cannyben

Go to the book section of Amazon.com, enter the keyword “leadership” and see how many hits you get. Most likely you would get around 20,000 hits. Why is there so much material on this one subject ? the law of supply and demand would say it is because people are buying it. But there are other and more subtle reasons.One of those reasons is the underlying belief that leadership can be taught. With enough training, anybody can be a leader. The theory is that leaders are made, not born !The other day someone told that he sees definite leadership traits in his son. I asked him how old he was. “Six”, he replied. Too young to have been through any leadership training. So are leaders born or made ? the answer is both.The problem is that we often get confused with what can and cannot be taught, and at the heart of the confusion is the difference between talent and skill.Talent is what we do well naturally. It is our bent. Talents are inborn, and can be discovered and developed. They cannot be t...

We hear about human rights constantly these days, often in a global context. Yet according to Eleanor Roosevelt, they begin “in small places, close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.”She went on to say in her address at the 1948 UN Commission on Human Rights that “they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.”The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, now more than 50 years old, was not the first attempt to legislate human rights on an international scale. The post–World War I League of Nations Covenant required members to “endeavour to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour for men, women, and children,” “secu...

Do you long for meaningful work ? Are you bored ? Are you feeling drained ? Are you restless and don’t know why ? Do you feel like you are just putting in your time at work ? The solution is alignment, and there are three steps: 1. Discover what you are designed to do. 2. Do it. 3. Minimize everything else. The idea is to align your work with your natural motivations and talents. Imagine what it would be like to do what you enjoy and are good at, working with interesting subject matter, and relating to others in a comfortable way. Can you picture what life would be like ? do you get a sense of how productive and energized you would be ? Too good to be true ? but it does not happen overnight. Let’s take a look at the steps involved. 1. Discover what you are designed to do. It pinpoints your motivations and their corresponding talents. This is good news, because most people can not make out what it is they are designed to do. 2. Do it. Its all about alignment. Begin to ma...

Go to the book section of Amazon.com, enter the keyword “leadership” and see how many hits you get. Most likely you would get around 20,000 hits. Why is there so much material on this one subject ? the law of supply and demand would say it is because people are buying it. But there are other and more subtle reasons. One of those reasons is the underlying belief that leadership can be taught. With enough training, anybody can be a leader. The theory is that leaders are made, not born ! The other day someone told that he sees definite leadership traits in his son. I asked him how old he was. “Six”, he replied. Too young to have been through any leadership training. So are leaders born or made ? the answer is both. The problem is that we often get confused with what can and cannot be taught, and at the heart of the confusion is the difference between talent and skill. Talent is what we do well naturally. It is our bent. Talents are inborn, and can be discovered and developed. They can...