Directors Leadership Quotes

A high-performing board of directors is the backbone of a successful company.

Now, more than ever, the world needs transformational leaders not to cultivate change for its own sake, but to lead through the inevitable evolutions in business and human society.

Critical to success in corporate governance is a vision that inspires and motivates employees at all levels.

To be successful, a Board of Directors must foster a culture of respect and appreciation.

By embracing a holistic approach to risk management and conducting regular risk assessments, board members can ensure that their company is prepared to face a wide range of challenges

While innovation is essential, it often comes with inherent risks.

The board's vision sets the standard for leadership throughout the company. By actively promoting and embodying the vision, board members hold management accountable for aligning their actions and strategies with the company's long-term aspirations.

The business landscape is a constantly evolving ecosystem. Changes in the macro environment, such as technological disruptions or changing consumer preferences, can rapidly alter the competitive landscape. A high-performing board needs to be adept at strategic foresight.

By mastering the art of corporate governance, board members and executives can unlock the full potential of their organizations, driving innovation, growth, and social impact.

Market leadership, while not the sole definition of success, can be a powerful aspiration for companies and their boards.

Trust is the bedrock of any healthy relationship, including those between a company and its stakeholders. Trust is what keeps our economy going because without trust, people don’t transact.

A good Board Of Directors team is one where ideas are flowing fluidly - and where each idea is met with an initial welcome, an intellectual challenge, an expression of gratitude, a rigorous scrutiny and a readiness for action.

Shaping the company's future requires actively engaging with shareholders and other stakeholders to build trust and understanding.

The Director of the US Marshals Service, who does not like Pack: “Seems to me Simon Pack’s a grandstander. I remind you I’m a West Pointer myself. I remember his ill-fated year as Superintendent, acting as if he were MacArthur incarnate. The All-America player in a couple sports, the man in the College Football Hall of Fame; the Governor of a small state; the leader of a constitutional convention. And yeah, he was also a hobo, maybe the biggest grandstand move he ever undertook.

A well-structured board meeting begins with a clear and focused agenda.

Like the brain's command center, the board provides the highest level of cognitive function for the organization. They are the "big picture" thinkers, setting strategic direction, overseeing management, and representing the interests of shareholders and stakeholders.

Effective board meetings go beyond mere discussion and information sharing. They should be forums for critical thinking, problem-solving, and strategic decision-making.

By encouraging a culture of collaboration, open communication, and constructive debate, boards can harness the collective wisdom of their members and make decisions that drive the company towards long-term success.

Emotional intelligence is a crucial aspect of effective board leadership.

The board chair must be approachable, empathetic, and able to navigate conflict constructively.

Emotional intelligence is a crucial aspect of effective leadership.

A high-performing and ethical boardroom doesn't happen by accident; it requires careful cultivation and a thoughtful approach to board composition and dynamics.

Profit serves as a metric of efficiency and effectiveness, indicating that a company is utilizing its resources responsibly and creating value for all its stakeholders while minimizing its negative impact.

company leaders need to provide their company with a self-organizing and semi-autonomous immune system. Effective risk management isn't about a siloed approach focusing on isolated threats. We have to think more broadly. Effective risk management requires a holistic approach that transcends a siloed focus on isolated threats. In today's interconnected business landscape, risks are rarely confined to a single department or function. Instead, they often ripple across the organization, impacting multiple areas simultaneously.

By identifying and attracting individuals with diverse skills, expertise, and perspectives, organizations can build a board that is well-equipped to navigate challenges, seize opportunities, and promote ethical conduct.

Director recruitment and selection is a critical process in shaping the composition and effectiveness of a board, laying the foundation for ethical governance and responsible leadership.

By setting clear agendas, facilitating participation, leveraging technology, and maintaining strong communication, boards can transform meetings into strategic forums that propel the company towards long-term success.

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to defining business success, as different companies can and should prioritize various aspects of success. I advise Boards of Directors to develop a custom framework for the company.

Director recruitment and selection is not merely about filling vacancies; it's about building a high-performing and ethical board that can provide effective oversight, guide strategic decision-making, and contribute to the long-term success of the organization.

Board of Directors members should hold management accountable for performance and ensure the company is operating ethically and responsibly.

Board of Directors members should each bring something unique to the table; and they should share their uniqueness with the rest of the board to inform key decisions.

Board of Directors members should actively participate in succession planning to identify and groom future leaders who can ensure the company's continued growth and stability.

Profit provides the financial foundation for businesses to invest in CSR initiatives, such as sustainable practices, employee well-being programs, and community development projects.

Board of Directors members should provide strategic oversight and guidance to help the company navigate complex market dynamics and chart a course for long-term success. It's about the big picture.

The boardroom is more than just a meeting space; it's a crucible where the future of a company is forged. It's a dynamic arena where individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives converge to make decisions that can profoundly impact the lives of employees, shareholders, customers, and communities.

The dynamics within the boardroom are often complex and multifaceted. Strong personalities, competing interests, and high stakes can create an environment ripe for conflict. Know what I mean? But here’s the thing; when managed effectively, these dynamics can also lead to robust discussions, innovative solutions, and sound decision-making.

Then there were the baffling, unnecessary lies. At one point, for example, the president told me that chief of staff Reince Priebus didn’t know we were meeting, which seemed incredible. The chief of staff should know when the president is dining alone with the FBI director. Then, later on in that same dinner, Trump said casually, "Reince knows we’re meeting.

What’s key today is synthesizing Information: Making sense of complex data to identify patterns and trends.

Strategic thinking is not just about planning for the future; it's about shaping it.

In the middle to late 1970s, when Putin joined the KGB, the secret police, like all Soviet institutions, was undergoing a phase of extreme bloating. Its growing number of directorates and departments were producing mountains of information that had no clear purpose, application, or meaning. An entire army of men and a few women spent their lives compiling newspaper clippings, transcripts of tapped telephone conversations, reports of people followed and trivia learned, and all of this made its way to the top of the KGB pyramid, and then to the leadership of the Communist Party, largely unprocessed and virtually unanalyzed.

And because seeking the truth is what we are all about … the possibility—even the perception—that that quest may be tainted deeply troubles us, as it long has and as it should. —ROBERT M. GATES, DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

There is no bigger compliment than being intellectually curious about what someone else spends his or her days doing—it turned out that not having the answers did me no harm. The feedback I got was that the WHMO directors all “felt good about my leadership.

When I heard about the ease with which the Four had been removed, I felt a wave of sadness. How could such a small group of second-rate tyrants ravage 900 million people for so long? But my main feeling was joy. The last tyrants of the Cultural Revolution were finally gone. My rapture was widely shared. Like many of my countrymen, I went out to buy the best liquors for a celebration with my family and friends, only to find the shops out of stock there was so much spontaneous rejoicing. There were official celebrations as well exactly the same kinds of rallies as during the Cultural Revolution, which infuriated me. I was particularly angered by the fact that in my department, the political supervisors and the student officials were now arranging the whole show, with unperturbed self-righteousness. The new leadership was headed by Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng, whose only qualification, I believed, was his mediocrity. One of his first acts was to announce the construction of a huge mausoleum for Mao on Tiananmen Square. I was outraged: hundreds of thousands of people were still homeless after the earthquake in Tangshan, living in temporary shacks on the pavements. With her experience, my mother had immediately seen that a new era was beginning. On the day after Mao's death she had reported for work at her depas'uuent. She had been at home for five years, and now she wanted to put her energy to use again. She was given a job as the number seven deputy director in her department, of which she had been the director before the Cultural Revolution. But she did not mind. To me in my impatient mood, things seemed to go on as before. In January 1977, my university course came to an end. We were given neither examinations nor degrees. Although Mao and the Gang of Four were gone, Mao's rule that we had to return to where we had come from still applied. For me, this meant the machinery factory. The idea that a university education should make a difference to one's job had been condemned by Mao as 'training spiritual aristocrats.

The Marines were not even under McChrystal’s command at this point; they reported directly to Marine leadership at Central Command in Tampa, Florida. The problem of fractured command identified in the last Bush administration review remained almost a year later.8

If you're bored with something, act as if you're seeing it for the first time. Look at it with new eyes. Pretend you're seeing it as a film director, theme park designer or your Aunt Josie—anything that provides a change in perspective. To beat boredom, make the familiar unfamiliar.

So he asked, “How ’bout yourself?” “I’m the director,” I replied. Bobbing his head side to side to emphasize his question, he asked, “Director of…?” “Dude,” I said, “I’m the director of the FBI. You work for me.” Another awkward pause. Finally, he said, “Oh, you look so different online.

I AM WRITING IN A time of great anxiety in my country. I understand the anxiety, but also believe America is going to be fine. I choose to see opportunity as well as danger. Donald Trump’s presidency threatens much of what is good in this nation. We all bear responsibility for the deeply flawed choices put before voters during the 2016 election, and our country is paying a high price: this president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego driven, and about personal loyalty. We are fortunate some ethical leaders have chosen to serve and to stay at senior levels of government, but they cannot prevent all of the damage from the forest fire that is the Trump presidency. Their task is to try to contain it. I see many so-called conservative commentators, including some faith leaders, focusing on favorable policy initiatives or court appointments to justify their acceptance of this damage, while deemphasizing the impact of this president on basic norms and ethics. That strikes me as both hypocritical and morally wrong. The hypocrisy is evident if you simply switch the names and imagine that a President Hillary Clinton had conducted herself in a similar fashion in office. I’ve said this earlier but it’s worth repeating: close your eyes and imagine these same voices if President Hillary Clinton had told the FBI director, “I hope you will let it go,” about the investigation of a senior aide, or told casual, easily disprovable lies nearly every day and then demanded we believe them. The hypocrisy is so thick as to almost be darkly funny. I say this as someone who has worked in law enforcement for most of my life, and served presidents of both parties. What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay.

What he meant was that for over forty years, the leaders of our government had understood that a president and an FBI director must be at arm’s length. The FBI is often called upon to investigate cases that touch on the president’s senior aides and affect the course of his presidency. To be credible—both in reality and in perception—the FBI and its director cannot be close with the president.

Under the leadership of Henry Kissinger, first as Richard Nixon’s national security adviser and later as secretary of state, the United States sent an unequivocal signal to the most extreme rightist forces that democracy could be sacrificed in the cause of ideological warfare. Criminal operational tactics, including assassination, were not only acceptable but supported with weapons and money. A CIA internal memo laid it out in unsparing terms:        On September 16, 1970 [CIA] Director [Richard] Helms informed a group of senior agency officers that on September 15, President Nixon had decided that an Allende regime was not acceptable to the United States. The President asked the Agency to prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him and authorized up to $10 million for this purpose. . . . A special task force was established to carry out this mandate, and preliminary plans were discussed with Dr. Kissinger on 18 September 1970.

As it typically was, my hotel room was alarmed in all kinds of ways, and all around me in the hotel were agents. And as they typically did, the agents gave me a device with a button to push in the event of dire emergency. I was afraid of this thing and always put it far away from me in a hotel room, so I didn’t accidentally touch it during the night. This night, I put it on a countertop in the outer room and went to sleep in the bedroom, far away from it. I didn’t tell Patrice I had put the button on the counter in the outer room, the exact place where she was changing quietly at 2:00 A.M. so as not to wake me. She must have put something on top of the button, because there was pounding on the door about five seconds later. She opened the door a crack to see the lead agent standing at an odd angle, wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts. He was holding his arm so she couldn’t see his hand behind his back. He looked very tense. “Is everything all right, ma’am?” “Yes. I’m just getting ready for bed.” “Are you sure everything is all right, ma’am?” “Yes.” “Can I see the director, ma’am?” “He’s sleeping in the other room.” “Will you check on him, please?” Patrice walked to the bedroom door, saw me, and reported back. “I see him there sleeping. He’s fine.” “Thank you, ma’am. Sorry to bother you.” What Patrice couldn’t see, but I learned the next morning, was that there were agents stacked down the wall on either side of the door, guns held low and behind their backs. She had touched the button. My bad.

Replaying in my mind the Martha Stewart, Leonidas Young, and Scooter Libby cases, I argued that if we weren’t going to hold retired generals and CIA directors accountable for blatantly lying during investigations, how could we justify jailing thousands of others for doing the same thing? I believed, and still believe, that Petraeus was treated under a double standard based on class. A poor person, an unknown person—say a young black Baptist minister from Richmond—would be charged with a felony and sent to jail.

Being a leader, whether you are the CEO, the admiral, the general, the chairperson, or the director for an office of two, is difficult. As a leader you must always appear to be in command, even on those days when you struggle with the pressures of the job. You must be confident. You must be decisive. You must smile. You must laugh. You must engage with your employees and be thankful for their work. You must have the look of a person in charge. You must instill in your men and women a sense of pride that their leader can handle any problem.

Museum Work and Museum Problems” course, the first academic program specifically designed to cultivate and train men and women to become museum directors and curators. In addition to the connoisseurship of art, the “Museum Course” taught the financial and administrative aspects of running a museum, with a focus on eliciting donations. The students met regularly with major art collectors, bankers, and America’s social elite, often at elegant dinners where they were required to wear formal dress and observe the social protocol of high culture. By 1941, Sachs’s students had begun to fill the leadership positions of American museums, a field they would come to dominate in the postwar years.

To those inclined to defend Trump, they might consider how it would have looked if President Obama had called the FBI director to a one-on-one dinner during an investigation of senior officials in his administration, then discussed his job security, and then said he expected loyalty. There would undoubtedly be people appearing on Fox News calling for Obama’s impeachment in an instant. This, of course, was not something I could ever conceive of Obama doing, or George W. Bush, for that matter. To my mind, the demand was like Sammy the Bull’s Cosa Nostra induction ceremony—with Trump, in the role of the family boss, asking me if I have what it takes to be a “made man.” I did not, and would never.

The president opened the conversation by explaining, “Once you are director, we won’t be able to talk like this.” What he meant was that for over forty years, the leaders of our government had understood that a president and an FBI director must be at arm’s length. The FBI is often called upon to investigate cases that touch on the president’s senior aides and affect the course of his presidency. To be credible—both in reality and in perception—the FBI and its director cannot be close with the president. So one final time, President Obama and I had the kind of conversation two college classmates might. We discussed and debated hard issues that were not under the FBI director’s purview, like using drones to kill

I laid out my five expectations that first day [as FBI Director] and many times thereafter: I expected [FBI employees] would find joy in their work. They were part of an organization devoted to doing good, protecting the weak, rescuing the taken, and catching criminals. That was work with moral content. Doing it should be a source of great joy. I expected they would treat all people with respect and dignity, without regard to position or station in life. I expected they would protect the institution's reservoir of trust and credibility that makes possible all their work. I expected they would work hard, because they owe that to the taxpayer. I expected they would fight for balance in their lives. I emphasized that last one because I worried many people in the FBI worked too hard, driven by the mission, and absorbed too much stress from what they saw. I talked about what I had learned from a year of watching [a previous mentor]. I expected them to fight to keep a life, to fight for the balance of other interests, other activities, other people, outside of work. I explained that judgment was essential to the sound exercise of power. Because they would have great power to do good or, if they abused that power, to do harm, I needed sound judgment, which is the ability to orbit a problem and see it well, including through the eyes of people very different from you. I told them that although I wasn't sure where it came from, I knew the ability to exercise judgment was protected by getting away from the work and refreshing yourself. That physical distance made perspective possible when they returned to work. And then I got personal. "There are people in your lives called 'loved ones' because you are supposed to love them." In our work, I warned, there is a disease called "get-back-itis." That is, you may tell yourself, "I am trying to protect a country, so I will get back to" my spouse, my kids, my parents, my siblings, my friends. "There is no getting back," I said. "In this line of work, you will learn that bad things happen to good people. You will turn to get back and they will be gone. I order you to love somebody. It's the right thing to do, and it's also good for you.

First and foremost,” says Harlowe. “In regard to the burning of the Vanderbilt Hotel, I want to make it clear how disgusted I am by the state of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. This once-proud institution has become target practice for magicians two summers in a row. I blame this on a failure of leadership, and so I am relieving Chief Director Elizabeth Crowe of her duties, effective immediately. I will be stepping in to fill that position as well—” I’m just about to turn to Elsie to say how horrible this news is when the screen fades to black and Dylan Van Helsing’s face emerges, his bright red pupils piercing. My breath catches in my throat. “Dylan Van Helsing here to interrupt your regularly scheduled drivel. Ignore the silly faun—she can’t protect you any more than the last Prime Minister. Allow me to show you what real power looks like.

There has been so much misinformation spread about the nature of this interview that the actual events that took place merit discussion. After being discreetly delivered by the Secret Service to the FBI’s basement garage, Hillary Clinton was interviewed by a five-member joint FBI and Department of Justice team. She was accompanied by five members of her legal team. None of Clinton’s lawyers who were there remained investigative subjects in the case at that point. The interview, which went on for more than three hours, was conducted in a secure conference room deep inside FBI headquarters and led by the two senior special agents on the case. With the exception of the secret entry to the FBI building, they treated her like any other interview subject. I was not there, which only surprises those who don’t know the FBI and its work. The director does not attend these kinds of interviews. My job was to make final decisions on the case, not to conduct the investigation. We had professional investigators, schooled on all of the intricacies of the case, assigned to do that. We also as a matter of procedure don’t tape interviews of people not under arrest. We instead have professionals who take detailed notes. Secretary Clinton was not placed under oath during the interview, but this too was standard procedure. The FBI doesn’t administer oaths during voluntary interviews. Regardless, under federal law, it would still have been a felony if Clinton was found to have lied to the FBI during her interview, whether she was under oath or not. In short, despite a whole lot of noise in the media and Congress after the fact, the agents interviewed Hillary Clinton following the FBI’s standard operating procedures.

The director is preparing a presidential finding that would authorize a hostage rescue mission. She thinks the connection to you and Freddy, and the attempted assassination, will help sway the president. He’s not running for reelection and if we can convince him that this won’t start World War III, I think we have a chance. You did save his life after all.” “Even so, he’s not going to green-light a hostage rescue on Russian soil.” “Don’t be so sure. The operators will all use AKs to make it look like it’s a Russian criminal syndicate hit on the son of bratva leadership, just enough plausible deniability and confusion to make this a nonattributable action. Believe me, if you knew half the classified history of this place, you’d know this is one of the most sane paramilitary operations the CIA has ever proposed. If denied, we’ll have no choice but to pass it to Alpha Group via diplomatic channels.

FOCUS ON GENERATING REVENUE THE DOJ FOUND THAT virtually every branch and tributary of the city’s bureaucracy—the mayor, city council, city manager, finance director, municipal court judge, municipal court prosecutor, court clerk, assistant clerks, police chief—all were enmeshed in an unending race to raise revenue through municipal fines and fees:            City officials routinely urge Chief [Tom] Jackson to generate more revenue through enforcement. In March 2010, for instance, the City Finance Director wrote to Chief Jackson that “unless ticket writing ramps up significantly before the end of the year, it will be hard to significantly raise collections next year. . . . Given that we are looking at a substantial sales tax shortfall, it’s not an insignificant issue.” Similarly, in March 2013, the Finance Director wrote to the City Manager: “Court fees are anticipated to rise about 7.5%. I did ask the Chief if he thought the PD [police department] could deliver 10% increase. He indicated they could try.” The importance of focusing on revenue generation is communicated to FPD officers. Ferguson police officers from all ranks told us that revenue generation is stressed heavily within the police department, and that the message comes from City leadership. The evidence we reviewed supports this perception.

During the silence that followed, I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way. The president of the United States just demanded the FBI director’s loyalty. This was surreal. To those inclined to defend Trump, they might consider how it would have looked if President Obama had called the FBI director to a one-on-one dinner during an investigation of senior officials in his administration, then discussed his job security, and then said he expected loyalty. There would undoubtedly be people appearing on Fox News calling for Obama’s impeachment in an instant. This, of course, was not something I could ever conceive of Obama doing, or George W. Bush, for that matter. To my mind, the demand was like Sammy the Bull’s Cosa Nostra induction ceremony—with Trump, in the role of the family boss, asking me if I have what it takes to be a “made man.” I did not, and would never. I was determined not to give the president any hint of assent to this demand, so I gave silence instead. We looked at each other for what seemed an eternity, but was maybe two seconds or so. I stared again at the soft white pouches under his expressionless blue eyes. I remember thinking in that moment that the president doesn’t understand the FBI’s role in American life or care about what the people there spent forty years building. Not at all.

I see many so-called conservative commentators, including some faith leaders, focusing on favorable policy initiatives or court appointments to justify their acceptance of this damage, while de-emphasizing the impact of this president on basic norms and ethics. That strikes me as both hypocritical and wrong. The hypocrisy is evident if you simply switch the names and imagine that a President Hillary Clinton had conducted herself in a similar fashion in office. I've said this earlier but it's worth repeating: close your eyes and imagine these same voices if President Hillary Clinton had told the FBI director, 'I hope you will let it go,' about the investigation of a senior aide, or told casual, easily disprovable lies nearly every day and then demanded we believe them. The hypocrisy is so thick as to be almost darkly funny. I say this as someone who has worked in law enforcement for most of my life, and served presidents of both parties. What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay. Whatever your politics, it is wrong to dismiss the damage to the norms and traditions that have guided the presidency and our public life for decades or, in many cases, since the republic was founded. It is also wrong to stand idly by, or worse, to stay silent when you know better, while a president so brazenly seeks to undermine public confidence in law enforcement institutions that were established to keep our leaders in check...without these checks on our leaders, without those institutions vigorously standing against abuses of power, our country cannot sustain itself as a functioning democracy. I know there are men and women of good conscience in the United States Congress on both sides of the aisle who understand this. But not enough of them are speaking out. They must ask themselves to what, or to whom, they hold a higher loyalty: to partisan interests or to the pillars of democracy? Their silence is complicity - it is a choice - and somewhere deep down they must know that. Policies come and go. Supreme Court justices come and go. But the core of our nation is our commitment to a set of shared values that began with George Washington - to restraint and integrity and balance and transparency and truth. If that slides away from us, only a fool would be consoled by a tax cut or different immigration policy.

In the shock of the moment, I gave some thought to renting a convertible and driving the twenty-seven hundred miles back alone. But then I realized I was neither single nor crazy. The acting director decided that, given the FBI’s continuing responsibility for my safety, the best course was to take me back on the plane I came on, with a security detail and a flight crew who had to return to Washington anyway. We got in the vehicle to head for the airport. News helicopters tracked our journey from the L.A. FBI office to the airport. As we rolled slowly in L.A. traffic, I looked to my right. In the car next to us, a man was driving while watching an aerial news feed of us on his mobile device. He turned, smiled at me through his open window, and gave me a thumbs-up. I’m not sure how he was holding the wheel. As we always did, we pulled onto the airport tarmac with a police escort and stopped at the stairs of the FBI plane. My usual practice was to go thank the officers who had escorted us, but I was so numb and distracted that I almost forgot to do it. My special assistant, Josh Campbell, as he often did, saw what I couldn’t. He nudged me and told me to go thank the cops. I did, shaking each hand, and then bounded up the airplane stairs. I couldn’t look at the pilots or my security team for fear that I might get emotional. They were quiet. The helicopters then broadcast our plane’s taxi and takeoff. Those images were all over the news. President Trump, who apparently watches quite a bit of TV at the White House, saw those images of me thanking the cops and flying away. They infuriated him. Early the next morning, he called McCabe and told him he wanted an investigation into how I had been allowed to use the FBI plane to return from California. McCabe replied that he could look into how I had been allowed to fly back to Washington, but that he didn’t need to. He had authorized it, McCabe told the president. The plane had to come back, the security detail had to come back, and the FBI was obligated to return me safely. The president exploded. He ordered that I was not to be allowed back on FBI property again, ever. My former staff boxed up my belongings as if I had died and delivered them to my home. The order kept me from seeing and offering some measure of closure to the people of the FBI, with whom I had become very close. Trump had done a lot of yelling during the campaign about McCabe and his former candidate wife. He had been fixated on it ever since. Still in a fury at McCabe, Trump then asked him, “Your wife lost her election in Virginia, didn’t she?” “Yes, she did,” Andy replied. The president of the United States then said to the acting director of the FBI, “Ask her how it feels to be a loser” and hung up the phone.

There’s another level at which attention operates, this has to do with leadership, I argue that leaders need three kinds of focus, to be really effective, the first is an inner focus, let me tell you about a case that’s actually from the annals of neurology, there was a corporate lawyer, who unfortunately had a small prefrontal brain tumour, it was discovered early, operated successfully, after the surgery though it was a very puzzling picture, because he was absolutely as smart as he had been before, a very high IQ, no problem with attention or memory, but he couldn’t do his job anymore, he couldn’t do any job, in fact he ended up out of work, his wife left him, he lost his home, he’s living in his brother spare bedroom and in despair he went to see a famous neurologist named Antonio Damasio. Damasio specialized in the circuitry between the prefrontal area which is where we consciously pay attention to what matters now, where we make decisions, where we learn and the emotional centers in the midbrain, particularly the amygdala, which is our radar for danger, it triggers our strong emotions. They had cut the connection between the prefrontal area and emotional centers and Damasio at first was puzzled, he realized that this fellow on every neurological test was perfectly fine but something was wrong, then he got a clue, he asked the lawyer when should we have our next appointment and he realized the lawyer could give him the rational pros and cons of every hour for the next two weeks, but he didn’t know which is best. And Damasio says when we’re making a decision any decision, when to have the next appointment, should I leave my job for another one, what strategy should we follow, going into the future, should I marry this fellow compared to all the other fellows, those are decisions that require we draw on our entire life experience and the circuitry that collects that life experience is very base brain, it’s very ancient in the brain, and it has no direct connection to the part of the brain that thinks in words, it has very rich connectivity to the gastro- intestinal tract, to the gut, so we get a gut feeling, feels right, doesn’t feel right. Damasio calls them somatic markers, it’s a language of the body and the ability to tune into this is extremely important because this is valuable data too - they did a study of Californian entrepreneurs and asked them “how do you make your decisions?”, these are people who built a business from nothing to hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, and they more or less said the same strategy “I am a voracious gatherer of information, I want to see the numbers, but if it doesn’t feel right, I won’t go ahead with the deal”. They’re tuning into the gut feeling. I know someone, I grew up in farm region of California, the Central Valley and my high school had a rival high school in the next town and I met someone who went to the other high school, he was not a good student, he almost failed, came close to not graduating high school, he went to a two-year college, a community college, found his way into film, which he loved and got into a film school, in film school his student project caught the eye of a director, who asked him to become an assistant and he did so well at that the director arranged for him to direct his own film, someone else’s script, he did so well at that they let him direct a script that he had written and that film did surprisingly well, so the studio that financed that film said if you want to do another one, we will back you. And he, however, hated the way the studio edited the film, he felt he was a creative artist and they had butchered his art. He said I am gonna do the film on my own, I’m gonna finance it myself, everyone in the film business that he knew said this is a huge mistake, you shouldn’t do this, but he went ahead, then he ran out of money, had to go to eleven banks before he could get a loan, he managed to finish the film, you may have seen

They are underrepresented as directors of state companies and in administrative positions. • Except for the music and sport sectors and the armed forces, they rarely assume leadership positions of national and international projection. • The presence of blacks and mulattos in mass media is still feeble, especially in television and cinema. • According to statistics, black and racially mixed people occupy labor and social positions that do not correspond with the educational levels that they have attained.

Alice Heath, a student of Richard’s at the Harvard Kennedy School and one of his current teaching assistants, experienced this maxim very clearly when she started working with state child welfare agencies, whose mission is to prevent child abuse and neglect. The children and families they work with face very tough circumstances. Unfortunately, there is often no policy choice that a child welfare agency’s leadership can make that is likely to completely prevent abuse or neglect. “Completely preventing abuse or neglect would likely require draconian measures that would not be good for anyone. The best an agency can do is make the choice that has a higher probability of a better outcome relative to the other choices. Even with the best decisions there will still, sadly, be a high chance that some children suffer abuse and neglect. I have seen state legislators and commentators fail to understand this idea over and over, reading every tragic incident as a decision-making failure rather than the result of a set of choices where the best option is not a good option. As a result, state child welfare directors too often have very short terms and agencies lack stable leadership, which only makes things worse for the children and families who need help.

The C.I.A. had identified individuals in the Taliban leadership who claimed to disagree with Mullah Mohammad Omar’s policy of providing sanctuary to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda because harboring terrorists deprived the Taliban government—formally known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan—of international recognition and aid.

Dr. Woody Burton, the Director of Schools for Lake County, exudes a passion for education. His diverse experiences, from military service to educational leadership, shape his strategic approach to improving schools.

William Burton catalyzes positive change as the Director of Schools for Lake County Schools in Tiptonville, TN. With a background as a United States Army Veteran and extensive experience in education leadership, he brings a unique perspective to the table.

Disney animation was sort of like a dog that had been beaten again and again Byron Howard, the director, told me when I asked him to describe the mindset back then. The crew wanted to succeed, but they were afraid of pouring their hearts into something that wasn’t going to succeed. You could FEEL that fear and in notes meetings everyone was so afraid of hurting someone’s feelings that they held back. We had to learn we weren’t attacking the person. We were attacking the project. Only then could we create a crucible that boils away everything that has not working and leaves the strongest framework. Earning trust takes time. There is no shortcut to understanding that we really do rise and fall together.

Identify Your Strengths With Strengths Finder 2.0 One tool that can help you remember your achievements is the ‘Strengths Finder’ "assessment. The father of Strengths Psychology, Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D, along with Tom Rath and a team of scientists at The Gallup Organization, created StrengthsFinder. You can take this assessment by purchasing the Strengths Finder 2.0 book. The value of SF 2.0 is that it helps you understand your unique strengths. Once you have this knowledge, you can review past activities and understand what these strengths enabled you to do. Here’s what I mean, in the paragraphs below, I’ve listed some of the strengths identified by my Strengths Finder assessment and accomplishments where these strengths were used. “You can see repercussions more clearly than others can.” In a prior role, I witnessed products being implemented in the sales system at breakneck speed. While quick implementation seemed good, I knew speed increased the likelihood of revenue impacting errors. I conducted an audit and uncovered a misconfigured product. While the customer had paid for the product, the revenue had never been recognized. As a result of my work, we were able to add another $7.2 million that went straight to the bottom line. “You automatically pinpoint trends, notice problems, or identify opportunities many people overlook.” At my former employer, leadership did not audit certain product manager decisions. On my own initiative, I instituted an auditing process. This led to the discovery that one product manager’s decisions cost the company more than $5M. “Because of your strengths, you can reconfigure factual information or data in ways that reveal trends, raise issues, identify opportunities, or offer solutions.” In a former position, product managers were responsible for driving revenue, yet there was no revenue reporting at the product level. After researching the issue, I found a report used to process monthly journal entries which when reconfigured, provided product managers with monthly product revenue. “You entertain ideas about the best ways to…increase productivity.” A few years back, I was trained by the former Operations Manager when I took on that role. After examining the tasks, I found I could reduce the time to perform the role by 66%. As a result, I was able to tell my Director I could take on some of the responsibilities of the two managers she had to let go. “You entertain ideas about the best ways to…solve a problem.” About twenty years ago I worked for a division where legacy systems were being replaced by a new company-wide ERP system. When I discovered no one had budgeted for training in my department, I took it upon myself to identify how to extract the data my department needed to perform its role, documented those learnings and that became the basis for a two day training class. “Sorting through lots of information rarely intimidates you. You welcome the abundance of information. Like a detective, you sort through it and identify key pieces of evidence. Following these leads, you bring the big picture into view.” I am listing these strengths to help you see the value of taking the Strengths Finder Assessment.

Paperback 204 pages ISBN: 9780996871839 Available in print, digital and audiobook formats If you have ever experienced infighting, such as a team ora department pitting itself against another team or department; if you have ever worked for a micromanaging and overbearing boss; if you have ever navigated the changes that come with a merger or other significant restructuring process, then you have had a front-row seat to organizational drama. David Emerald’s 3 Vital Questions: Transforming Workplace Drama was written for you! “It is impossible to describe what a profound impact the 3 Vital Questions have had on my life, personally and professionally.” —Chris Nagel, Director of Leadership & Team Development, Cleveland

Leading Lake County Schools in Tiptonville, TN, William Burton serves as the Director of Schools, showcasing dedicated educational leadership with over ten years of experience. He prioritizes positive relationships, strategic planning, and innovation to enhance student success amid evolving educational landscapes.

Eventually, when I decided to leave coaching and compete again, we got married and moved to the small town of Hills, Iowa, which is south of Iowa City. Before we knew it, Lyn was pregnant with Jake, and our family was growing. I was growing too, now responsible for three lives beside my own. I was waiting on tables a couple of days a week and earning a small stipend from the Hawkeye wrestling club. We had a small house out in the country, and we were happy, but finances were tight. Like most couples starting out, we had to work together and stay together. As a waiter, I wasn’t bringing in a lot of money, and the Hawkeye club couldn’t pay much other than assist with training expenses. We started our family, had no health insurance, and struggled to make ends meet. Things weren’t working so well. I remember my conversation with Coach Gable. His honesty gave me some great clarity. Wanting big things for our lives simply isn’t enough. We need a deep obsession to act on what we desire. It’s chosen suffering and self-learning through the deepest desire to prevail. Toward the end of my first-year wrestling for the Hawkeye wrestling club, a job at Hofstra opened up. The Athletic Director called me for a meeting about their program. A few Hofstra alumni called as well. A good friend, Guy Truicko, wanted to help me get the position.

Hal Gregersen, the executive director of the MIT Leadership Center, confirmed my suspicions with actual research. In interviews with five hundred well-established entrepreneurs and inventors, he found that about a third attributed their innovative ability to the early support of either Montessori teachers, or teachers in what Gregersen deemed Montessori-like schools.

Russia is changing Russia’s face and not towards democracy. Karen Dawisha, a Professor at Miami University, told PBS Frontline that “Instead of seeing Russia as a democracy in the process of failing, see it as an authoritarian system that’s in the process of succeeding.”22 Putin is that authoritarian. For him to succeed at the mission of damaging the United States he will use all tools of the Russian statecraft such as forging alliances, but also including blackmail, propaganda, and cyberwarfare. To Putin, the best of all possible worlds would be an economically crippled America, withdrawn from military adventurism and NATO, and with leadership friendly to Russia. Could he make this happen by backing the right horse? As former director of the KGB, now in control of Russia’s economic, intelligence and nuclear arsenal, he could certainly try.

Digital leaders including board directors today need to understand that the linear management skills are not sufficient to lead today’s nonlinear digital world with the deep learning curve.

Bob, a former marine, was a bit old-school as director, not given to what he saw as touchy-feely stuff. In the grueling days immediately after September 11, 2001, for example, his wife had prodded Bob to be sure his people were holding up under the stress. Early the next morning, or so I was told, he dutifully telephoned key members of his staff—whose offices were all within a ten-second walk of his—asking, “How’re you doing?” When each offered the perfunctory reply of “Fine, sir,” he replied, “Good,” and hung up.

So my deputy director was right; we really were screwed, and it was as painful as anticipated. We had tasted the poison of our political system, and I had taken all the hits I anticipated, but I also felt great relief because the FBI and I were finished with Hillary Clinton and her emails. If only.

There was no way a president would be dining alone with the FBI director. Someone at the White House had to have told him that it just wasn’t done, at least not since the days of Nixon and Hoover.

As the United States Attorney in Manhattan and as the number-two person in the Department of Justice—and later as FBI director—I made about what a first-year lawyer at a New York law firm was paid.

Instead, I stared out at the monuments and wondered what had happened to me and our country that the FBI director was talking about this with our incoming president

Sean Joyce, who served as my first deputy director, became famous in the organization for hitting “reply all” when some bureaucrat within the Bureau sent an all-employee message instructing personnel to shelter in place or flee in the event of an “active shooter” in the workplace. Sean replied that any special agent who took that advice and hid or failed to run toward an active shooter would be fired.

awkward televised hug from the new president of the United States. My curtain call worked. Until it didn’t. Still speaking in his usual stream-of-consciousness and free-association cadence, the president moved his eyes again, sweeping from left to right, toward me and my protective curtain. This time, I was not so lucky. The small eyes with the white shadows stopped on me. “Jim!” Trump exclaimed. The president called me forward. “He’s more famous than me.” Awesome. My wife Patrice has known me since I was nineteen. In the endless TV coverage of what felt to me like a thousand-yard walk across the Blue Room, back at our home she was watching TV and pointing at the screen: “That’s Jim’s ‘oh shit’ face.” Yes, it was. My inner voice was screaming: “How could he think this is a good idea? Isn’t he supposed to be the master of television? This is a complete disaster. And there is no fricking way I’m going to hug him.” The FBI and its director are not on anyone’s political team. The entire nightmare of the Clinton email investigation had been about protecting the integrity and independence of the FBI and the Department of Justice, about safeguarding the reservoir of trust and credibility. That Trump would appear to publicly thank me on his second day in office was a threat to the reservoir. Near the end of my thousand-yard walk, I extended my right hand to President Trump. This was going to be a handshake, nothing more. The president gripped my hand. Then he pulled it forward and down. There it was. He was going for the hug on national TV. I tightened the right side of my body, calling on years of side planks and dumbbell rows. He was not going to get a hug without being a whole lot stronger than he looked. He wasn’t. I thwarted the hug, but I got something worse in exchange. The president leaned in and put his mouth near my right ear. “I’m really looking forward to working with you,” he said. Unfortunately, because of the vantage point of the TV cameras, what many in the world, including my children, thought they saw was a kiss. The whole world “saw” Donald Trump kiss the man who some believed got him elected. Surely this couldn’t get any worse. President Trump made a motion as if to invite me to stand with him and the vice president and Joe Clancy. Backing away, I waved it off with a smile. “I’m not worthy,” my expression tried to say. “I’m not suicidal,” my inner voice said. Defeated and depressed, I retreated back to the far side of the room. The press was excused, and the police chiefs and directors started lining up for pictures with the president. They were very quiet. I made like I was getting in the back of the line and slipped out the side door, through the Green Room, into the hall, and down the stairs. On the way, I heard someone say the score from the Packers-Falcons game. Perfect. It is possible that I was reading too much into the usual Trump theatrics, but the episode left me worried. It was no surprise that President Trump behaved in a manner that was completely different from his predecessors—I couldn’t imagine Barack Obama or George W. Bush asking someone to come onstage like a contestant on The Price Is Right. What was distressing was what Trump symbolically seemed to be asking leaders of the law enforcement and national security agencies to do—to come forward and kiss the great man’s ring. To show their deference and loyalty. It was tremendously important that these leaders not do that—or be seen to even look like they were doing that. Trump either didn’t know that or didn’t care, though I’d spend the next several weeks quite memorably, and disastrously, trying to make this point to him and his staff.

A different FBI director might have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor in late June, after Bill Clinton’s visit to the attorney general’s plane. I still think that would have been unfair to Hillary Clinton, but I can imagine another director doing it that way rather than trying to protect the institutions in the way I did.

After several minutes, my cell phone rang and a White House operator announced the president. He came on the line to say he was calling “just to see how you’re doing.” I replied that I was doing fine and had a lot going on. To make conversation, I told him the attorney general seemed to have hit the ground running with a good speech about violent crime. He replied, “That’s his thing.” The awkward conversation, which lasted less than a minute, struck me as yet another effort to bring me close, to ensure I was an amica nostra, a friend of ours. Why else would the president of the United States, who presumably had a million things to do, call the FBI director just to “see how you’re doing”? I got out of the car and joined the DEA leader, apologizing that the delay was because the president just wanted to say “wassup.

Bush could be impatient, and it drove me nuts that he started things early, but I was struck by his strong, and occasionally devilish, sense of humor. That year, 2004, he was in the thick of his reelection battle against Democrat John Kerry, who was hammering him for presiding over what Kerry called a “jobless” economic recovery. In one of our daily morning terrorism meetings with the president, FBI director Bob Mueller told him that a suspected Al Qaeda operative named Babar, whom we were closely monitoring, had just gotten a second job in New York. Mueller, not known as a comedian, then paused, turned his head toward me and added, “And then Jim said…” Bush looked at me, and so did Vice President Cheney. I froze. Before our meeting, Mueller and I had discussed Babar’s second job and I’d made a private joke to the FBI director that I hadn’t expected to repeat to the president, who could occasionally display a temper. Time slowed down, way down. I didn’t reply. The president prompted me. “What’d you say, Jim?” I paused and then, horrified, plunged in. “Who says you haven’t created any jobs; this guy’s got two.

close your eyes and imagine these same voices if President Hillary Clinton had told the FBI director, “I hope you will let it go,” about the investigation of a senior aide,

new president of the United States demanded my loyalty—to him, personally—over my duties as FBI director to the American people.

Writing in the New York Times, David Welch, a former research director for the Republican National Committee, argued that the rise of the Tea Party movement as a force in American politics was possible precisely because there is no longer a figure like Buckley to control the tone of the American right: In the 1960s, Buckley, largely through his position at the helm of National Review, displayed political courage and sanity by taking on the John Birch Society, an influential anti-Communist group whose members saw conspiracies everywhere they looked. Fast forward half a century. The modern-day Birchers are the Tea Party. By loudly espousing extreme rhetoric, yet holding untenable beliefs, they have run virtually unchallenged by the Republican leadership, aided by irresponsible radio talk-show hosts and right-wing pundits. While the Tea Party grew, respected moderate voices in the party were further pushed toward extinction. Republicans need a Buckley to bring us back.

More troubling is that when faced with an array of complex options,” the article says, “consumers tend to throw reason out the window and pick a product based on what’s easiest to evaluate, not what’s most important, says Sheena Iyengar, director of the Global Leadership Matrix Program at the Columbia (University) Business School. ‘We stick to the familiar or go by price because we don’t want to deal with so many choices and scrutinize label claims or nutrition information,’ she says.

The FBI should be independent and totally divorced from politics, which was what the ten-year term for a director was designed to ensure.

What he meant was that for over forty years, the leaders of our government had understood that a president and an FBI director must be at arm’s length.

Yvonne Sell, the Hay Group’s director of the leadership and talent practice in the United Kingdom, who did the study, found such leaders are rare: only 18 percent of executives attained this level. Three-quarters of leaders with three or fewer strengths in people skills created negative climates, where people felt indifferent or demotivated. Lame leadership seems all too prevalent—more than half of leaders fell within this low-impact category.

In the absence of those predictions, product and strategy decisions are far more difficult and time-consuming. I often see this in my consulting practice. I’ve been called in many times to help a startup that feels that its engineering team “isn’t working hard enough.” When I meet with those teams, there are always improvements to be made and I recommend them, but invariably the real problem is not a lack of development talent, energy, or effort. Cycle after cycle, the team is working hard, but the business is not seeing results. Managers trained in a traditional model draw the logical conclusion: our team is not working hard, not working effectively, or not working efficiently. Thus the downward cycle begins: the product development team valiantly tries to build a product according to the specifications it is receiving from the creative or business leadership. When good results are not forthcoming, business leaders assume that any discrepancy between what was planned and what was built is the cause and try to specify the next iteration in greater detail. As the specifications get more detailed, the planning process slows down, batch size increases, and feedback is delayed. If a board of directors or CFO is involved as a stakeholder, it doesn’t take long for personnel changes to follow.

It is necessary to learn from others’ mistakes. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself. ADMIRAL HYMAN G. RICKOVER

10. Appreciate that character is the result of conduct. As Aristotle taught us, we know people primarily by what they do. What others say about them, or what they say about themselves, may or may not be true.

This is key to an idea I introduced earlier in the book: The director, or leader, can never lose the confidence of his or her crew. As long as you have been candid and had good reasons for making your (now-flawed-in-retrospect) decisions, your crew will keep rowing. But if you find that the ship is just spinning around—and if you assert that such meaningless activity is, in fact, forward motion—then the crew will balk. They know better than anyone when they are working hard but not going anywhere. People want their leaders to be confident. Andrew doesn’t advise being confident merely for confident’s sake. He believes that leadership is about making your best guess and hurrying up about it so if it’s wrong, there’s still time to change course.

Below are just a few of the infinite questions that, if asked with high emotion and a deep desire to seek out constructive answers, will stimulate new thoughts to resolve your job and career challenges. By asking courageous questions, your brain will come up with seemingly miraculous answers so that you’ll better manage negativity and fear. And when you better manage negativity and fear, you’ll be in a much better state of mind to pursue and land your next job. How have others effectively dealt with this problem in the past? How do I turn this problem into an adventure and meet this challenge with a positive outlook? What can I learn from this, and how can I enjoy the process? What resources are available to me in the community that will assist me in getting a new job? What do I need to research to gain better control of my future? Whom can I recruit for my job transition campaign “board of directors” that will advise me and support my efforts in a positive way? How can I be a hero to myself and others by meeting this challenge head-on with confidence and self-respect? Am I spending more time on the solution than on the problem? Am I displaying leadership qualities to the members of my family so they can be proud of me? What do I have to read to make myself a more educated job campaigner? How can I make those I love more comfortable and at ease with my situation? Whom do I have to meet so I can achieve my goals quickly?

Australia’s default stance in its dealings with the world is not one of leadership. More often, it is derivative and responsive. It usually takes its lead from the United States when it can and deals with crises when it must. Or as the former director-general of the Office of National Assessments Allan Gyngell puts it: ‘How much has to do with leadership and how much is sitting around waiting for something to happen and looking at what the Americans are doing and saying, “we will have a bit of that, but not too much”?