Ira Chaleff's Blog, page 8

Courage

In a world where the sand is continuously shifting underfoot, courage is a lifeboat. Yes, we need lifeboats even on land in these times of rapid transition, uncertainty, and abuse of power.

Sharna Fabiano, Life Coach, Followership trainer and Tango teacher extraordinaire has written on How To Be Brave in her current blog post. She is a beautiful observer of life and a wise guide to living it with grace and courage. At the end of her post she offers a deceptively simple exercise that holds...

Why did Border Patrol Agents obey bad orders?

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Several thousand children, many of them infants and toddlers, were forcibly separated from their parents and sent, frightened and alone, to different parts of the country. Were the Border Patrol Agents who took these children from their parents unfeeling monsters?

In short, no. Then how did they do this monstrous act?

The question has been asked in varying forms in editorials, letters, blogs and columns: How did United States federal agents deal with their own conscience and feelings wh...

ICE Agents must intelligently disobey inhumane orders

[image error]A trick question is sometimes asked by the prominent leadership scholar, Barbara Kellerman, from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. “How many people did Hitler kill?” The correct answer, which almost no one gives, is “none”. The killings were all done by the followers of the Fuhrer (which means leader in German)

After the war, justice was meted out to Nazi officials through what became known as “The Nuremberg Trials.” The most famous of these called to account for their crimes, s...

Follower Power – Ununderstood, Unappreciated, and Underestimated

My colleague, Barbara Kellerman, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, has been a champion of Followership for years. She has used my book in her courses and has written her own book titled “Followership”, as well as more recent work on Leadership that always includes Followership as an integral and dynamic element. Her examples of the power of followers in this blog post are powerful.

To study leadership without studying followership is impossible. And that to be a good leader w...

VW Fraud: Manager Was Just Following Orders

[image error]A year after the exposure of the massive fraud VW perpetrated on American consumers, knowingly deceiving emission control tests while exceeding emission limits by as much as 40 times, the evidence is at hand of the real culprit in the crime – a culture that rewards “just following orders”.

The highest ranking VW manager in the US, Oliver Schmidt, pleaded guilty and received a seven year prison sentence, while his superiors in Germany are protected by Germany’s reticence to extradite its cit...

Cambridge University, 2017

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On October 2017 I participated in a panel on leaders, followers and populism, which became an energetic dialogue. It was held at the Moller Centre, Churchill College and organized by the James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership, University of Cambridge.

Georgia Sorenson who chairs the Academy, has invited me to be a Cambridge Visiting Scholar for the coming year. I am looking forward to using that platform to further explore how courageous followership creates better leadership.

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Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst

The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst holds as much prestige in England as West Point does in the US. It was a great honor to be the first in their speaker series at the newly established Centre for Army Leadership. I was told to expect about 80 people. 600 enlisted soldiers and officers signed up to hear about “Intelligent Disobedience”, based on my book of that title.

2017 3Q Newsletter – Short clip

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Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst
2017 © Ira Chaleff Publications

Organizational blind spots: Dove soap campaign

The recent hugely insensitive advertisement by Unilever for their Dove soap is a textbook example of organizational blind spots.

This is a painful example of why the voices of minorities and staff at all levels of the organization must be invited, included, raised up and empowered to influence decision making. Leaders’ blind spots are overcome by diversity, courageous followership and, when needed, intelligent disobedience.

Ira Chaleff

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

Dove had good...

Intelligent Disobedience at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

Speaking at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where all UK Army officers are trained.

600 uniformed service members signed up for and attended my talk on Intelligent Disobedience. Terrific feedback from all ranks.

The head of the Centre for Army Leadership presented me with a Sandhurst coin – a great honor from any military unit – and other coomemorative gifts after my Intelligent Disobedience presentation.

What an institution and what an honor to share ideas!

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Intellige...

Intelligent Disobedience in Chinese

I am thrilled to announce that my book Intelligent Disobedience has been published in Beijing in Chinese as of August 1st of this year. We had anticipated seeing it in bookstores in China sooner but the government needed to allay its concerns over terms such as “authority” and “disobedience”. Without having direct knowledge of the process, the good news is that approval was finally given for publication. If we look at this through the guide dog metaphor this should be welcome news for lead...