Leadership in the News

Leaders, Stay Informed: Knowledge = Power!

By Brandon W. Jones on February 20, 2012 1

The old saying, “Knowledge = Power” is more true now than ever. In today’s economy, leaders everywhere must know what is happening in their industry and the economy as a whole. They must be up to date on trends and major changes coming. If leadership fails to stay on top of the trends, they can lose speed with their competition and possibly even their relevance.

Over the past few years, several companies have lost their relevancy because they failed to follow the trends of their industry and the economy. They lost pace with their competitors and either went of business or changed ownership.

There are also a few companies that have fallen into this trap but have not gone out of business yet, but they are struggling to survive. Some of the companies that fell into this trap are Blockbuster Video, Kodak, Circuit City, Mervyns, and Borders Books. I will explain the downfall of just two:

Blockbuster Video

Blockbuster Video has done a poor job of keeping up with the trends. As a result, they are struggling to survive and have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. They were very popular for many years, but failed to keep pace with the competition. While their competition began renting DVDs from vending machines and allowing movie rentals directly to your TV and computer, Blockbuster maintained their brick and morter stores. Blockbuster’s video rental stores required high overhead costs to keep each location functioning with their personnel. [Read more…] about Leaders, Stay Informed: Knowledge = Power!

What Would You Do As The Boss?

By Brandon W. Jones on February 15, 2012 2

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday titled, “Where’s the Boss? Trapped in a Meeting” by Rachel Emma Silverman. The article talked about a study that was done on CEOs. London School of Economics and Harvard Business School did a study of over 500 CEOs from various companies around the world.

The studies were done to see how they used their time. The results were tracked by the CEOs’ personal assistants for anything the CEO did for more than 15 minutes during the day. Some of the results were very interesting. The average tracked CEO worked 55 hours a week and spent 18 hours in meetings.

Leadership Lessons From the Iowa Caucus

By Brandon W. Jones on January 6, 2012 0

As the Iowa caucus came to a close the results were so close that only eight votes separated the top two candidates. It was the closest presidential GOP contest in U.S. history and Mitt Romney came out as the winner. The close finish made me ask questions about what factors led to the resulting eight vote difference. Because it is politics, there were many factors that led to a close finish, but I am going to look at just a few that relate to leadership.

To understand the leadership implications, we must first look at the background. In 2008, Mitt Romney was the runner-up in the Iowa republican caucus. Since then, he has maintained a high level of support with relatively minimal effort. Because of this support, he did a limited amount of campaigning until the last three weeks prior to the caucus. On the other hand, Rick Santorum spent a lot of time and effort doing door-to-door campaigning. Santorum had a lot of people on the ground representing him. [Read more…] about Leadership Lessons From the Iowa Caucus

Three Lessons Learned From a Great Leader

By Brandon W. Jones on January 5, 2011 1

In 2001, I lived in Cypress Hills, NY. During that time, I was a full-time volunteer service missionary in a two year program. As a service missionary, I was given a partner that I worked with all the time. Each missionary partnership was part of a district which was composed of four to eight service missionaries.

The Great Leader

Two to three districts were grouped together to form a zone, and there were 16 zones within the mission. The leader over the whole mission was called the mission president. For my area the mission president was Larry Spackman. He was a very successful businessman from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

There were also leaders amongst the missionaries. The leaders were responsible for either a district or zone of missionaries. The leader’s responsibility was to motivate and encourage the other missionaries. In addition, the leader had to make sure the missionaries were following the standards of missionary conduct.

Great Lessons From a CEO Interview

By Brandon W. Jones on May 12, 2010 3

A few years back I had the opportunity to interview the CEO of a major company. When I did the CEO interview, some of his answers were very insightful so I thought I would share them. I interviewed him for an MBA management class that I just finished taking.

Interview

1. What is your educational background?

B.S. Accounting

Certified Public Accountant

2. What is your personal definition of success?

For me, success is a journey. I believe you need to determine what it is that makes you want to get up in the morning and then do everything possible to become the best you can be at doing it. While making money may be a part of it, I believe you have to determine what you are going to do with the money when you get it. I believe I am successful if I am happy and I’m making a difference in my chosen career and in the lives of others. I am aware of and appreciate the many individuals that have helped me along the way towards any success I have achieved. [Read more…] about Great Lessons From a CEO Interview

Sounds Of Silence

By Brandon W. Jones on April 27, 2010 2

As the article, “Sounds of Silence”, points out, there are many times when organizations don’t create an environment that is conducive to constructive criticism. What does it take to set up a system that encourages feedback from the employees to the management? What can be put in place within a system to eliminate the system communication barriers? Is it possible to have a strong leadership team within an organization and still be able to have the good communication from the bottom up?

The Sounds of Silence

I think that the answer is yes. It is possible to have good communication from the bottom up if the right system features are in place within a system. One system feature that could be put in place to facilitate the communication from the employees to management would be management forums. During the management forums, the employees would be able to ask questions of the middle and upper level management teams. [Read more…] about Sounds Of Silence