Over at our sister site, reliabilitytalent.com we have put up a new post entitled “The Cardinal Sins of Interviewing” which identifies the top three things you should avoid when undertaking the interview process.  The three are:

1. Be unprepared
2. Get Sidetracked
3. Ask stupid questions

Check out the post for the full details on why these three are the cardinal sins of interviewing.

Through this ‘blog’ I will ‘cherry pick’ research papers or books for leadership information and put my particular take on these items. I will also review them in the context of my own experiences, now working in civilian street after 24 years in the Navy a different kind of management and leadership is required along with a different kind of humour, uniform, reporting structure etc.

The most important and exciting part of the blog for me is the feedback that I hope to receive and hopefully this will initiate discussion regarding the different aspects of leadership. I consider myself a capable manager developing my leadership ability and I hope this allows my insight to be informed at the very least.

Leadership is such a difficult subject due to the many different perceptions surrounding what is a great leader. In many cases when we ask people about great leaders or influential leaders the normal suspects arrive; Ghandi, Churchill, Eisenhower et al. or the smattering of sports coaches/managers. At a leadership seminar a couple of years ago the facilitator quite often used sporting coaches (particularly rugby coaches, even more particularly All Black’s coaches) as great leaders, shining examples of modern leadership techniques. At the time being still new to the concept of leadership as a ‘seminar subject’ I listened and took on board the message but I had a fundamental problem with some of the messages.

Sports coaches enjoy such a niche position that some if not many of the leadership approaches employed do transfer easily into everyday business needs. But for a manager of the All Blacks rugby team, a fundamental difference with his team is that every one of the squad desperately wants to be there, it is the fulfilment of their dreams a pinnacle of their career. Being an All Black carries a great deal of kudos and obviously many other benefits. For the average engineer, corporate assistant, labourer or cleaner, some of these items may be lacking. This is not to undermine the values of these roles just to say that a different kind of leadership is necessary for these roles. This establishes to me at least that leadership is very contextual and this is important particularly when attending seminars or reading books or articles on leadership.