Worth Reading: Harvard Business Review, June, 2009, special section: Rebuilding Trust I’ve been teaching ethics in graduate business and communication programs at New York University for more than 20 years, and every semester we lament the decline of trust. But this year seems to be worse than most. Trust in US corporations is at an […]
Humility is strength. More than a year ago I began a series on this blog about humility as a leadership attribute. I noted that A dollop of humility tempers other attributes, and makes a leader even stronger. Humility helps a leader to recognize that maybe – just maybe – he or she might be wrong; […]
Leadership in a Crisis A hearty salute to Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, the US Airways pilot whose cool and decisive handling of a breaking crisis prevented a plane crash from becoming a tragedy. Captain Sullenberger, a former US Air Force fighter pilot, a pilot union safety official, and a sometime plane crash investigator with […]
What a week for crises! Forget about the financial melt-down, the transition to the new president, or any of the really old news. Last week was one for the record books. The curtain rose Monday, December 8, on the usual tired old economic meltdown crises, particularly the prospect of an auto bailout (that still hasn’t […]
First In a Series: The State of Journalism Today I’ve had a lover’s quarrel with journalism most of my adult life. As in any lover’s quarrel, I get pretty heated when journalism lets me down. But only because the love burns deep within me. I so want journalism to thrive; to prosper; to fulfill its […]
The Global Financial Market Melt-Down I’ve been at a loss about whether or what to blog about the financial crisis, for several reasons. First, our firm’s largest sector is finance/investments/insurance, and we’ve been up to our eyeballs, on things we can’t talk about. Second, the policy prescriptions for solving the problem have become embroiled in […]
Here We Go Again This blog has noted that without a dollop of humility, leaders are at risk of humiliation. Also that most crises are self-inflicted, and that the timeliness and quality of the response are more predictive of reputational harm than the severity of the underlying event. We see all three of these […]
Countering Violent Extremism: Beyond Words by Amy Zalman, Ph.D., EastWest Institute. Words matter. Words shape world views. Words provoke action and reaction, which in turn provoke more words. Getting the words right is critically important. Getting the action right is also critically important. And aligning the words and actions is even more important. Much public […]
Senator Barack Obama yesterday announced an effort to deal with rumors in a timely way, to prevent them from taking hold and throwing his campaign off balance. He’s right to be so concerned. Rumors can throw a presidential campaign off its game, and provide adversaries, critics, and opponents with a first-mover advantage that’s hard to […]