Jim Stroup (@jimstroup) used to write a blog called Managing Leadership; the blog is gone, but his book of the same name is still available.

Jim understood the myth of leadership.

“…the cult of the superlative individual leader as the cure for our current difficulties,” but Jim also pointed out that those same cult members caused many of the problems.

“We will take the position here at the outset, then, that the family of definitions of leadership that we are discussing is that which incorporates the idea of ineffably sensed forward motion – profound vision, unfathomable wisdom or judgment, courageous decisiveness, a charismatic ability to attract followers, and the like.

After all, it is this type of leadership that we are being told we must place our faith in, so that its exemplars can grasp the reins firmly in their hands, and with reassuring sure-footedness steer we poor, benighted masses out of our barely perceived and dimly comprehended peril. Into which, let it be said again, those exalted exemplars’ predecessors led us.”

Wally Bock has often pointed out that leadership, in common with the emperor, has no clothes and that leadership “wisdom” fails dismally to live up to its name.

Today’s post is short, because it is linked to an important article that KG recently sent as a result of our comparing notes on the subject.

It’s important, because it takes a different, more realistic, look at leadership, as opposed to the traditional view as espoused by the leadership industry. (Yes, “leadership” is an entire industry as is accounting and law.)

The article highlights, as did Jim and Wally, the dangers of our obsession with leadership and those who claim its mantle.

Take the time to read it and, more importantly, think about it, share it, and make it a subject for discussion among your friends.

Image credit: Edvin J.

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that are still relevant, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of some of the best posts during that time.

Today is a two-fer, because, when discussing leadership, commentary on followers should be required.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since these two posts, 5 years on the first and 10 years on the other, were written and the world has changed drastically. It is far more complex and moves much faster than ever before. What hasn’t changed — contrary to the impression you get from both traditional and new media, whether mainstream or on the fringes — is how much influence so-called leaders actually exert on their followers.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Hate, Intolerance and Responsibility

Anyone reading the news—local, national or global—knows that hate and intolerance are increasing at an alarming rate everywhere.

Also, because there have been/will be so many elections around the world this year ‘leadership’ is in the news even more so than usual.

What responsibility do leaders—business, political, religious, community—bear in fostering hate and intolerance?

Not just the age old race and gender intolerance, but the I’m/we’re-RIGHT-so-you-should-do/think-our-way-or-else.

The ‘we’re right/you’re wrong’ attitude is as old as humanity and probably won’t ever change, but it’s the ‘do-it-our-way-or-else’ that shows the intolerance for what it really is.

And leaders aren’t helping; in fact, they are making it worse.

During my adult life (I missed being a Boomer by a hair) I’ve watched as hate and intolerance spread across the country masked by religion, a façade of political correctness or a mea culpa that is supposed to make everything OK, but doesn’t.

Various business, political, religious and community leaders give passionate, fiery talks to their followers and then express surprise and dismay when some of those same followers steal trade secrets, plant bombs, and kill individuals—whose only error was following their own beliefs.

We are no longer entitled to the pursuit of happiness if our happiness offends someone next door, the other end of the country, or the far side of the globe.

I remember Ann Rand saying in an interview that she believed that she had the right to be totally selfish, where upon the interviewer said that would give her freedom to kill.

Rand said absolutely not, in fact the reverse was true, since her selfishness couldn’t impinge anyone else’s right to be selfish.

Leaders aren’t responsible; we are because we go along with it—as did the Germans when Hitler led them down the hate and intolerance path.

That about sums up my attitude

What’s yours?

Image credit: Street Sign Generator

Two kinds of followers

In general, followers fall into two categories—thinking and unthinking. All of us have issue-specific litmus tests and look for a general comfort level with other followers.

Thinking followers usually have a broader definition of comfort, critically evaluate individual ideas and attitudes, as opposed to blind across-the-board acceptance, and are more willing to consider compromises. They often challenge their leader offering additional considerations, thoughts, suggestions, as well as open disagreement.

Unthinking followers are more emotional, rarely disagree or argue and may opt out of all thought and consideration following blindly and allowing the leader think for them. At their worst, unthinking followers are fodder for cults.

Most of us would classify ourselves as thinking followers, but are we? I know that politically I have one litmus test that is absolute and a couple of others that have high priority without being locked into specifics. Beyond that, I’ve always considered myself pretty open.

However, as extremists have polarized various issues I find myself becoming more adamant in my own feelings and less open to listening to those who believe that their views represent truth with a capital T — but I still want to live in a country where they have the right to say it.

I’ve lived a long time and I never thought I’d say this, but the rise of social media, with its ability to say anything anonymously sans responsibility, has seriously compromised my belief in free speech.

Yesterday I shared a post from Wally Bock about the importance of trust — and its fragility. At the end Wally said, “Trust is one of the most valuable things you have as a leader.”

Obviously, trust is crucial in any kind of relationship, in or out of the workplace, but today I want to focus on the last word on that sentence — leader.

I’m asked all the time how to become a leader.

Degrees — MBA, PhD, MD, LLB, etc.— won’t make you a leader.

There is an entire industry — classes, coaches, books, pundits of all kinds — expounding on how to become a leader.

Many people think leadership is defined by a person’s position; after all, you hear all the time that someone was “promoted (elected/assigned) to a position of leadership.”

All well and good, but that doesn’t make them a leader.

According to the late Bill Campbell, who established a reputation as the “coach” of Silicon Valley, only one thing determines whether or not you’re a leader: the opinions of those you’re supposed to be leading.

Even having your team do what you tell them doesn’t make you a leader.

Intuit CEO Brad Smith, one of many who learned that from Campbell, says it best.

“Basically, how you make that happen is if you believe that leadership is not about putting greatness into people, leadership is about recognizing that there’s a greatness in everyone and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge.”

So go ahead, term yourself a leader and even brag about your leadership skills, but at the end of the day it’s what your people say about you to their family/friends/colleagues that will confirm you as a leader — or not.

Image credit: Vic

Today’s and tomorrow’s posts are follow-ups to last Monday’s, before the site was hacked.

Trust is the most important component in company culture. Without trust the culture is hollow — a sham that people will quickly see through. Trust has nothing to do with words, whether spoken or printed on a poster and hung on the wall. Wally Bock wrote what I consider the most insightful explanation of trust I’ve read, so I thought I’d share it with you. (And I highly recommend Wally’s e-book; there’s a link at the end.)

It’s also good to remember that trust doesn’t just apply to individuals, but also to entire companies. As Google is learning, losing customer trust is even more devastating and can morph into long-term consequences very quickly. 

The Burlington Industries building used to stand on a large plot of ground near where I lived in Greensboro, NC. The campus was adorned with wonderful oak trees whose thick trunks attested to how long they had been there.

But the company came on hard times. First the building was emptied. It sat on the beautiful campus until demolition company explosions brought it down while rattling windows all around and setting the local dogs to barking.

Work crews moved in immediately. They hauled away the remains of the building. They bulldozed the area flat. And, finally, they took the trees.

One day as I drove home, I noticed that it seemed much lighter than usual. Then I realized why. In the place of old oak trees with thick trunks there were only stumps.

While many alumni of Burlington Industries loved the building, it was just an artifact. The trees were living things and when the chain saws took them, the entire area changed.

Leaders build trust slowly, through good times and bad, the way a tree grows. It happens gradually, almost imperceptibly.

But the trust built over years and decades can disappear in an instant. The chainsaws of betrayal or selfishness or greed can destroy what it took ages to grow.

Like trees, the trust your people have in you grows slowly. Despite the common phrase, you don’t build trust at all, you grow it. And you grow it slowly.

Trust grows from kept promises, from actions that demonstrate concern for your people as well as the mission, and from fairness and from consistency.

Like trees, trust is more fragile in the beginning. It takes time for the trunk to grow thick and the roots to go deep so the tree can weather big storms. But even big trees can be brought down, like those wonderful oaks on the Burlington Industries campus in Greensboro. When that happens, everything changes.

Trust is one of the most valuable things you have as a leader. Make the effort and take the time to grow it. Be wary of anything that can bring it down.

Resource        

The 347 tips in my ebook can help you Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time.

I would add that trust is one of the most valuable things you have as a human in any role.

Image credit: Wally Bock

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

Last week we started looking at our heroes — first as cowboys and then why/how they needed to change. It’s a timely subject, especially considering the attitudes/actions of so many of our current ones — from Donald Trump to Travis Kalanick and all those inbetween.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I recently questioned whether, in fact, the imperial CEO is indeed dead as many are saying.

Wednesday Dan McCarthy was inspired to write 10 Ways to Avoid the Arrogance of Power after reading The Arrogance of Power by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Business School. Pfeffer says,

“The higher you go in an organization, the more those around you are going to tell you that you are right. The higher reaches of organizations–which includes government, too, in case you slept through the past eight years–are largely absent of critical thought. … There is also evidence, including some wonderful studies by business school professor Don Hambrick at Penn State, that shows the corroding effects of ego. Leaders filled with hubris are more likely to overpay for acquisitions and engage in other risky strategies. Leaders ought to cultivate humility.” He ends by advising not to hold your breath waiting for this to change.”

I think much of Dan’s advice is good, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for the advice to be taken.

I think that power corrupts those susceptible to it, not all those who have it; there are enough examples of powerful people who didn’t succumb to keep me convinced.

Susceptibility is woven in MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and is especially prevalent in today’s society of mememememememe with its sense of entitlement.

Changing MAP and stopping drinking are similar, since the individual has to choose to change. All the horses and all the men can’t convince the king to change—that only happens from the inside out.

Moreover, as I’ve frequently said, MAP is sneaky; it will pretend to change and then revert to its normal pattern when no one’s looking.

We, the people, can’t force them to change, but we can learn to sustain our attention span and keep looking.

Image credit: flickr

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Engineers constantly channel Wernher von Braun, “One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions,” preferring AB tests and data points to anecdotal evidence or everyday been there/done that experience.

This is a serious problem for most founders who are

• engineers, and
• inexperienced (AKA, young).

Tests, no matter how good, and data points fail miserably when it comes to hiring people, let alone managing them.

Proof of this comes from no less a data embracer than Google, which scrapped an algorithm that was supposed to predict successful hires, its famed brain teaser questions and rigid responses to recruiter questions.

Such was the experience of Quang Hoang and his two partners when they started Birdly, which pivoted three times before finding a solid product/market fit.

…the tumult alienated most of Birdly’s employees, who quit. Hoang attributes the turnover to his own inexperience as a manager.

“We, along the way, made many mistakes in management,” Hoang tells Business Insider. “We lost many great developers.” 

Enter Plato, a new name and a new team, focused on providing techies with soft skill mentoring.

The idea, says, Hoang is that an engineer’s education is focused heavily on “hard skills” around programming and systems design. The rest has to be learned. And for programmers-turned-leaders, it’s often the “soft skills,” like management and leadership, that need the most attention.

To people such as myself, who for decades have been involved in teaching and honing those skills in managers across all fields, not just tech, it’s more of a ‘duh’ factor.

But that’s OK; just don’t call it “thought leadership.”

Most great management concepts and skills aren’t decades old, they’re centuries old, constantly updated using language that will resonate with the current target audience.

Probably one of the best pieces of leadership/management advice comes from Lao Tzu and dates to the fourth or fifth century BC; I’ve quoted it multiple times over the last ten plus years.

As for the best leaders,
the people do not notice their existence.
The next best,
the people honor and praise.
The next,
the people fear;
and the next,
the people hate…
When the best leader’s work is done,
the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
To lead the people, walk behind them.

Difficult advice to follow in a world of personal brands and excessively large egos.

Image credit: HikingArtist

When I was five or six, every Saturday morning was the same. I’d strap on my trusty toy six-shooter over my pajamas, grab my cowboy hat, and mount the arm of my father’s armchair, which I thought of as my trusty steed. From that perch, I’d watch the Saturday morning cowboy shows on our black and white television. Like most of the rest of America, I loved my cowboy heroes. It took a while to understand how unrealistic they were.

The cowboys were all white guys, there wasn’t an African American, or a Mexican American, or a Mexican to be seen doing real work. In real life, about a quarter of working cowboys were African-Americans. And much of the dress, equipment, and the language of the working cowboy came from the Mexican vaqueros.

The cowboys I watched on television were all clean and wore fancy clothes. Real cowboys did a dirty job and wore clothes and used equipment to make it safer and easier.

Television cowboys had almost superhuman skills. They could ride a horse at a full gallop and shoot the pistol out of a bad guy’s hand at a couple of hundred yards. When the evildoer was trying to run away, they could whip out their trusty lasso and pull him off his horse. Every time. They never missed. They were heroes.

The cowboy heroes did super masculine things with grace. They knocked out bad guys with a single punch. The women in the shows were always attractive, but their primary role was to be rescued or protected.

You would think, if they had the usual set of masculine urges that there would be some chasing after the beautiful women who populated the television West. But no. When their work of rescuing and protecting was over, the cowboy heroes rode away, accompanied if at all, by their trusty sidekick. That’s weird.

Those heroes were great for me when I was five. Today, I’m not so sure they fit the world we want to create.

Let’s Broaden Our View of Heroes

There’s no reason we need to limit our definition of heroes to white men with superpowers. Women can be heroes, too. So, can people with every shade of skin tone imaginable. They have been throughout history.

Heroes don’t need superpowers, and they don’t need to be flashy. Some of our greatest heroes do quiet work that makes a difference in the world, like Dan Nigro on and after 9/11.

Cowboy Heroes in A Team-Centric World

Today, most of the world’s work gets done in teams, so you would think we would modify our idea of a hero. We haven’t. Instead, we’ve made the situation fit our fantasy rather than the facts.

We laud lone innovators like Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs, except they weren’t “lone” at all. Edison had the muckers and Jobs had hundreds of people at Apple. We laud the fighter pilot and forget the crew that keeps the jet flying and the pilot safe.

When US Airways flight 1549 was set down in the Hudson River, the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, became the hero of the day. No one except Sullenberger wanted to talk about the contributions of the copilot or the cabin crew to making the landing safe and getting the passengers off the plane. No one wanted to bring up the training in the cockpit resource management that prepared those people to react as a team.

The all-knowing physician is another variation of the lone hero. That may make great TV drama, but it just doesn’t fit what we need. Atul Gawande is an author, surgeon, and professor. He puts the situation this way.

“We have trained, hired, and awarded physicians to be cowboys, when what we want are pit crews for patients.”

We’ve done that with managers, too. Except we don’t call them managers anymore. We call them “leaders,” that’s today’s hero-word. We expect those leaders to do the business equivalent of shooting the gun out of the evil-doer’s hand while riding at a full gallop.

Our Challenge Today

The world of the future will not belong to the superheroes, like the cowboy heroes of my youth. Instead, the work will be much less romantic but much more effective. Team leaders will learn that their job is to accomplish the mission through the group, not to do it all themselves. They’ll also learn that their job involves helping the individual team members succeed, develop, and grow.

None of that makes for good television. I’m pretty sure that no six-year-old today is sitting in his father’s chair spellbound by a TV drama about a leader coaching a team member. But that’s what effective leadership looks like.

Our heroes have always been cowboys, but maybe it’s time for something different.

Originally posted July 27, 2017 on Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership Blog.

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

Considering the accusations/confessions, resignations, terminations, mea culpas, etc., I thought this post from 2009 and its supporting links should be front and center once again, since nothing has changed in the intervening eight years.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Oh goody. Another CEO study. I haven’t seen the study, but David Brooks (NY Times) gives an overview (whatever you do, don’t miss the comments), while Dan McCarthy (Great Leadership laments the fascination with such studies.

I pretty much ignore them, except for their amusement value—sort of like all the food studies that tell us which food that was recommended last year will kill us this year.

Speaking of which, I wish someone would do a study like that on CEOs.

A ranking of CEOs who were lauded for x amount of time before they crashed and burned for the same traits that were their supposed strengths.

And a corollary ranking of all the pundits, gurus and executive coaches who did the lauding and how many have come forward to apologize for mistaking hubris for competence.

Of course, that would be a very long list.

Image credit: Beeeeezzz on flickr

We’re halfway through the year, which makes it a good time to take a step back and objectively consider how well you are doing achieving your personal growth goals for 2017.

We, the authors of the following, all hope that the monthly Leadership Dev Carnival provides you with different perspectives, ideas approaches, and tools to move forward.

Here is July’s wisdom.

Anne Perschel of Germane Coaching and Consulting provided Leadership Manifesto – Why You Need One and How to Get Started. Anne writes, “Your leadership manifesto ensures you stay the course in challenging times and focus on what’s most important at all times.” Find Anne on Twitter at @bizshrink.

Beth Beutler of H.O.P.E. Unlimited provided Four Types of Virtual Assistance. Beth explains four different models of virtual assistant services and provides suggestions for finding a good VA fit. Find Beth on Twitter at @bethbeutler.

Bill Treasurer of Giant Leap Consulting provided How to Choose a Great Mentor. Bill recaps, “Having a good mentor can take you far in your leadership journey. Learn what traits to look for in a good mentor.” Find Bill on Twitter at @btreasurer.

Chris Edmonds of the Purposeful Culture Group contributed Culture Leadership Charge: Don’t Bump the Fishbowl. In this post, Chris introduces “three steps to serving, validating, and celebrating employees’ ideas and contributions every day.” Follow Chris on Twitter at @scedmonds.

Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership provided Leadership Tips from Mankind’s Best Friend, the Dog. Dan recaps, “This lighthearted guest post from Dr. Garry McDaniel gives us 7 leadership tips learned from mankind’s best friend, the dog!” Find Dan on Twitter at @greatleadership.

Dana Theus of InPower Coaching contributed How Long Should You Stay At Your Job?. Dana writes, “No matter how well matched you and your job are at first, every employer and every person reach a point where it’s time to reconsider or renegotiate you agreement in order to support your continued growth.” Find Dana on Twitter at @DanaTheus.

David Grossman of The Grossman Group shared The Four Fs of Feedback. David writes, “If you were to give yourself a grade for how effective you are at giving feedback, what grade would you choose? Many of the executives I work with are brutally honest and give themselves an F. Move from an F to an A with the Four Fs of Feedback” Discover David on Twitter at @thoughtpartner

Jane Perdue of The Jane Group provided How to develop deep diversity with 9 learning styles. Jane shares, “Insightful guest post from author and coach Kay Peterson that guides leaders in increasing diversity by leveraging nine ways that people learn. Processes shared give leaders and their entire team a model they can use to understand and appreciate everyone’s strengths and differences.” Find Jane on Twitter at @thehrgoddess.

Jesse Lyn Stoner of Seapoint Center provided How to Recognize a Leader. Jesse summarizes, “How do you recognize a leader? Hint: It’s not because of their title.” Find Jesse on Twitter at @jesselynstoner.

Jim Taggart of Changing Winds provided Leading in a Virtualized World: 10 Traits of a Cyber Leader. In the post, Jim explains, “To be a true Cyber Leader requires a strong and sustained commitment. Technology is proving to be a powerful enabler to bringing people together from around the globe. While Cyber Leadership brings with it exciting opportunities for personal growth, it’s also accompanied by certain challenges.” Find Jim on Twitter at @72keys.

Joel Garfinkle of the Career Advancement Blog submitted Four Solutions if You’re Feeling Overworked and Underappreciated at Work. Joel shares: “If you’re feeling overworked and underappreciated at work, you’re not alone. It’s easy to begin to feel bitter and resentment toward your job. But, there are things you can do to change how you feel.” Discover Joel on Twitter at @JoelGarfinkle.

John Hunter of Curious Cat submitted Technological Innovation and Management. John recaps: “Technological innovation brings great opportunity for improving results and our quality of life.  But transforming potential benefits into real results comes with many challenges.” Discover John on Twitter at @ajohnhunter.

Jon Mertz of Thin Difference submitted The Need for More Sadness, Less Anger. Jon shares, “Anger rises, stifling collaboration. We need more sadness and less anger. From our sadness, we renew our focus on fulfillment rather than happiness.” Discover Jon on Twitter at @thindifference.

Jon Verbeck of  Jon Verbeck contributed Business Owner Mistake: The Basic Profit Model is Not Leveraged Link:. In this post, Jon shared how slight improvements over many transactions can have a huge impact. Follow Jon on Twitter at @jonverbeck1.

Julie Winkle-Giulioni of Julie Winkle-Giulioni provided The FUEL that Propels Today’s Organizatons. Julie recaps, “In today’s business environment, only the most energized organizations and individuals will be prepared to power forward toward that ever-moving finish line. And the key to high quality results is high-quality FUEL (in the form of feedback, an understanding what’s most important, and a culture of experimentation and learning).” Find Julie on Twitter at @julie_wg.

Karin Hurt of  Let’s Grow Leaders contributed Before You Forget, Stop and Do This Immediately. In this post, Karin explored this question: “Who consistently takes the time to sweat the small stuff so you don’t have to?”. Follow Karin on Twitter at @letsgrowleaders.

Ken Downer of  Rapid Start Leadership contributed Leader Isolation: 6 Ways to Conquer Loneliness at the Top. Ken summarizes, “The challenges and responsibilities of leadership can sometimes leave us feeling isolated and lonely.  But leading well doesn’t mean you have to become a hermit.  In fact the opposite is true – the higher you rise, the more important your connections become.  These six approaches to getting connected can help you find friends while improving your effectiveness as a leader.” Follow Ken on Twitter at @rapidstartldr.

Linda Fisher Thornton of Leading in Context  shared 4 Connected Trends Shaping the Future of Leadership. Linda recaps: “The greatest challenge leaders face is keeping up as the bar continues to be raised. Adaptability is no longer just a competitive advantage. It’s an ethical imperative” Find Linda on Twitter at @leadingincontxt.

Marcella Bremer of Leadership and Change Magazine provided How Do I Relate to Others? . Marcella recaps, “Martin Buber states there are two different ways of being in the world: the I-it or I-thou way. I-it means that I am a person – but I see other people as objects or means to my ends. I-thou means that I see you as a person, too. You are equal and I acknowledge your humanity. These two ways profoundly influence how you relate to others and, thus, the results you achieve. How do you relate to others?” Find Marcella on Twitter at @marcellabremer.

Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaborative Services, LLC provided How to avoid starring in your own drama. Mary Jo recaps, “Leaders often create their own drama, and then take the starring role. Here are some ways to avoid getting caught up in your own drama.” Find Mary Jo on Twitter at @mjasmus.

Miki Saxon of MAPping Company Success contributed Ducks in a Row: Educating For The Future. Miki writes, “There is a sad result from the current intense focus on STEM curriculum, with enterprise pushing its own short-term hiring agenda, and media hype that a tech career is the be-all and end-all. The real role education must play in a future of unimaginable careers that AI can’t do ends up being ignored.” Discover Miki on Twitter at @optionsanity.

Michael Lee Stallard of the Connection Culture Group contributed 3 Practices to Improve the Contributions of Your Core Employees. He writes, “Core employees comprise the majority of the workforce, yet are often overlooked. Here are three ways to engage the group that is critical to every organization’s success. ” Discover him on Twitter at @michaelstallard.

Neal Burgis of Burgis Successful Solutions submitted Leaders Encouraging Creative Risks. Neal recaps, “How can a leader experiment and foster risk taking?The idea is not to run out and take any risk. Think about how you want to take the risk you need on a small scale first. Test it out before taking a bigger leap with a bigger risk.” Find Neal on Twitter at @exec_solutions.

Paula Kiger of Big Green Pen provided A Late Cleanup. Paula recaps, “Making a decision to stop procrastinating on a long-overdue ‘cleanup’ ended up providing a physical and mental lift.” Find Paula on Twitter at @biggreenpen.

Randy Conley of Leading With Trust shared We Don’t Have a Crisis of Trust – We Have a Crisis of Untrustworthy Leaders. Randy writes, “The statistics on the state of trust in our world are dismal. Yet Randy Conley believes the core issue isn’t with trust itself, but with untrustworthy leaders of our organizations. In his post, We Don’t Have a Crisis of Trust – We Have a Crisis of Untrustworthy Leaders, Randy shares the four characteristics that define trustworthy leaders.” Find Randy on Twitter at @randyconley.

Robyn McLeod of Chatsworth Consulting submitted Your Strengths Can Hurt You. In this post, Robyn shares four easy tips to avoid having your strengths turn into derailers. Discover Robyn on Twitter at @thoughtfulldrs.

Shelley Row of Shelley Row provided Perfect is Over-Rated. In the post, Shelley encourages leaders to stop fixating on what’s wrong in order to really appreciate the fact that the majority of things that are right. Find Shelley on Twitter at @shelleyrow.

Susan Mazza of Random Acts of Leadership provided The Secret to Getting What You Want. Susan explains, “There’s a saying that, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. The same applies in life and business. Knowing what you want, and how to get it, is the key to being in the driver’s seat of your life, your career, and your business.” Follow Susan on Twitter at @susanmazza.

Tanveer Naseer of Tanveer Naseer provided How Failure Taught Me To Become A Better Listener. Tanveer says this post is the story of one leader’s failure reveals a powerful lesson on the importance of effective listening to leadership success. Follow Tanveer on Twitter at @tanveernaseer.

Wally Bock of Three Star Leadership provided Lessons From My Father’s Reading Plan. Wally recaps, “You’ll get more from your summer reading if you have a plan. Here’s how my father did his.” Find Wally on Twitter at @wallybock.

Have you noticed that Uber-frenzy has eased off? It’s a nice change to see other lead stories taking its place.

The most valuable private company in the world is definitely at a crossroads.

There is one thing that’s definite and that is that without new leadership that can staunch the blizzard resignation at all levels, galvanize the troops, lead the change to a radically new culture, and keep all the wheels turning in sync Uber easily could fall from its vaunted position.

In short, the new CEO needs to be someone with a sterling reputation, a string of high profile successes, and a believable visionary who people will trust.

Is that how you would describe Marissa Mayer?

The last thing that Uber needs is someone who defends Kalanick and seems to excuse what happened.

“I count Travis as one of my friends. I think he’s a phenomenal leader — Uber is ridiculously interesting.”

Mayer, who may be campaigning for the Uber CEO role, added: “I just don’t think he knew. When your company scales that quickly, it’s hard.”

Mayer went on to say that Uber was going through the same kind of thing Google went through when Eric Schmidt was brought on as CEO to help founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

But Mayer is not Eric Schmidt; in fact, her two main qualifications seem to be being female and buddies with Arianna Huffington.

Of course, there’s a long way to go and a number of other names being bandied about.

If she is hired I’m sure the investors will be excited to watch Uber take the same path as Yahoo.

Image credit: Mike Mozart