Leadership Done Right

Brandon W. Jones

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Peter Guber – Your Story Makes The Difference

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Yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to Peter Guber speak at the High Desert Opportunity in Victorville, CA. Peter Guber is an executive, entrepreneur, and a New York Times Best Selling Author. He is the Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment and a co-owner of two professional sports teams: Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Additionally, Peter is the CEO of Dick Clark Productions, and he is a professor at the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television and the Anderson School of Management, and an Entertainment and Media Analyst for Fox Business News.

Peter Guber

Peter Guber has an incredible background and a lot of experience. He has been a leader all his life in multiple settings. One of my favorite quotes from him was: [Read more…] about Peter Guber – Your Story Makes The Difference

Be Prepared For Your Moment

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I am a big sports fan and follow most professional and college sports.  With the Fall upon us, it is not uncommon for college and professional football to be on TV at my house. I have my favorite teams in both college and the pros and I love watching them play whenever possible.

Be Prepared For Your Moment

This week the college football rankings got turned upside down. For the first time in history, five of the top eight teams in the AP Top 25 poll lost in the same week. Two of the teams that pulled the upset were previously unranked and the other three were not ranked in the Top 10. The scores are shown below.

Arizona (Unranked) 31 – 24 Oregon (2)
Alabama (3) 17 – 23 Ole Miss (11)
Oklahoma (4) 33 – 37 TCU (25)
Texas A&M (6) 31 – 48 Mississippi State (12)
Utah (Unranked) 30 – 28 UCLA (8)

Because of the upsets, the AP Top 25 poll rankings were completely flipped. The new rankings of the teams involved in the upset are as follows (winning teams are bolded):  [Read more…] about Be Prepared For Your Moment

Student Leadership

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This is a guest post by Austin Hong. He was raised in Los Angeles, California before attending Boston College, where he studies Finance. Currently he is working for a legal management consulting firm in the Beacon Hill area of Boston, MA.

According to Warren Bennis, widely considered the pioneer of Leadership Studies, “The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.” This notion and thought that there exists a “leadership gene” is the cause of widespread stunted confidence and leadership potential of an already self-conscience, often, confused demographic of students and young adults.

Student Leadership

Many students are afraid of taking the risk to become a leader, because they are afraid that they don’t have the right personality or skill set to be an effective leader. After serving on student governments at both the secondary and university levels of education, on an executive board that served and represented 15 non-profit student chapters, in a Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps company, and a number of other organizations and roles ranging from sports teams to businesses, I have learned a few things about what it means to be a student leader. I personally believe that becoming an experienced student leader sets up the foundation to becoming a more diversified and qualified leader in the workplace, amongst peers, or in any other scenario, where one might be required to lead others. Student leadership is possible!

1. Leaders are not born

If you haven’t already picked up on the fact that I am a firm believer in the statement that leaders are not born with the inherent knack for leading others, then I am here to make clear that I am. With this in mind, it is critical, especially as students and young adults, to have a student leadership mentor or model, because it is from him or her that we learn to become leaders ourselves. This chain can act in one of two ways.

The first and more common way is looking up to a leader and sharing common values with him or her, so much so that you begin to emulate their style.

The second is by serving under a leader only to learn that you disagree with their style of leadership in major or minor ways, causing you to alter your perception of a proper leader and not repeating his or her faults. A person will not shape his entire values and thoughts on leadership based on one individual, one leader, rather it is the culmination of every mentor, model, and significant figure that he or she has ever encountered that will shape him or her. [Read more…] about Student Leadership

The Toxic Leader

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Not all leaders are created equal. What’s more, just because a person is in a position of leadership doesn’t mean they belong there. This is a serious problem that many companies struggle with. They have a problem recognizing what a leader is. They will spend money and time on diagnostic tests, evaluations and assessments to help give them insight on an individual’s leadership ability but in reality, they only need to ask themselves one question: Does this individual produce results?

The Toxic Leader

As John Maxwell said, “There is no success without a successor.” Leaders will help build other leaders which will drive your company forward.  Toxic leaders, on the other hand, if left alone will eat away at your company’s culture and success. To identify toxic leaders, take a look at the following topics typical of a leader that will eat away at a company’s success.

Tunnel vision

Leadership without vision is destined to fail. A toxic leader doesn’t have a clear vision of which direction to lead his team in. It can be likened to the blind leading the blind. Without vision a toxic leader cannot rally his team around a common goal and motivate them to perform at their best. [Read more…] about The Toxic Leader

Change Creates Opportunity For A Fresh Start

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Have you ever been in a situation where you felt you could do better, but were in an environment that made change extremely difficult?  Or, have you been in a situation that wasn’t going in the direction you wanted?  If so, you were probably in an environment where you needed a fresh start.  Change creates an opportunity for a fresh start.

Change Creates Opportunity For A Fresh StartDragos Roua is a blog writer at DragosRoua.com.  He specializes in goal setting.  He wrote a post called 50 Ways To Start Fresh.  In it he said, “Defeat. Boredom. Lack of meaning in your life. All these symptoms, and many others, of course, are a sign that you need to start fresh. To run again. To leave the old behind and embrace the new.”

What Is A Fresh Start?

A fresh start happens when you leave behind something old and start something new.  You meet new people, have new experiences, and start something new.  A fresh start brings new challenges and opportunities.  It also stretches you in ways that you have never been stretched in the past.  The fresh start can happen as a result of monumental or incremental change.

Making Monumental Change to Create a Fresh Start

There are many major changes you can make that will give you the opportunity for a fresh start.  Some monumental changes are:

  1. Taking a new job and/or getting a promotion
  2. Moving to a new city
  3. Starting a new business
  4. Going back to school
  5. Joining/starting a club
  6. Changing your profession
  7. Getting married

Each change listed takes you away from your old environment and puts you into a new one.  Some of the changes mentioned, however, are significantly bigger than others. Some take you out of one aspect of your life while others completely flip your world upside down.  The largest changes take you away from all that you know to put you into a completely new environment.  The smaller ones are still major changes, but they only take you away from one aspect of your life. [Read more…] about Change Creates Opportunity For A Fresh Start

Do You Take The Initiative?

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Have you ever been with a group of people where no one would make the first move or take the initiative?  Were people in the group shy and didn’t want to stand out?  Did they feel intimidated?  Or, was there something else that caused them to not take the initiative?  I have seen something very interesting happen in these group settings.  After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, one person inevitably takes the initiative to act.  He/she takes the initiative and get up to start working.  From there, many others begin to act and follow suit.  The true leader is the first person to take the initiative.

Do You Take The Initiative?

So what does it mean to take the initiative?

On the website Then Life Happens, Darren Sproat explained initiative as, “In its simplest form, taking initiative is doing without being asked to do.”  Taking the initiative means making the first move, being willing to do what others don’t want to do, or stepping up to make an introductory act or step leading to action.  If you take the initiative, you are willing to be uncomfortable if it means the result is better than what you have to sacrifice or the discomfort you must go through when taking action.  Leaders constantly take the initiative to get things done.  They step up to make things happen. [Read more…] about Do You Take The Initiative?