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I came across an interesting story by John Adair in his book, Effective Innovation, on the secret of Japanese manufacturing success.  Adair is one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership and leadership development. He narrates that he came across this secret by serendipity at a speaking engagement in Malaysia. He asked the Japanese speakers at the conference: why Japanese manufacturers allowed Western companies to tour their factories and steal their Kaizen techniques for incremental product improvements?

Barcelona FC aka Barca is arguably the best team on the planet at the moment. There is a current debate whether they are the best team ever. The haul of trophies over the last few years attests this claim. In 2009, Barca won all six trophies that they contested for, and a few weeks ago, they won the European Club Championship for the second time in three years. Also, their style of football has won many admirers worldwide and become the template that fans and owners desire their clubs to emulate.

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A by-product of leadership is power. The danger with power is that it is intoxicating. Like wine, the more you have, the more you desire. This is the reason why the term ‘power drunk’ is used to describe leaders who abuse their office or position.

Harry Truman, 33^rd President of America, had a sign on his desk with the inscription ‘The Buck Stops Here’. It was given to him by a friend. This sign sat his desk throughout his 8 year presidency. It helped remind him that he could not pass the buck but had to accept a personal responsibility for the governance and leadership of the nation.

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The topic of failure is the flavour of the month. Both Wired UK magazine (April Issue) and Harvard Business Review (April Issue) had features on learning from failure. Wired looked at it from an entrepreneurial angle and featured profiles on individuals such as Jimmy Wales and Sir Alan Sugar. These are entrepreneurs who have bounced back from several business failures to create successful companies.

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The Oxford Dictionary defines failure as lack of success. This is one perspective because failure can also be reframed as a learning opportunity. It is easy to be become despondent and give up after a failure if you only adopt the commonly held view of failure as lack of success. There are numerous examples of people such as leaders and entrepreneurs who have experienced repeated failures in their careers but refused to be crushed by them. 

photo by Przemyslaw Biel

I was in Sheffield last weekend for the Revolution Youth Conference. This is a Christian conference organised by the youth ministry of Victory Assembly Church. I was invited to do a seminar on the topic “Leadership Principles of Christ”. I will discuss in this blog post, two of the three principles I talked about at the conference. These principles are applicable to all leaders in any field.

David Plouffe’s book, Audacity to Win, is a detailed insider account of the Obama campaign. Plouffe, who was Obama’s campaign manager, narrates how the Obama campaign was organized and executed to produce the most unlikely victory in US electoral history. I read this book in January and was blown away by the David and Goliath type battles waged in the quest to secure the American presidency. Obama was regarded as a long shot by the pundits and press.  He was a David in comparison to the Goliath that was Clinton. His inexperience and skin colour were also considered insurmountable setbacks.

The UK Higher Education (HE) landscape is currently undergoing a major directional shift which is causing great uncertainty for all key stakeholders, namely universities’ administrators, staff, and prospective students. There is a move towards an American style commercial model, making many UK universities worried about their future.

It is important for leaders to be students of metaphors, especially their own metaphors. Metaphor is a powerful tool in a leader’s arsenal. Effective leaders are good communicators. They are competent storytellers, able to use the appropriate metaphor(s) in any given leadership situation.