Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? - Authentic leadership

This is a very well articulated presentation about Authentic leadership. I think the author could have used examples for each Principle to be more thorough. However, he was very thorough in his presentation and explained intelligently. Enjoy the 10 minutes presentation!




Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones discuss the CASE framework, a central element of Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? the research and thought leadership of London Business School professor Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, authors of the best-selling Harvard Business Review article and book of the same name.

Thank you

Rony Delgarde

My latest book review is on the "Authentic Leadership" Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value by Bill George

I read a great book on leadership - Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value by Bill George– If you are an ambitious and conscientious business leader looking for inspiration, mentorship and guidance in a business climate that has been stained by acts of arrogance, greed and stupidity, this is the book for you. I'm always looking for business books that will help me improve my leadership skills as well as inspire me to learn new tricks for daily business. This book does both. It's an inspiring message to follow our values, to look at the long term picture, and also has a lot to say on work/life issues.

Authentic Leadership is the “Leadership Manual" for a new generation of business leaders. In his book, Bill George encourages the leaders of tomorrow to ask themselves some of the most fundamental questions that many business managers and leaders are privately and sometimes publicly, asking themselves today. What is my mission in life? What do I want to get out of a career? Which company do I want to work for? How do I make priority calls between my personal life and my career?

Looking back at my years in active world of business, I realize just how fortunate I was to have the opportunity to reach my goal. I am the first member of my family to attend college, receive my bachelor's degree, and earn my MBA. While in college, I was one of my classmates to believe in both creating opportunities for others and finding a special company that could influence my values. Well It didn’t take me long enough to realize how the complete collapse of corporate governance and the extreme greed of certain corporate leaders that has been exposed in the past years made that both too clear. At the time, I had just radical ideas because I looked at leaders around the world as powerful people running large organizations, countries, and often wonderful families. As I look at leaders today, I can easily change the story because leaders do not address the deeper needs at stake. Bill George has boldly deviated those old ideally leaders but claimed his generation of business leaders as responsible the current ethics crisis in business today and is appealing for the emergence of a new kind of business leader, authentic leaders, to restore order to the global business climate. He relates his own successes and failures in a manner that is easy for young business leaders to identify with and even addresses many of the issues that you don't often find in business texts - such as finding the right balance between your home and work lives.

Like many young professionals, I caught by fire in a business world that moved at fast speeds and was driven primarily by short-term results. As I have never known any other way to do business, I found Mr. George's insights into how he developed his own personal brand of leadership over the course of his career compelling. I most appreciated the fact that, unlike the arrogant texts of some other high-profile CEOs, he does not claim himself to be a model for what you and I should or should not be. His goal is to share his own experiences and allow you the opportunity to form your own opinions about what Authentic Leadership means to you. In fact, he strongly argues that it is not the place of any author or educator to relay to you what is "right" and "wrong" in terms of leadership. Instead, developing your own brand of leadership, one that continues to evolve and change as you gain experience and deal with failure, is the only true path to becoming an effective, Authentic Leader. He makes some very convincing arguments as to how Authentic Leaders link the long term needs of customers and employees to enhancing share holder value and he demonstrates his own encounters with morally and ethically challenging situations that serve as a reminder that all of us will have to encounter crossroads at some point in our careers.

I highly recommend Bill George's book. It is personal, entertaining, motivational and, most importantly, actionable. Invest a few hours in this book and you will reap the benefits for years to come.

Those who connect with me on twitter or LinkedIn know I like quotations. Quotations are a way to state a view without having to take the blame for that view

One of the quotes I liked in the book: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” by President John F. Kennedy

Thanks for reading my post...

Rony Delgarde

"I am learning how, who and what to delegate"

It was a very busy weekend for me. I worked 12 hours both Saturday and Sunday. Today I had a couple of interviews (and yes, I am looking for work and who is not looking these days?) then I attended the United Way Board of Director class, is a 10-week, 40-hour training program designed to develop and enhance leadership skills, increase diverse volunteer participation in nonprofit board and leadership positions, and increase placement and retention of individuals from metro Atlanta communities.

So I never stop learning. Now I am home doing a bit of email clean up, budget work and numbers review but other than that, I have been keeping with the media in Haiti for most part. I didn’t watch Monday Night football today but I plan to check online for the results, just playing technology….

Tonight I have been thinking about delegation. I know in order to grow, I need to learn how to delegate. I learned the theory of "delegate anything that someone else can do significantly easier, faster or less expensively than I can" from my Business class. I learned the theory of "include the why, not just the what needs doing" by practice.

The thought I have is on what is appropriate for me to delegate? What resources I have to delegate to? I am thinking of approaches to the challenge. I am going to monitor my time use for a week or so to see what things I might be able to delegate appropriately.

Sometimes in delegation, there is a relationship that is creating between the delegator and the delegatee (if that is a word..lol) and a learning curve for the delegatee. So I have to consider that in my analysis. One thing that can stop my growth is not accepting that others can often do something better than me (even though it is not necessarily to the same way I would have done it). I believe everyone has a unique talent and skill. As leaders, we all realize that is challenging sometimes to let go of our standard and accepting something less. Well, it has taken me a long time to realize that perfectionism can kill growth sometimes. So the ultimate key is to find balance and appreciate others for their contributions.

So right now, no answers, just thinking and analyzing.

I often hear one of my associates said they have no one to delegate to since no one works for them. Sounds familiar? Well, I believe they can delegate to peers, to suppliers, to customers or to the person they work for or people in other departments or their family members. The key is appropriate delegation. Sometimes I can solve a problem with just a quick call or an email that might take someone hours to figure out and then plan along the way.

So my tip for future leaders is to look at what you might have that you can delegate it’s also called “comparative advantage”

Please leave your comments, thank you!

Rony Delgarde

"I am Learning to Say NO"

I have been traveling on business. And I have been working with NGOs including Habitat for Humanity, Yele hayiti, Care USA, Red Cross, and the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund work together to provide the widest range of resources to help families, children and help the people of Haiti. But all have been a very rewarding experience and very time consuming. In short, I am feeling swamped.
I have never been good at saying no to people. People call and want to meet with me, arrange for a call, get me to speak etc. People send me emails that need replies, and projects need review before submitting etc. I usually say yes.

Part of it is culture and my parents’ politeness. I have learned that it seems rude to turn people down. Part of it also is I am an optimist and see the good in everything and everyone.

In order to focus on my priorities (and focus is a major skill that can move a good leader forward), I realize I need to say no to people. As with many things, it is easier to go completely cold turkey. So I am now in a NO zone phase. I am turning down every activity, opportunity for this month and the next to focus and get busy.

This will allow me to stop partying, drinking, dancing, dating, eating out, facebooking or twittering but focus.

No can be a good leader time management device…!!

I Recently Read a Book Called "Invaluable" by Dave Crenshaw

I am just back from a long trip. Feeling I need to get more productive when I am on the road. There are always things I leave for when I am back home which I would prefer to just have dealt with.

I read a great little book by Dave Crenshaw- Invaluable: The Secret to Becoming Irreplaceable on my Kindle with Blackberry Bold 9000. You better love it. I had a negative reaction to the title because I believe everyone is replaceable and greatly dislike those that hoard information and knowledge which is how some choose to be more irreplaceable (and that method does not work).

But that is not what the book is about. It is about Time Management (so of course I love it). The gist of the message is -spend your time in your most valuable area (he calls them MVAs)". This has to do with knowing your unique strengths and understanding the value of them.

I have always worked on knowing my strengths and working in them. Part of it though is to also look at those things you do which are lower value add and figuring out how to reduce or eliminate them. Coming off a long trip from last week, I really see a lot of low value time (like spending time on Facebook, posting my pictures etc.).

So I heartily agree with the thesis. And it re-emphasizes all that I know.

It is written as a story or parable which I do not particularly like (although many people prefer that). I just like the facts.

I think this book will inspire leaders to spend their time better.

Thanks for reading my blog....

Rony Delgarde

Why You’re Worth More Than You’re Paid

Paul Graham (YCombinator Venture) writes a series of essays for entrepreneurs. Below is an excerpt from his essay “How to Make Wealth.” Convincingly, he argues a great entrepreneur working at full capacity can make 36 times his corporate counterpart. His argument is copied and reviewed below. I hope you enjoy it.

If you wanted to get rich, how would you do it? I think your best bet would be to start or join a startup. That's been a reliable way to get rich for hundreds of years. The word "startup" dates from the 1960s, but what happens in one is very similar to the venture-backed trading voyages of the Middle Ages.

Startups usually involve technology, so much so that the phrase "high-tech startup" is almost redundant. A startup is a small company that takes on a hard technical problem.

Lots of people get rich knowing nothing more than that. You don't have to know physics to be a good pitcher. But I think it could give you an edge to understand the underlying principles. Why do startups have to be small? Will a startup inevitably stop being a startup as it grows larger? And why do they so often work on developing new technology? Why are there so many startups selling new drugs or computer software, and none selling corn oil or laundry detergent?

The Proposition

Economically, you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast.

Here is a brief sketch of the economic proposition. If you're a good hacker in your mid twenties, you can get a job paying about $80,000 per year. So on average such a hacker must be able to do at least $80,000 worth of work per year for the company just to break even. You could probably work twice as many hours as a corporate employee, and if you focus you can probably get three times as much done in an hour. You should get another multiple of two, at least, by eliminating the drag of the pointy-haired middle manager who would be your boss in a big company. Then there is one more multiple: how much smarter are you than your job description expects you to be? Suppose another multiple of three. Combine all these multipliers, and I'm claiming you could be 36 times more productive than you're expected to be in a random corporate job. If a fairly good hacker is worth $80,000 a year at a big company, then a smart hacker working very hard without any corporate bullshit to slow him down should be able to do work worth about $3 million a year.

Like all back-of-the-envelope calculations, this one has a lot of wiggle room. I wouldn't try to defend the actual numbers. But I stand by the structure of the calculation. I'm not claiming the multiplier is precisely 36, but it is certainly more than 10, and probably rarely as high as 100.

If $3 million a year seems high, remember that we're talking about the limit case: the case where you not only have zero leisure time but indeed work so hard that you endanger your health.

Startups are not magic. They don't change the laws of wealth creation. They just represent a point at the far end of the curve. There is a conservation law at work here: if you want to make a million dollars, you have to endure a million dollars' worth of pain. For example, one way to make a million dollars would be to work for the Post Office your whole life, and save every penny of your salary. Imagine the stress of working for the Post Office for fifty years. In a startup you compress all this stress into three or four years. You do tend to get a certain bulk discount if you buy the economy-size pain, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. If starting a startup were easy, everyone would do it.

Millions, not Billions

If $3 million a year seems high to some people, it will seem low to others. Three million? How do I get to be a billionaire, like Bill Gates?

So let's get Bill Gates out of the way right now. It's not a good idea to use famous rich people as examples, because the press only write about the very richest, and these tend to be outliers. Bill Gates is a smart, determined, and hardworking man, but you need more than that to make as much money as he has. You also need to be very lucky.

A great deal has been written about the causes of the Industrial Revolution. But surely a necessary, if not sufficient, condition was that people who made fortunes be able to enjoy them in peace. One piece of evidence is what happened to countries that tried to return to the old model, like the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent Britain under the labor governments of the 1960s and early 1970s. Take away the incentive of wealth, and technical innovation grinds to a halt.

Remember what a startup is, economically: a way of saying, I want to work faster. Instead of accumulating money slowly by being paid a regular wage for fifty years, I want to get it over with as soon as possible. So governments that forbid you to accumulate wealth are in effect decreeing that you work slowly. They're willing to let you earn $3 million over fifty years, but they're not willing to let you work so hard that you can do it in two. They are like the corporate boss that you can't go to and say, I want to work ten times as hard, so please pay me ten times a much. Except this is not a boss you can escape by starting your own company.

The problem with working slowly is not just that technical innovation happens slowly. It's that it tends not to happen at all. It's only when you're deliberately looking for hard problems, as a way to use speed to the greatest advantage, that you take on this kind of project. Developing new technology is a pain in the ass. It is, as Edison said, one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Without the incentive of wealth, no one wants to do it. Engineers will work on sexy projects like fighter planes and moon rockets for ordinary salaries, but more mundane technologies like light bulbs or semiconductors have to be developed by entrepreneurs.

Startups are not just something that happened in Silicon Valley in the last couple decades. Since it became possible to get rich by creating wealth, everyone who has done it has used essentially the same recipe: measurement and leverage, where measurement comes from working with a small group, and leverage from developing new techniques. The recipe was the same in Florence in 1200 as it is in Santa Clara today.

Understanding this may help to answer an important question: why Europe grew so powerful. Was it something about the geography of Europe? Was it that Europeans are somehow racially superior? Was it their religion? The answer (or at least the proximate cause) may be that the Europeans rode on the crest of a powerful new idea: allowing those who made a lot of money to keep it.

Once you're allowed to do that, people who want to get rich can do it by generating wealth instead of stealing it. The resulting technological growth translates not only into wealth but into military power. The theory that led to the stealth plane was developed by a Soviet mathematician. But because the Soviet Union didn't have a computer industry, it remained for them a theory; they didn't have hardware capable of executing the calculations fast enough to design an actual airplane.

In that respect the Cold War teaches the same lesson as World War II and, for that matter, most wars in recent history. Don't let a ruling class of warriors and politicians squash the entrepreneurs. The same recipe that makes individuals rich makes countries powerful. Let the nerds keep their lunch money, and you rule the world.

Thanks! if you like the article please leave comments.

Rony Delgarde

Rampant Lack of Trust Drives Employee Defections BY Kate Sweetman

The job of a leader is to create other leaders! Read this post and my comments on it if you're struggling with employee engagement in your company!
This article is written by an expert blogging community member and expresses her views alone.

Recession has little to do with employee dissatisfaction, says Nick Holley, who was voted the 12th most influential thinker in HR by Human Resources Magazine. He places current concerns about a presumed broad scale employee turnover in a recovery in a larger historical context – and asserts that the problem runs deeper than many realize.

I was lucky to catch Nick Holley between engagements in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. The Gulf States and the Kingdom are hot to develop greater professionalism in their nationals, and experts like Nick are in high demand. In surveying him for my current blog series on “The Recovering Leader” (exploring how corporate leaders might retain their valuable workers when economic recovery creates greater free agency), I suggested that he talk about his experiences in that region.

Instead, he preferred to discuss something else: the larger picture around how trust has eroded in the workplace and the world, a profound decline which he believes is the crux of the matter. If the issue of trust is addressed naively, leaders might launch the very defections that they fear most.

Nick made three crisp points: 1) the recession is not the same for everyone; 2) the recession is the tip of the trust iceberg; and 3) regaining trust can only take place in one-on-one relationship, not in programmatic efforts.

Point 1: The recession is not a monolith. “This recession is not the same experience for everybody,” says Nick.”In some organizations, one division suffers and another expands. Impacts vary across geographies. Saudi Arabia has no recession; Qatar has no recession. Dubai has a recession of a sort but the people feeling it the most are the overseas investors because it hit property the hardest. It is dangerous to talk about ‘the recession’ as one thing because it clouds the issue.” In other words, trust suffers today in even places that are economically fine.

Point 2: This recession is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. “Loss of trust has been underway for 20 years,” Nick stresses. “Not just in business, but in many parts of society. Divorce rates are very high, at least in the UK and US. Consumers kick the tires of whatever they buy – why believe the advertising claims? In the UK, fewer and fewer voters trust that their opinion matters, so more and more have stopped voting. They don’t trust the political system – nor, of course, the politicians who are the visible face of the system. Few sensible people trust the media anymore. And rank and file employees don’t trust the employers who subjected them to downsizing and cutbacks while the gap between executive pay and their own has widened so dramatically. The recession has driven the tip of the iceberg further above the surface, but the larger body of the iceberg has been there and growing for years.”

How does this play out in terms of what employees will choose to do? His research reveals two distinct groups representing two fundamental reactions. “The first group consists of people who believe large organizations to be fundamentally dysfunctional and who have opted out – nothing to do with the recession. These are the people off starting their own businesses – or off simply having a better time than you or me. The second group is composed of those who are still trying to make organizations work. They are the ones doing all the slashing. Many of them are effectively as trapped in those organizations as anyone else, and may well be looking for a way out.”

Point 3: Organizations don’t build trust, individuals do. “You can’t hide behind an employee opinion survey if you are going to solve this problem,” Nick said strongly. “Typically, the wrong questions are being asked, and the categories are too broad and impersonal. Each line manager has to understand the individuals that he or she is dealing with, and build trust one person, one conversation, at a time. There is no other way.”

Where are the bright spots? What organizations have managed to garner the trust and commitment that so eludes the rest? Nick was unhesitating in his response: “NGOs and the charity sector.” Because they are better run? Not necessarily, maybe not even likely. The reason: “People in those organizations experience a much stronger sense of purpose and belonging. The key for them is the mission.”

Mission. Purpose. Trust. Fairness. Belonging. True voice. Personal relationship. Hard to argue these.

Please leave comments below -- we are eager to have a conversation on this important topic.
Thank you
Rony Delgarde

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDun

I recently read "Half the Sky"This book describes the grim reality of life for women and girls in much of the developing world and is must reading for everyone who cares about education and empowerment for women and girls worldwide.

The title of this book comes from an old Chinese proverb: women hold up half the sky. The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors lead us into the world of women in developing countries: breaking the silence about vaginal fistulas that ostracize thousands and thousands of girls; trafficking of girls and women; discussing the reality of wife-beatings as prevalent; and other contemporary issues facing women in a variety of cultures around the world. But they don't stop there, they then share the wonderful stories of hope and empowerment: through self-help projects; access to education; and micro-credit loans. One telling statement with its source in the US military, to paraphrase: where girls and women are educated, terrorism is not prevalent.

Find a copy and read it!!
Rony Delgarde

Rony Delgarde Speaks of the Earthquake in Haiti

In his native tongue of Haitian Creole, Rony Delgard gives a heartful message asking for help in the aftermath of the tragic earthquake in Haiti. To find out how you can help, visit www.atlantacares.org

My latest book review is on "Your Next Move"

I am reading a book called Your Next Move: The Leader's Guide to Successfully Navigating Major Career Transitions written by Michael Watkins. The book is very appropriate for my current circumstances. I am very blessed to live my current life but I’m still considering what my next move will be.

Michael Watkins is also the author of The 1st 90 Days. Although I don't use his exact system, I have implemented a variation of that in everything I do.

The 1st 90 Days talks about 7 elements of successful transitions.

1. Organize to Learn. - Figure out what you most need to learn, from whom, and how you can best learn it. Focus on the right mix of technical, cultural, and political learning. This one is not a problem for me. If anything, I likely enjoy learning so much that I can spend too much time in it rather than doing.

2. Establish A-list priorities. Identify a few vital goals and pursue them relentlessly. Think early about what you need to accomplish by the end of year one in the new position.

3. Define strategic intent Develop and communicate a compelling mission and vision for what the organization will become. Outline a clear strategy for achieving the mission and realizing the vision.

4. Build the leadership team - Define your assessment criteria and evaluate the team you inherited. Move deftly to make the necessary changes; find the optimal balance between bringing in outside talent and promoting high-potential leaders within the organization.

5. Lay the organizational foundation for success. Identify the most important supporting changes you need to make in the structure, processes, and key talent bases of the organization. Put a plan in place for addressing the most pressing organizational weaknesses.

6. Secure early wins. Build personal credibility and energize people by identifying "centers of gravity" where you can get some early successes. Organize the right set of initiatives to secure early wins.

7. Create supportive alliances. Identify how the organization really works and who has influence. Understand who needs to champion your success and create key alliances in support of your initiatives."

Your next move talks about

1. The Promotion Challenge - Understanding what "success" looks like at a higher level in the hierarchy. Adjusting your focus and approach to delegation. Developing new leadership competencies and cultivating "presence."

2. The Leading-Former-Peers Challenge - Being promoted to manage people who were formerly your peers. Deftly establishing your authority in the new role. Reengineering existing relationships. Dealing with problematic former peers.

3. The Corporate Diplomacy Challenge - Moving from a position of authority to one in which strong influence skills are critical for getting things done. Mapping the influence landscape. Building supportive alliances.

4. The Onboarding Challenge - Joining an organization and adapting to a new culture. The pillars of effective on-boarding. Building the right political "wiring." Aligning expectations up, down and sideways.

5. The International Move Challenge - Moving to a new country and leading people in an unfamiliar culture. Moving one's family and rebuilding the support system. Preparing for entry. Beginning to engage with the team and the business.

6. The Turnaround challenge - Taking over an organization that is in very deep trouble and figuring out how to save it from destruction. Diagnosing the situation, designing the business model, driving alignment, and dynamically adapting. This is my favorite area but I need to coach myself a bit.

7. The Realignment challenge - Confronting an organization that is in
denial about the need for change. Creating a sense of urgency before emerging problems erupt in a crisis. Adjusting your leadership style to match the situation.

I think the book is very appropriate if you know what your next move is going to be. I particularly like the propensity for action and keeping the action periods short, demanding meaningful results in relatively short period of time, things like early winds.

I was expecting from the title that it would be more applicable to my personal situation and helping me decide what to do next.

It's still a great book.

I think you would like it..Thanks for reading my blog…

Rony Delgarde

"New Year's Resolutions"

I love New Year's, because I love setting New Year's Resolutions. I credit much of my success in life to setting goals and New Year's Resolutions are really not much more than setting goals.


For me, they fall into two categories.


1. Some resolutions would be habits that I want to develop (or stop). I'm a big believer that much of success has to do with us being the habits of what we repeatedly do.


2. Some of my resolutions are actual goals or things that I want to accomplish.


I have long practiced goal setting using my goal setting exercise 30 Minutes to Clear Goals.

This year will be no different - I will set goals. I will review how I did compared to what I thought last year. I will try to learn and refine my systems.

Have a great New Year 2010.

Rony Delgarde