Last week I participated in a colloquium at the Harvard Business School called “How Can Leadership Be Taught?”   There were a number of interesting presenters and ideas, some of which Andrea Useem of the Washington Post covers here.

Ed Ruggero

An executive I know, mild-mannered and kind most of the time, admits to being infuriated by a colleague who talks incessantly at meetings, laughing at his own jokes, weighing in with his opinion on every comment, filling the room with hot air and dragging out already long meetings. My friend fantasizes about grabbing this fellow by the hair and banging his head on the table while chanting, “Just (BAM) stop (BAM) talking!”

Although many of us have no doubt indulged in similar fantasies, this kind of behavior might be, well, counterproductive for the team. Talking too much is fairly innocuous compared to some examples of bad manners in the workplace. Have you ever found yourself looking at someone and thinking, “Man, that’s something you should have learned about in kindergarten!”

The mature, adult way to address the slob in the next cubicle is to approach that person in private and, without judging his or her character, mention the effect that this particular behavior has on you. Then you might make a kind suggestion or polite request.

But few of us want to be the manners police, so we hope that some boss will step in and squash the bad behavior. It could happen. You might also get to watch the guy who just cut you off in traffic get pulled over by a cop a half-mile ahead. But don’t bank on it. Continue reading…

By Guest Blogger Donna McAleer

The topic of women in combat remains controversial. Conventional wisdom and current law prevent women, no matter how able, from serving in units with direct offensive combat missions—Infantry, Armor, Artillery and Special Forces. The justifications for this exclusion include that women are not fit for combat and battlefield stress because they lack the emotional stability and physical strength. The media has often proffered that American’s would not stand to see their daughters coming home in body bags, missing limbs or badly disfigured. The purported fear and outcry of a women’s violent death from enemy fire has not materialized during the war on terror. The deaths of women soldiers have provoked no more and no less reaction than the deaths of male soldiers. In reality, the strained Armed Forces need women in the fight. Circumstances have eclipsed arguments, and few in the military and government are anxious to rekindle the debate.

The combat exclusion policy was implemented for a linear battlefield with front and rear lines of combat clearly demarcated. Today’s battlefield is asymmetrical, and the soldiers prosecuting the war engage in combat in 360 degrees. The fact is women are everywhere on the battlefield.

Specialist Monica Brown is one of these soldiers. Continue reading…

This month marks the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the nation’s greatest President and certainly an American leader worth studying.

By the time Lincoln took the oath of office in March 1861 (Obama used the same Bible), seven states had seceded from the Union and more were debating it. Southerners had seized Federal arsenals and war threatened the nation. Lincoln, alerted to an assassination plot in Baltimore, passed through at night without fanfare, sneaking into his own capital. This one-term Congressman must have seemed ill-equipped to handle the crisis, but he did. Not without missteps, to be sure; but to borrow phrases from the modern parlance of leadership, Lincoln put together the best team he could find, he created and shared a clear and compelling vision, and he reaffirmed our highest values when compromise would have been easier. Continue reading…

Motto of the United States Army Rangers

Years ago I spent nine weeks in the U. S. Army’s Ranger School, undergoing commando-style training in which students are deliberately stressed by food and sleep deprivation, strenuous days-long exercises and the pressure of constant evaluation. We took turns filling the leadership positions, but we were all leaders in training, mostly young officers and sergeants. Since it’s harder to lead miserable, cold, wet and exhausted soldiers than it is to lead well-fed and well rested ones, the thinking goes, practice here and you’ll be better prepared for combat.

Well into our course we got a mission to locate a buried cache of weapons on the vast expanse of Florida panhandle where we trained. When our patrol leader indicated that he found the spot, we set up a security perimeter—a big circle of armed men facing outward for enemy patrols that might have followed us. But we were all thinking the same thing: sometimes these supply drops included food. By this point we were subsisting on one or two rations a day while conducting extremely strenuous training. So even though we were in peak physical condition when we began, every one of us had lost weight: ten, fifteen, twenty pounds. We fantasized about food and sleep, sleep and food. Continue reading…