Author Archives: jswain

“You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist”   –Mahatma Gandhi Let’s face it – someone living a solitary hermit life somewhere in a remote wilderness is hardly interested in leadership development.  Leadership by its nature is always in the context … Read More

“Adversity is the mother of progress.”   Mahatma Gandhi Many in my field of executive and organization development glibly throw phrases around in workshops like “Great sailors are made in rough waters” to make the point that leaders develop most through … Read More

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have.  When Apple came up with Mac, IBM was spending at least a 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about the money.  It is about the people you … Read More

“Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.” – W Clement Stone Over my almost 30  years in management consulting working with CEOs, senior executives … Read More

Just so there is no confusion for any short-term result capitalists who might be reading this, I want to make something clear as you begin loading your verbal guns to take target practice at this blog.  High character leaders and … Read More

  “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”                                        -Ralph Waldo Emerson I recently heard an interview with Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, about his perspective as the leader of … Read More

“I’m too old for this shit!”  (Danny Glover – from Lethal Weapon movie series) While these are the words of Danny Glover playing the role of an aging law enforcement officer in one of the Lethal Weapons movies after he … Read More

“The future ain’t what it used to be.” – Yogi Berra  “To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” – Carl Sagan It is common for companies to explore, identify and implement best practices they … Read More

I was feeling a little cheeky at an executive leadership workshop I was facilitating on the topic of Leading Without Authority, and wanted to experiment with some insights I had gained from  Dr. Daniel Goleman’s book entitled “Social Intelligence” where … Read More