Leading in Totally Screwed Up Times Tom Peters Sapient/Houston/25 September 2001

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Leading in Totally Screwed Up TimesTom
PetersSapient/Houston/25 September 2001
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There will be more confusion in the business
world in the next decade than in any decade in
history. And the current pace of change will only
accelerate.Steve Case
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We are in a brawl with no rules.Paul Allaire
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BmC (1) Hierarchy vs. Network organization.
(2) NWO Doctrine as center of
gravity/motivation, distributed support
decision-making, outside the military sphere.
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Our military structure today is essentially one
developed and designed by Napoleon.Admiral
Bill Owens, former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of
Staff
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Most of our predictions are based on very linear
thinking. Thats why they will most likely be
wrong.Vinod Khosla, in GIGATRENDS, Wired
04.01
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The Leadership50
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1. Leadership Is a Mutual Discovery Process.
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I dont know.
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Leaders-Teachers Do Not Transform People!
Instead leaders-mentors-teachers (1) provide a
context which is marked by (2) access to a
luxuriant portfolio of meaningful opportunities
(projects) which (3) allow people to fully (and
safely, mostlycaveat they dont engage unless
theyre mad about something) express their
innate curiosity and (4) engage in a vigorous
discovery voyage (alone and in small teams,
assisted by an extensive self-constructed
network) by which those people (5) go to-create
places they (and their mentors-teachers-leaders)
had never dreamed existedand then the
leaders-mentors-teachers (6) applaud like hell,
stage photo-ops, and ring the church bells 100
times to commemorate the bravery of their
followers explorations!
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2. Great Leaders on Snorting Steeds Are Important
but Great Managers (Type I Leadership) are the
Bedrock of Organizations that Perform Over the
Long Haul.
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Model 24/7 Sports Franchise GM
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P.S. Jack didnt have a vision!
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2A. Just One Great Leading Great Mentoring.
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Goal of the Year No. 1 Find-Develop-Mentor ONE
Extraordinary Person.CEO, large financial
advisory firm, April 2001
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3. But Then Again, There Are Times When This
Cult of Personality (Type II Leadership) Stuff
Actually Works!
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A leader is a dealer in hope.Napoleon
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4. Find the Businesspeople! (Type III
Leadership)
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I.P.M. (Inspired Profit Mechanic)
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4A. The Golden Leadership Triangle.
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The Golden Leadership Triangle (1)
Creator-Inventor-Visionary (2) Talent Fanatic
(3) Inspired Profit Mechanic.
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5. Leadership Mantra 1 IT ALL DEPENDS!
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Renaissance Men are a snare, a myth, a delusion!
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6. The Leader Is Rarely/Never the Best Performer.
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33 Division Titles. 26 League Pennants. 14 World
Series Earl Weaver0. Tom Kelly0. Jim
Leyland0. Walter Alston1AB. Tony LaRussa132
games, 6 seasons. Tommy LasordaP, 26 games.
Sparky Anderson1 season.
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7. Leaders LOVE the MESS!
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7A. Leadership Is Improv!
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Rudy!
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8. Leaders DO!
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ISOE 1 A Bias for Action
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The Kotler Doctrine1965-1980
R.A.F.(Ready.Aim.Fire.)1980-1995
R.F.A.(Ready.Fire!Aim.)1995-????
F.F.F.(Fire!Fire!Fire!)
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8A. Leaders Re-do.
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If Microsoft is good at anything, its avoiding
the trap of worrying about criticism. Microsoft
fails constantly. Theyre eviscerated in public
for lousy products. Yet they persist, through
version after version, until they get something
good enough. Then they leverage the power theyve
gained in other markets to enforce their
standard.Seth Godin, Zooming
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9. Leaders DELIVER!
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Leaders dont want to win. Leaders need to
win.49
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10. Leaders Trust in TRUST!
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Credibility!
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11. Leaders FOCUS!
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To Dont List
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Leaders dump the ones who brung em Nokia, HP,
3M, PerkinElmer, Corning, Enron, etc.
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12. Leaders Win Through LOGISTICS!
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The Gus Imperative!
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13. Leaders Understand the Ultimate Power of
RELATIONSHIPS.
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13A. Leaders Say Thank You.
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The deepest human need is the need to be
appreciated.William James
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13B. Leaders Wire the Joint!
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Winners wire. Losers are slaves to rank.
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14. Leaders Are Natural EMPOWERMENT FREAKS!
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AS LEADERS, WOMEN RULE New Studies find that
female managers outshine their male counterparts
on almost every measureTitle, Special Report,
Business Week, 11.20.00
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Womens Strengths Link rather than rank
workers favor interactive-collaborative
leadership style empowerment gt top-down decision
making sustain fruitful collaborations
comfortable with sharing information see
redistribution of power as victory, not
surrender favor multi-dimensional feedback
value interpersonal technical skills, group
individual contributions equally readily accept
ambiguity honor intuition as well as pure
rationality inherently flexible appreciate
cultural diversitySource Judy B. Rosener,
Americas Competitive Secret
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15. Leaders FORGET!/Leaders DESTROY!
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ForgetgtLearnThe problem is never how to get
new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how
to get the old ones out.Dee Hock
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Forbes100 from 1917 to 1987 39 members of the
Class of 17 were alive in 87 18 are in 87
F100 the 18 F100 survivors underperformed the
market by 20 just 2 (2), GE Kodak,
outperformed the market from 1917 to 1987.SP
500 from 1957 to 1997 74 members of the Class of
57 were alive in 97 12 (2.4) of 500
outperformed the market from 1957 to
1997.Source Dick Foster Sarah Kaplan,
Creative Destruction Why Companies That Are
Built to Last Underperform the Market
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Good management was the most powerful reason
leading firms failed to stay atop their
industries. Precisely because these firms
listened to their customers, invested
aggressively in technologies that would provide
their customers more and better products of the
sort they wanted, and because they carefully
studied market trends and systematically
allocated investment capital to innovations that
promised the best returns, they lost their
positions of leadership.Clayton Christensen,
The Innovators Dilemma
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16. BUT Leaders Have to Deliver, So They Worry
About Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater.

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Damned If You Do, Damned If You Dont, Just
Plain DamnedSubtitle in the chapter, Own Up
to the Great Paradox Success Is the Product of
Deep Grooves/ Deep Grooves Destroy Adaptivity,
Liberation Management (1992)
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17. Leaders HONOR THE USURPERS
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Saviors-in-WaitingDisgruntled
CustomersUpstart CompetitorsRogue
EmployeesFringe SuppliersWayne Burkan, Wide
Angle Vision Beat the Competition by Focusing on
Fringe Competitors, Lost Customers, and Rogue
Employees
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18. Leaders HANG OUT WITH FREAKS!
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The Cracked Ones Let in the LightOur business
needs a massive transfusion of talent, and
talent, I believe, is most likely to be found
among non-conformists, dissenters and
rebels.David Ogilvy
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Are there enough weird people in the lab these
days?V. Chmn., pharmaceutical house, to a lab
director (06.01)
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QCC/Quick Culture ChangeHire Weird Promote
DeepRule of Three (3 Critical Mass)
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19. Leaders Make Lotsa Mistakes and MAKE NO
BONES ABOUT IT!
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Sams secret 1!
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20. Leaders Make BIG MISTAKES!
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Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre
successes.Phil Daniels, Sydney exec
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21. Leaders Set DESIGN SPECS.
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JackWorld/1_at_T (1) Neutron Jack. (Banish
bureaucracy.) (2) 1, 2 or out Jack. (Lead or
leave.) (3) Workout Jack. (Empowerment, GE
style.) (4) 6-Sigma Jack. (5) Internet Jack.
(Throughout) TALENT JACK!
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22. Leaders Know When to CHALLENGE (BURN) Design
Specs!
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The chump-to-champ-to-chump cycle used to be
three generations. Now its about five
years.Bill McGowan
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23. Leaders Love to CREATE NEW MARKETS. Leaders
Know that THERES MORE TO LIFE THAN LINE
EXTENSIONS.
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No one ever made it into the Business Hall of
Fame on a record of line extensions.
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Acquisitions are about buying market share. Our
challenge is to create markets. There is a big
difference. Peter Job, CEO, Reuters

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24. Leaders Pursue DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE!
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1st Law Mktg Physics OVERT BENEFIT (Focus 1 or
2 gt 3 or 4/One Great Thing. Source 1
Personal Passion)2ND Law REAL REASON TO
BELIEVE (Stand Deliver!)3RD Law DRAMATIC
DIFFERENCE (Execs Dont Get It intent to
purchase 100 unique 0 to 5)Source
Jump Start Your Business Brain,Doug Hall
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25. Leaders Push Their Organizations W-a-y Up the
Value-added/ Intellectual Capital Chain
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09.11.2000 HP bids 18,000,000,000for
PricewaterhouseCoopersConsulting business!
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These days, building the best server isnt
enough. Thats the price of entry.Ann
Livermore, Hewlett-Packard
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HP Sun GE IBM UPS UTC General Mills
Springs Anheuser-Busch Carpet One Delphi
Etc. Etc.
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We want to be the air traffic controllers of
electrons.Bob Nardelli, GE Power Systems
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UPS wants to take over the sweet spot in the
endless loop of goods, information and capital
that all the packages it moves
represent.ecompany.com/06.01 (E.g., UPS
Logistics manages the logistics of 4.5M Ford
vehicles, from 21 mfg. Sites to 6,000 NA dealers)
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SpringsCollections.Flexible sourcing.Packaging
.Merchandising.Promotion.Design.Systems
Site mgt. Turnkey.
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26. Leaders Dont Create Followers THEY CREATE
LEADERS!
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I AM AN ARMY OF ONE
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27. When It Comes to TALENT Leaders Always
Swing for the Fences!
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From 1, 2 or youre out JW to Best
Talent in each industry segment to build best
proprietary intangibles EMSource Ed
Michaels, War for Talent (05.17.00)
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We believe companies can increase their market
cap 50 percent in 3 years. Steve Macadam at
Georgia Pacific changed 20 of his 40 box plant
managers to put more talented, higher paid
managers in charge. He increased profitability
from 25 million to 80 million in 2 years.Ed
Michaels, War for Talent (05.17.00)
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Message Some people are better than other
people. Some people are a helluva lot better than
other people.
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28. Leaders Win Followers Over
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WHAT AN IDIOT Instead of employees being in the
drivers seat, now were in the drivers seat.
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PJ Coaching is winning players over.
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29. Leaders have MENTORS.
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The Gospel According to TP Upon having the
Leadership Mantle placed upon thine head, thou
shalt never hear the unvarnished truth again!
(Therefore, thy needs one faithful compatriot to
lay it on with no jelly.)
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30. Leaders LOVE RAINBOWS for Pragmatic Reasons.
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Diversity defines the health and wealth of
nations in a new century. Mighty is the mongrel.
The hybrid is hip. The impure, the mélange, the
adulterated, the blemished, the rough, the
black-and-blue, the mix-and-match these people
are inheriting the earth. Mixing is the new norm.
Mixing trumps isolation. It spawns creativity,
nourishes the human spirit, spurs economic
growth and empowers nations.G. Pascal
Zachary, The Global Me New Cosmopolitans and the
Competitive Edge
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31. Leaders Manage Their EVP.
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Whats your companys EVP?Employee Value
Proposition, per Ed Michaels et al., The War for
Talent
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EVP Challenge, professional growth, respect,
satisfaction, opportunity, rewardSource Ed
Michaelset al., The War for Talent
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32. Leaders Know Its My Fault.
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33. Leaders LOVE the New Technology!
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Dells OptiPlex FacilityBig Job 6 to 8
hours.(20,000 per day)Parts Inventory 2
hours, 100 square feet. (Overall, 5 days vs. 50
to 90 days target is 2.5 days)
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Theres no use trying, said Alice. One cant
believe impossible things. I daresay you
havent had much practice, said the Queen. When
I was your age, I always did it for half an hour
a day. Why, sometimes Ive believed as many as
six impossible things before breakfast.Lewis
Carroll
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Inet allows you to dream dreams you could
never have dreamed before!
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WebWorld Everything Web as a way to run your
business innardsWeb as connector for your
entire supply-demand chain Web as spiders web
which re-conceives the industryWeb/B2B as
ultimate wake-up call to commodity
producersWeb as the scourge of slack,
inefficiency, sloth, bureaucracy, poor customer
dataWeb as an Encompassing Way of LifeWeb
Everything (P.D. to after-sales)Web forces you
to focus on what you do bestWeb as entrée, at
any size, to Worlds Best at Everything as next
door neighbor
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Message There is no such thing as an effective
B2B or Internet-supply chain strategy in a
low-trust, bottlenecked-communication, six-layer
organization.
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Ebusiness is about rebuilding the organization
from the ground up. Most companies today are not
built to exploit the Internet. Their business
processes, their approvals, their hierarchies,
the number of people they employ all of that is
wrong for running an ebusiness.Ray Lane,
Kleiner Perkins
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34. Leaders Out Their PASSION!
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G.H. Create a cause, not a business.
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35. Leaders Know ENTHUSIASM BEGETS ENTHUSIASM!
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BZ I am a DISPENSER OF ENTHUSIASM!
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36. Leaders Know Its ALL SALES ALL THE TIME.
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37. Leaders LOVE POLITICS.
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TP If you dont LOVE POLITICS find another
life. (Dont pretend youre a leader.)
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38. Leaders Give RESPECT!
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• It was much later that I realized Dads secret.
  He gained respect by giving it. He talked and
  listened to the fourth-grade kids in Spring
  Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked
  and listened to a bishop or a college president.
  He was seriously interested in who you were and
  what you had to say.
• Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect

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39. Leaders SHOW UP!
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Rudy!
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40. Leadership Is a Performance. BELIEVE IT.
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You must be the change you wish to see in the
world.--M.G.
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41. Leaders Have a GREAT STORY!
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A key perhaps the key to leadership is
the effective communication of a story.Howard
Gardner Leading Minds An Anatomy of Leadership
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42. Leaders Create BUZZ!
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Leaders aimed on changing their world identify
palpable heroes, who executed palpable
projectsthey point to these people and say to
the masses, See, here it is, done by one of your
own. (And then they deep-dip a few of those
heroes to demo their seriousness.)
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42A. Leaders Seed Pursue Recognize (Weird)
Demos.
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L.B.I.W.D. (Leading By Inducing Weird Demos)
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43. Leaders Focus on the SOFT STUFF!
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Soft Is Hard
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Message Leadership is all about love! Passion,
Enthusiasms, Appetite for Life, Engagement,
Commitment, Great Causes Determination to Make
a Damn Difference, Shared Adventures, Bizarre
Failures, Growth, Insatiable Appetite for
Change. Otherwise, why bother? Just read
Dilbert. TPs final words CYNICISM SUCKS.
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44. Leaders KNOW They Can Make a Difference!
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Hackneyed but none the less true LEADERS SEE
CUPS AS HALF FULL.
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45. Leaders LISTEN!
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See Stephen!
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46. Leaders SERVE.
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Robert Greenleaf Servant Leadership A Journey
into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness
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47. Leaders KNOW THEMSELVES.
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Individuals (would-be leaders) cannot engage in a
liberating mutual discovery process unless they
are comfortable with their own skin. (Leaders
who are not comfortable with themselves become
petty control freaks.)
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48. Leaders Are Graceful.
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My favorite word is grace whether its amazing
grace, saving grace, grace under fire, Grace
Kelly. How we live contributes to beauty
whether its how we treat other people or the
environment.Celeste Cooper, designer
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49. Leaders ???
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LEADERS NEED TO BE THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR ON
ROLLER BLADES
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Its only business, not personal IT ALWAYS
IS PERSONAL.
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Hire smart go bonkers have grace make
mistakes love technology start all over
again.
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Leadership is the PROCESS of ENGAGING PEOPLE in
CREATING a LEGACY of EXCELLENCE.
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50. Leaders Know WHEN TO LEAVE!
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Thank You!