The Leadership Professor

48 years ago last week, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on a clear and sunny day in Dallas, Texas. Standing beside the motorcade as the fatal shots were fired was a lone man dressed in black holding an open black umbrella. Who is the umbrella man?  Take a look at New York Times best-selling [...]

This week in the U.S., many gather with family and friends to give thanks for our many blessings. In today’s rough-and-tumble work world, it can be easy to lose sight of things for which we can be thankful. The global economic downturn has made work and life tougher – no doubt about it. The bottom-line [...]

Andrew Weil has been making the media rounds with his new best seller, Spontaneous Happiness. His exploration of depression as a rising global phenomenon caught my attention. Weil, an M.D. with an interest in wellness, points to the growing body of research on links between rising global wealth – and the adoption of the modern [...]

Last night was our Bloch Executive MBA Alumni Celebration. The topic of job hunting and resume writing came up in a number of conversations. This morning, this from ForbesWoman came across my desk. I pass it on with a few words of advice on career self-management (and with pride on how well our graduates are [...]

If you’ve ever taken a writing course, you’ve probably read Strunk and White’s classic, The Elements of Style. A review of the book at its 50th anniversary – one of the most read articles from The Chronicle of Higher Education over the last two and a half years — is worth a read (and you’ll [...]

It’s Friday. Time for a spirit lift. I know just the thing. At the recent 2011 Starr Symposium (Age Becomes Us: Leading, Empowering, and Building Capacity Across the Generations), the lunch crowd jumped to its feet for a spontaneous dance when The Wild Women of Kansas City – oh yes, there are official ones in [...]

I live in a city whose urban school system has been in chaos since the 1970’s. On January 1, the district  loses its state accreditation to no one’s surprise. The State Commissioner of Education has now asked the Kansas City Missouri School Board to resign rather than risk being removed. It’s a mess – and [...]

Every year the Hay Group does a study of the Best Companies for Leadership. I wasn’t expecting to find McDonald’s high on their list (#7). Mea culpa, I wasn’t associating serious things like leadership best practices with Ronald McDonald. I stand corrected. We can all learn from looking at McDonald’s recipe for assuring the right [...]