What Are Friends for?....

OMG !!

Should never have done those blogs on how much I appreciate "leadership books" (9/8/2014, 9/25/2014).  Some folks evidently are simply hardcore, literal literalists and believe everything they read on the internet! A worldview, a belief system built upon the twitterings of anonymice?

Sure 'nuf, in came another one from "a friend":  "From Values To Action" written by Harry Jansen Kraemer, Jr. who was a former CEO at Baxter International and now is a prof at Kellogg over at Northwestern.  Mr. Kraemer has got "it" (leadership) down to just four things:

1. Self-Reflection - what matters, what you stand for.

2. Balance and Perspective -  see different points of view.

3. True Self-Confidence - being comfortable in your skin.

4. Genuine Humility - respect for others.

Pretty good list, right?  The other very positive thing about this book is that a great professor will always give the student a syllabus which "summarizes the course". Mr. Kraemer provides a truly outstanding syllabus of the book in the 8-page introduction. Read that and skip the rest; use the time you save on something more productive, like sampling craft beers around town in downtown Asheville, North Carolina.

The book states:  "At first glance, the four principles of values-based leadership seem simplistic." (Yes they do!) However, they are not simple to implement." (Yes, they are!)

Simple to implement?  Absolutely!  In fact, Mr. Kraemer gives us the simple implementation plan when he says... "in a crisis [or for that matter, any normal] situation, when confronted with this question:  "What are we going to do?"  In a values-based organization the answer should always be:  "Do the right thing."  Sounds pretty simple to me (and vaguely familiar!); what's so difficult about that?

By the way if you want to take your effective leadership list from four items to just one, the Greek oracle at Delphi continues to have the one best answer after 5,000 years....

"KNOW THYSELF."