brick at a time. All I ask is that you pick one person. Just one. And make that one person your own, personal GTY project. Raise that person up, boost him or her above yourself. Start there and see what happens.

In my previous post I mentioned that Pat Lencioni and Matthew Kelly will be co-writing the forward to Greater Than Yourself.

Now you know why.

Matthew is, in essence, Pat's GTY "project." Pat wants to see Matthew become a more successful author/speaker/consultant than he is. And he's helping him get there.

He really is.

So...who do you have in your life right now--let's focus on work for the moment--who could become your own GTY project?

Posted by steve at 06.19.2008 | Comments (2)

A GTY Update

Well...

I've been absent quite a bit from this blog, but now that I'm in the home stretch on the new book, I plan on showing up here 2 to 3 times a week. For those of you who are new to this site, I hope you'll tune in often and respond to the posts with candor and gusto. For those of you who've wandered off while I've been otherwise occupied, I hope to make it worth your while to come on back and hang around.

Let me start by catching you up on the latest publication developments:

I've finished the rough draft of Greater Than Yourself (yep, we finalized the title--subtitle is still to come. Suggestions?) submitted it to my editor at Doubleday, and now I'm waiting for his edits. Then, the...um...joys of the re-write will ensue.

The official publication date is January 13, 2009. Hey, I'm not saying it should be made a national holiday or anything, but maybe you can mark your calendars anyway.

And I'm happy to say that the forward to the book will be co-written by author/gurus Pat Lencioni and Matthew Kelly.

Why do you need two people to write the forward? I hear you cry.

True, it's a little unorthodox. But there's actually a damn good reason.

Which I'll be sure to explain next time around.

Posted by steve at 06.18.2008 | Comments (1)