Leading from within, and without…

January 31st, 2010

Authentic leadership… a term bandied about quite a bit these days.

And for good reason. It is exactly the kind of leadership we hunger for — in our politicians, our sports heroes and at work.

But what exactly is it? Maybe, like pornography, hard to define but we know what it is when we see it. Lately, especially in the political and sports arenas, leadership has seemed more pornographic than authentic.
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ground balls…

October 30th, 2009

Ok, the World Series is upon us, and, as an old fan of the Yankees, having grown up with Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, the stuff that heroes and legends are made of, you might think that ‘ground balls’ references that particular fall classic.  Nope.  Ground balls, is to fly balls, I learned the other day, as slam dunk is to sinking a three-pointer at the buzzer, from the opposite end of the court.

Forget the sports metaphors.  One’s easy.  The other is hard.  What I learned about the beauty of ground balls occurred while playing outside with my nine-month old retriever puppy, who, in the seven months that we’ve been raising him, has not gotten the hang of retrieving, at all.  Until I threw him a ground ball.  And then another.  And another…
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