What does it take to become a leader?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist responsible for bringing the concept of “Flow” into our awareness shares his viewpoint on this question:
A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses his core values, his basic identity…one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with [...]

6 Positive Guidelines from Michaëlle Jean, Canada’s Governor General

Michaëlle Jean, the Governor General of Canada, was interviewed by Aaron Wherry for the 14Jan 2008 Maclean’s magazine: Canadians Get Their Very Own Oprah (although I was disappointed to find the article about a leading Canadian woman a bit buried on the Maclean’s site) . In this article, she shared some of her strategies for [...]

Connecting with your Courage as an Essential Step

“One isn’t necessarily born with courage,
but one is born with potential.
Without courage,
we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.
We can’t be kind,
true,
merciful,
generous,
or honest.”Maya Angelou
It isn’t always easy to follow our own sense of rightness, our sense of personal integrity.
There are so many external — and even internal — pressures that push us to conform, [...]

Political Energy

This is a quote I found recently in reading David Korten’s new book, The Great Turning.
“Energy always flows either toward hope, community, love, generosity, mutual recognition, and spiritual aliveness or it flows toward despair, cynicism, fear that there is not enough, paranoia about the intentions of others, and a desire to control.”
Michael Lerner, from [...]

“Take a Better Picture” in the Year to Come

I love the attitude of Oliviero Toscani, known to many as the creative director of Benetton, in this quote from Volkskrant Magazine (6 May 2006):
“Globalism is a blessing. Proclaiming that McDonalds is bad and should be banned is like saying you’re against photography because you’ve seem an ugly picture somewhere. You know what you should [...]