David Straker's blog

Passion is usually a pretty desirable thing in employees and especially also in leaders (with the usual qualification of passion for the right thing).

I came across a neat paper recently from the Blanchard stable.

http://www.kenblanchard.com/img/pub/employee_passion.pdf

The nature of leadership can perhaps be best understood by turning the coin over and studying followership. Why do people follow leaders? If we can understand this, then we will be a long way down the road to creating those followers and hence becoming an effective leader.

People don't just follow anyone. You can't just say 'follow me' and expect people to follow out of the goodness of their hearts. You have to give them good reason for them to follow.

Key aspect of creating followers:

http://www.ted.com/

Brilliant set of lecture videos from the annual TED conference, including many from well known folks, such as Bezos, Branson, Dawkins, Goleman, etc.

Also try the RSA site:

http://www.rsa.org.uk/

Check out the lectures -- many are also available after as podcasts.

:D

Hub member Mike Ormesher asked for our thoughts on Situational Leadership recently. To help us comment on this, here's a quick primer from changingminds.org :

The best action of the leader depends on a range of situational factors.

Charisma is just one leadership style. But, the assumption is too often that leaders have to have 'charisma'.

So, what is 'charismatic' leadership? And do you have to have 'charisma' to be a leader?

Assumptions

Charm and grace are all that is needed to create followers.

Self-belief is a fundamental need of leaders.

People follow others that they personally admire.

Style