Rodger Dean Duncan's Blog, page 17
June 17, 2019
If You Can Serve, You Can Lead
Nobel Laureate Albert Schweitzer, perhaps best known as a medical missionary, knew a thing or two about finding satisfaction in life. “I don’t know what your destiny will be,” he once said, “but one thing I do know. The ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
In recent years the notion of leader-as-servant has gained a lot of traction among scholars and practitioners. American businessman and writer Max DePree summed it up this way: “The firs...
June 4, 2019
Why Servant Leadership Requires Humility
Ken Blanchard is to leadership development as Bill Belichick is to football and as Oprah Winfrey is to media. He thinks big thoughts, innovates with big ideas, and does it all in a way that makes you say to yourself “Well, of course. That makes perfect sense.”
By any measure, Blanchard is one of the world’s most influential leadership experts. He’s co-author of the iconic bestseller The New One Minute Manager and more than five dozen other books that have been translated into 42 languages. In...
March 25, 2019
Are You a Lighthouse Leader?
My travels have taken me to many interesting sites around the world: Michelangelo’s majestic David in Florence. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Mount Rushmore. Scotland’s Edinburgh Castle. London’s Big Ben.
But I’m especially drawn to sites that, although beautiful in their own way, are more about function than aesthetics. I love lighthouses.
The first lighthouses were built centuries ago to guide mariners. Lighthouse construction boomed at the turn of the 18th century along with burgeoning levels...
March 22, 2019
So You Can Talk. But Are You Really Connecting?
In this rush-rush digital age, many people rely on email and text messages for their communication. Smartphones and keyboards can certainly provide efficiency.
But if effectiveness is what you’re after, human conversation is still the best way to connect with other people to reach mutual understanding and solve problems.
Unfortunately, a lot of people still don’t know how to talk. Oh, sure, they can fill a void with a lot of words. But many five-year-olds can do that. Real connection and coll...
January 24, 2019
Walls: Knocking Down Barriers That Divide Us
The world is getting too small for both an Us and Them. We do not have separate fates. Like it or not, we are bound together.
This is a reality in all our venues: As a family around the kitchen table. As a community in the town square. As a nation currently polarized as perhaps never before.
Many of today’s politicians and media people are little more than gladiators with microphones. Nobody seems interested in sincerely considering the other side’s perspective. Pettiness and vitriol have be...
January 4, 2019
2019: Stretch Your Comfort Zone
For many people, January is a time for reflection and resolution. Reflection on achievements (and opportunities missed) in the previous year, and resolution to do better in the new year.
The paths to personal improvement are as varied as opinions on goals worth pursuing. Nearly six years ago I offered my view on the value of SMART goals in a piece titled “Stuck in Your Own ‘Groundhog Day’? Here’s the Easy Way to Get Out.”
Many of us return to ghosts of resolutions past: Lose weight (and keep...
September 29, 2018
Polarized? Conversations Worth Having
Regardless of where we may stand on someone’s spectrum of identify politics, many of us are both disturbed and sickened by today’s public discourse.
Social media, TV talking heads, and once-respected media outlets have devolved into steaming caldrons of vitriol. The incivility is on display even (especially?) in the once-hallowed halls of Congress.
Whatever happened to respect in our private and public interactions? Where and when did we lose the willingness to exercise compassion toward some...
September 1, 2018
Be Authentic: Discover Your True North
For any leader at any level in any organization, clarity of purpose is a critical ingredient of success. In other words, you must know where you’re headed and why you’re headed there.
A compass provides the ideal metaphor. Just as a compass points toward a magnetic field, your personal “true north” directs your path and pulls you forward.
That’s the thesis of Discover Your True North North by Bill George.
George is so much more than a mere theorist. He’s been in the trenches and understands t...
August 28, 2018
Titles Don’t Make Leaders (So Don’t Chase Titles)
Being a long-time student of leadership, I’ve naturally heard a lot of pithy quotes about the subject. One of my favorites is from Margaret Thatcher: “Being a leader is like being a lady. If you have to remind people you are, you aren’t.”
Well said, Madame Prime Minister!
And another, by John Quincy Adams: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”
I explored this and related issues with Mark Sanborn. He’s president of Sanborn & Ass...
August 21, 2018
For Best Results, Live Your Life ‘Day One’ At A Time
More than 30 years ago I wrote a personal mission statement. It’s a relatively brief and straightforward document (less than half a page), focusing on six roles that I identified for my life. I use it as a daily, forward-looking reminder of my commitments, vision, and purpose.
As my friend Stephen Covey used to say, when you live out of memory you focus on the past. When you live out of your imagination you focus on the future.
Of course there’s also value in living in the present. After deca...
