Poking through 12+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Mea culpa has never been anyone’s favorite thing, but in the eight years since I wrote this post hearing it has become even more unlikely — unless, of course, the speaker has already been outed for whatever and mea culpa is their default fallback position/excuse.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

In the popular vernacular, the expression “mea culpa” is an admission of having made a mistake by one’s own fault (one that could have been avoided if the person had been more diligent).

Mea culpa are two of the most powerful words any manager can say—as long as they are authentic.

Creating a culture where mea culpa is not just tolerated, but applauded is the mark of the best ‘leadagers’ (Leader + Manager discussion).

The words offer no value if they are uttered insincerely or as a means to an end.

Publicly taking responsibility for an error, let alone a real screw-up, is the mark of a good leader, a great manager and a true mensch.

How often have you said ‘mea culpa’ and meant it?

Image credit: Markus Tacker

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

In an interview Robert Herjavec said,

If you can’t inspire the people around you, you are going to fail. If you can’t inspire the people around you, you should go sell real-estate, because that is probably one of the only businesses where you could make a lot of money working completely on your own. But I think if you want to build a great business, you’ve got to bring other people along, and nobody wants to be managed. People want to be led.

His comment reminded me of a post from a few years ago that I believe is worth repeating.

Ducks in a Row: Leadership or LeadershIt?

If you truly want a culture of innovation, then you also need to create a culture of leadership.

Last week I commented that if the ‘i’ in leadership is capitalized it changes leadership to leadershIt.

Whereas leadership can be a great motivator, leadershIt is a guaranteed demotivator.

Visions and other leadership functions done with an eye to self-aggrandizement aren’t likely to resonate whether done by positional leaders, leaders in the instance or those who aspire.

Last year I wrote

Because initiative and leadership are synonymous, leadership needs to be pushed out of the corner office and spread throughout the organization; doing so will encourage growth, creativity and innovation.

If leadership is the fertilizer then culture is the water, without which nothing will grow, and people are the seeds from which ideas come.

By spreading leadership evenly through out your company garden and watering regularly, leaving no unfertilized or dry patches in which a seed will be stunted or die, you assure yourself a bountiful harvest that will be the envy of your competitors. (Two follow-up posts have more on this topic here and here.)

This isn’t a new idea, just a new way of phrasing it; Lao Tzu said it best 4000 years ago, “To lead the people walk behind them.”

The one thing that remains constant in all these discussions is that you always have a choice—this time it’s between leadership and leadershIt.

Image credit: HikingArtist

There are many lessons to be learned from the current economic crisis, but one of the most important is that we the people should stop following and start leading ourselves.

In other words, we each need to take responsibility for our own actions and think critically about the words and actions of those in positional leadership roles.

In business, we need to rid ourselves of the idea that positional leaders don’t need management skills or that managers don’t lead.

Jim Stroup points out in numerous posts that “No one has proven that leadership is different from management, much less that it is a characteristic inherent in individuals independently of the context in which those individuals operate, one that they carry with them from one organization to another and which they then instill into groups otherwise bereft of it.”

We need to stop defining leaders based on their vision and skill at influencing people to follow them.

A comment left on a Washington Post column by Steve Pearlstein regarding the leadership failure that led to the current economic crisis neatly sums up the problem with that definition.

“What a great summary of the economic problem. However this was not a lack of leadership. Defining leadership as influencing people to move in a specific direction, the financial and economic elite successfully led the country into the economic disaster. The problem was a lack of management that failed to identify the signs of the pending disaster.”

Mike Chitty’s team approach is an unlikely solution since you can’t mandate that whichever [leader or manager] is superior will listen to or act on the ideas of the subordinate, while making them equals is rarely successful.

We need to lead ourselves and stop waiting for someone else to show us how, tell us why or lead our actions. 99% of us know what’s good—not just for ourselves, but for the world.

We especially need to stop

• putting ideology ahead of success;
• avoiding accountability by citing all those whose lead we followed;
• excusing our own unethical behavior on the basis that others do the same thing; or
• believing that [whatever] is OK, because our religion forgives our actions.

Everyone cleaning up their own back yard will alleviate a large part of the problem, and then we can work together for the good of everyone, not just “people like us.”

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Image credit: flickr

Today I’m going to share with you articles about three folks whom I consider superb leadagers.

Let me know if you agree.

First is Dan DiMicco, CEO of Nucor Steel, who was just named Businessperson of the Year by the Charlotte Business Journal. I’ve followed Nucor for a long time and DiMicco just keeps impressing; more so since he always sidesteps taking personal credit, focusing instead on his senior staff and employees. He’s also produced one of the most forward thinking cultures in the corporate world, especially considering he’s heavy industry, producing a real product that has neither chips nor software, and created the largest steel company in the country by successfully acquiring and integrating 22 companies over the last eight years.

Next up are the collective CEOs of Corning, who, for the last 157 years, have nurtured and facilitated a culture of innovation allowing Corning to reinvent itself time and time again and thumbing its nose at every analyst and pundit who predicted its demise. Whoo hoo, these guys rock!

Third is Idris Jala, CEO of Malaysia Airlines, who did an initial turn around of the state-owned airline in three-and-a-half months because that was all the operating cash he had and no bailout was offered. I wrote about him a month ago and there’s a link to the full McKinsey interview (requires free registration) in the post. Well worth reading if you missed it the first time.

Finally, 24 short CEO profiles offered up by Business Week; their selection includes a dozen of the best along with a dozen of the worst. I think you’ll enjoy them.

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Although he may not realize it, web developer Tim Knight speaks for the vast majority of the global workforce in a post entitled Stop Leading Your Team to The Destination, Give Them The Map.

He eloquently explains why leaders who proclaim their visions and then hoard the details have far less chance of success as opposed to those that are introduced, explained, clarified and then embedded in the corporate culture.

Today’s workforce is damn smart and leadagers forget that at their own peril.

One caveat. “Profit” isn’t a valid vision, especially when building it into a culture creates an overarching need to achieve it that transcends sensible, moral, ethical and even legal bounds as so recently happened.

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Image credit: flickr