Jo McDermott

Leadership

  • Get Off Your Butt! DIY Executive Development

    I’m going to rant a little l talk to people all the time who are sitting around waiting for their company to “do something” about their development.  They know that they are talented (and for the most part, the company… Continue reading

  • New Job? Here’s What You Do:

    First Thing The first thing you do is remember that you don’t know what you don’t know.  Be very careful about your assumptions.  If you had the same job in a different organization, remember it might not be the same… Continue reading

  • What You Believe About How the Organization Works is WRONG

    If you are the CEO-Founder of the organization, nothing I’m going to say applies to you.  If you are anyone else, it probably does.  We all have beliefs about how organizations work.  For the most part, at least some of… Continue reading

  • Great Leaders and Their Paradoxes

    I have always loved the concept of paradoxes.  A paradox is a self-contradictory proposition.  Paradoxes  are the embodiment of complexity.  Great leaders are full of them. Extreme Self Confidence v. Humility: I don’t think you can be a leader without… Continue reading

  • Lead from where you are

    Tops, Middles, Bottoms Are you the same kind of leader at work that you are at home? at church? with your friends?  If you’re like most people, probably not.  Why is that?  Most people have a picture of the “power… Continue reading

  • Fail. Fail. Fail.

    Failing Isn’t Fun. I really, really to hate to fail.  In fact, I hate it so much that I rarely admit that I failed when I do–it’s not that I lie about it–I just don’t even admit to myself.  So… Continue reading

  • Leadership Lessons From MLK

    His Name Always Comes Up In my leadership classes, I always asked my students for the names of great leaders.  I’ve never had a class where Martin Luther King’s name didn’t come up.  This week is the 44th anniversary of… Continue reading

  • Rot at the Top

    Is All Corporate Leadership Rotten? When I taught leadership, I always discussed Manfred Kets de Vries’ (see his book, The Leadership Mystique)  theory that  when organizations go down the drain, it is usually because of rot that started at the… Continue reading