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I just read an article from Forbes.com which discusses the new Center for Leadership at Dartmouth’s business school. The idea is that leadership can be taught and that an important component of leadership is knowing yourself. If you don’t know yourself, how will you know your strengths and weaknesses? Furthermore, how will you know your strengths and weaknesses in a crisis situation? While I think this is important, it raises a lot of questions in my mind.

One question is, can leadership be defined? Some people not only say yes, but that leadership can be learned as well (see ‘Can Leadership be Learned?‘ ).  In my view, truly great leaders are born with a set of special characteristics which are given the right combination of environment and circumstance to allows these skills to come to fruition. Great leaders require catalysts to propel them to greatness. Think of any great leader like Churchill, Lincoln, Napoleon or Gandhi and what comes to mind is always the enormous struggles they faced. However, this is not to say that great leaders don’t learn how to lead through experience. They have the seeds of leadership within them, but they require life experience to develop those skills.

What would have happened if Gandhi had been born in Ohio in the 1960’s? This is not to slag Ohio or the 60’s but simply my question is how would have Gandhi lived his life had he been born in a quiet place at a quiet time? Would he still have become a great leader? Perhaps yes and perhaps no, but what is likely is that he would have been some type of leader. Maybe we would have never have heard of him, but he would surely be some type of community or religious leader. The point is that

So what are these special characteristics that great leaders share? Well if you study the history of these men and women you see a few commonalities;

1. A compelling vision – They all have an idea of the type of business, country, army etc. that they want to create. Their vision is something which motivates people to follow them so that they can become a part of making the vision a reality.

2. Communication - What good is having a compelling vision if you can’t explain it to people? Great leaders speak to their followers and get them to understand what’s needed of them.

3. Steadfastness – In times of crisis people seek out stability and meaning. Leaders tend to provide people with certainty that there will be a better tomorrow and that they can trust them to guide them there. When the world is crumbling around them, leaders can remain calm and focused on what they need to do.

4. Fairness – To lead people they must believe that the world you want to create is fair. Fairness simply means that your behavior is in accord with your vision. Being a hypocrite will cause your followers to doubt your sincerity and without followers you’re not a leader.

5. Courage – Leaders don’t let fear rule them, they conquer their fears.

6. Self-knowledge – This is taking a page out of the Forbes article I referenced at the beginning of this article. A leader knows what he is all about, he knows his strengths, weaknesses, what he lives for and what he would die for.

Another question is can ANYONE develop leadership skills? I think the answer is definitely yes. All of us are leaders and followers at something at various points in our life. Leadership is like any other skill or talent; it must be worked on to develop. We develop our skills through practice and we gain opportunities to practice by stepping to new challenges.

Leadership is a skill which will definitely gain you an advantage in group projects and in the working world. If you are still wondering how you can develop your leadership skills well one simple answer is to volunteer as a project coordinator for your group project. Another way to gain practice is to volunteer for your favorite committees, clubs or charities. Try organizing meetings or events for these groups. Another thing you can do is volunteer for Big Brothers/ Big Sisters, where you would be helping a youngster out from time to time by being their ‘leader’ so to speak.

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Do you feel like you need some inspiration get more productive? Well I just finished reading David Allen’s book ‘Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work & Life‘ and this book contains a lot of short bits of useful knowledge. The book is organized based on the 52 principals.

Each part reveals some piece of advice that can help you get organized at work and home. The book is more philosophical than practical, so it’s unlike Allen’s more well known work ‘Getting Things Done’. However while many of the chapters focus on ideas that you may be aware of, Allen puts them in an interesting perspective.

Instead of reviewing all of the chapters of the book I have decided to summarize a few of my favorite excerpts from his ‘52 principles’. I will reference the principal numbers from the book in case you want to look them up and get more details.

1. Cleaning up creates new direction – Simply removing clutter and making a space for you to work will clear your mind.

2. You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know what you’re not doing

3. Knowing your commitments creates better choices of new ones

4. Getting to where  you’re going requires knowing where you are

5. Infinite opportunity is utilized by finite possibility – The fact of life is that we must make choices of how to use our limited time and energy.

16. Working hard enough is impossible  - We have to learn to work smarter, so try to find whatever tools motivate you or make your life easier.

17. Energy follows thought – If our minds are unclear and unfocused then we make it harder for ourselves to generate the energy to finish our work.

18. The clearer our purpose, the more ways we find to fulfill it

27. Stability on one level opens creativity on another

35. Whenever 2 or more are responsible for something, usually nobody is – This reminds me of the great line from legendary investor Peter Lynch ‘A symphony only has one conductor’.

40. You’re the only one playing your game – This thing called your life is a unique experience for all of us and we make of it whatever we choose.

42. Your power is proportional to your ability to relax- So true!

49. Small things done consistently create major impact

51. It’s easier to move when you’re in motion – Think of your work and life as a train; it takes a lot of energy to go from standstill to move quickly, but once you’re in motion it takes a lot of energy to stop you!

52. The biggest successes come from the most failures  - There are people like Abe Lincoln or Milton Hershey who have failed numerous times before achieving incredible success. They didn’t allow their mistakes to define them or overwhelm them. Instead they learned from these failures and used their knowledge to finally get it right.

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Ever feel like you have been at work all day and haven’t gotten anything done? And have you wondered where all your time went? And why you have so little to show for at the end of the day? I know the feeling very well since this is something I struggle with constantly. Since I work on many self-directed projects and typically work out of my home, out of necessity, I have had to find ways to become more productive.

The main steps in becoming more productive are getting focused and organized. One way to achieve this is to follow a simple six step plan that I devised. This method has helped me tremendously from wasting time and to produce tangible results at the end of the day. Here are the 6 Steps;

1. Set the Scene - To be effective you need the right scenario and that means No Distractions! Anything that can distract you away from your work, like TV, food, people or music needs to be removed from your office.  Your workplace, wherever or whatever it may be, should be a type of sanctuary for you. It is your own place where you control the outcome of things and where work gets done. Make sure before you start working every morning that your workplace is free of distractions

2. Review your planner or calendar – Checking your calendar first thing in the morning can remind you of your meetings and obligations for the day. Once you have an idea of how much time you will have to dedicate to work today, you can then begin preparing a to-do list (step 3). Also, if you don’t keep a planner or calendar then you should strongly consider keeping one. There are many websites that offer these services for free.

3. Make a list of things to do today – Writing a list will force you to think about specific goals you want to accomplish. These should be things that you can realistically finish in a day or at least come close to finishing. Write down specific goals that you want to accomplish and be very specific. If you write down vague objectives like, ‘work on term project’ or ‘write business proposal’, you will find it difficult to start your tasks and even more difficult to produce some actual deliverables at the end of the day. Deliverables are completed tasks, or more simply something to show for at the end of the day. This list is the most important step of the day for me and I treat it like a contract with myself regarding what I promise to deliver by the end of the day. Of course this contract is on a ‘best-efforts basis’, but always treat it with respect. Finally your list should be somewhere that you can see it clearly, like a whiteboard, tack board or memo pad so that you can be reminded of your responsibilities throughout the day.

4. Check email and the internet at fixed intervals - Part of your job may involve distractions like attending to e-mails or checking the news. These types of things should be checked at regular intervals, like every three or four hours. You’d be amazed how much time is wasted by checking your email constantly. It is not just the time that you spend looking at email or the internet that is wasted, but it is also the time you need to get your mind back into whatever you were doing before you were distracted.

5. If you complete your list of things to do – This may happen a lot the first few times you do this since people tend to overestimate how long things will take. In fact it usually goes one of two ways; either people drastically overestimate how long things will take or they overestimate how much they can do in a day. Either way, their lists need revision. If it turns out that your list is too short then go back to step 3 and make a new list keeping in mind how much time is left in the day.

6. Review your accomplishments at the end of the day – After everything is said and done it is important to determine if you have actually delivered on the work you promised yourself to do. Examine what you did and did not accomplish and ask yourself if the quality of work is what you expected. Also, if there were things you didn’t complete on your list, ask yourself why you didn’t complete them and what you could do to improve tomorrow.

Now while this plan may be simple, following it religiously is not. It is going to take a commitment of time and effort to make this a part of your routine. Eventually, if you consistently follow the plan, these steps will become natural and you will become much more productive than you could ever imagine. The key is not to try to change your lifestyle in a day, but to make progressive changes daily. There is a concept in Japan called ‘Kaizen’ which is the daily activity of enhancing your workplace (and life) through small progressive changes. Try to implement a form of Kaizen in your life through the steps outlined here and your productivity will increase dramatically.

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Regardless of your political leanings, everyone should admit that Obama’s speech about the situation in Afghanistan last night was well delivered. He spoke to the issues, explained the history of the situation and outlined his vision going forward. He was clear, cogent and spoke intelligently. He also kept his calm in a situation where many people are angry with the government for its lack of strategy or direction.

Apart from the politics, I think this is a great lesson on how to speak to people when you absolutely need to be understood and people are looking for leadership.

watch?v=jnHcHbZi5Bs

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It was not a surprise to me to read this article from the PsyBlog which argues that people in groups tend not to make the best decisions because they don’t share information. From my experience in the money management world I know that people tend to tell you what you want to hear rather than what you ‘need’ to hear. People seek to find the consensus of a group and then quickly join in so as to avoid standing out.

I was aware that stock analysts and portfolio managers follow the herd, but this article cites evidence that even doctors fail to share information when it comes to diagnosing patients (that’s scary). So it would seem that people working in groups, regardless of the industry, tend to fall prey to this phenomenon.

When working on a group project the same issues apply; we have to create an atmosphere of trust where everyone feels safe to share information. We also have to be thorough so that we think about every piece of information that could be relevant to our project.

Check out this great article;http://entertheblog.com/1C

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