Tag: character

You Can’t Change Who You Are by Flipping a Switch

You are who you are. I’m in my 50th year. I am who I am. If I were to take a personality test, it would tell me largely the same thing it would have told me 10 or even 20 years ago. Sure, things happen in our lives that can cause our personalities to change […]

8 leadership lessons from a former POW

by Dan Oswald On November 7, 1967, 1st Lieutenant Lee Ellis was shot down over North Vietnam. He would spend the next five-plus years as a POW. Not only did he survive the North Vietnamese prison camps, but he also remained in the military after his release, finally retiring as a colonel. And his combat […]

14 qualities and attributes of great leaders

by Dan Oswald Marvin Bower joined McKinsey & Company in 1933 and served as the management consulting firm’s managing partner from 1950 to 1967. In 1997, he published a book titled The Will to Lead: Running a Business with a Network of Leaders, in which he shares his perspectives on leadership. One of Bower’s beliefs […]

Master the 5 levels of leadership

by Dan Oswald My youngest son came home from school the other day with a packet of information from one of his coaches. Included in the packet was a sheet of paper titled “The Leadership Continuum.” It outlines five levels of leadership and what is necessary to demonstrate each. I hadn’t seen this before, but […]

With commitment, the only way out is forward

by Dan Oswald A man is in a restroom standing in front of a urinal when he finds himself with a dilemma. He has somehow dropped a $5 bill into the urinal. As he is contemplating what he should do about his five bucks, another man enters the restroom. The second man quickly sees the […]

Mind over matter: lessons on mental toughness from the Olympics

by Dan Oswald When I flipped on the television yesterday to check out the Olympics, I found myself watching the men’s Super-G Alpine skiing. By the time I had tuned in, the celebrated American skier Bode Miller was safely at the bottom of the slope and sitting in first place. This is believed to be […]

Christie bridge scandal raises questions for managers

by Dan Oswald If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard about what is now being called “Bridgegate.” (I, for one, am tired of “gate” getting added to every controversy and scandal, but I’ll leave that rant for another day.) It seems that one of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s top aides, […]

Coach’s decision to disband team scores points in character building

by Dan Oswald A football coach in Utah recently went to great lengths to make sure his players understand the importance of high-school athletics—that is, he suspended almost the entire team because they were skipping class, had poor grades, and were even participating in bullying a fellow student. The coach, Matt Labrum, had his priorities […]

The smartest person in the room

by Dan Oswald I recently was reading on the subject of leadership, and one topic that came up was intelligence. So I set out to do some research on the importance of IQ in leadership. I must admit, it’s not easy to find a lot written about the intelligence of leaders. Type “leadership and intelligence” […]

Rules need not apply

by Dan Oswald Last month, Ryan Braun, the Milwaukee Brewers star who was the 2011 National League MVP, was hit with a 65-game suspension that ended his season for his use of banned substances provided by a Miami clinic accused of distributing banned performance-enhancing drugs to Major League Baseball players. This was after he had […]