Recovering Our Leadership: Seven Intentions for 2012

Happy New Year! While no one knows what 2012 has up its sleeve, based on my own post-executive experience working with leaders across industries over the last eight years, no one doubts it’s time for a positive “pivot.”

My hope is that will include a new sense of executive responsibility when it comes to humanism, collectivism, and capitalism with care for ethics and fairness. This, I believe, is the net / net of what protestors are saying, and it will continue to grow in resonance.

Along those lines, and in keeping with my commitment to practice principles of recovery in all my affairs, here's what I hope from the leaders I know, and those I will meet, in the year ahead:

1. Executives make decisions that emphasize ethics and profits equally.

2. Boards help change senior executive compensation such that it has a fair and maximum ratio in relation to the lowest paid worker in the organization.

3. Leaders create / remake their organizational cultures to value their people and the communities they serve just as they value hitting their numbers.

4. When it comes to writing checks for political influence, executives remember that just because something is legal, it doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

5. Self-reflection and action in equal measure lead to better decisions. Executives who keep too busy change their schedules to find time to balance “doing” with “being.”

6. We each go on our quest for what fires us up—discover who we are at our very best, and align / realign with that.

7. Find a time this year to ask a few people you trust—who know you best, “What are you most reluctant to tell me—that if I knew, it might be hard, but would help me?”

David Peck
The Recovering Leader

Comments

[Danilo Vargas]

Dave, I really like intention #7.

I think that exercising the muscle to look at ourselves and our behavior critically is not only hard, but without practice it becomes ever-harder in our fast-paced, nuclear "reactor" mode of work.

Asking people we trust to give it to us straight is awesome advice indeed.

I really like the phrasing you used. I intend to put into practice.

Thank you.

[David Peck]

Many thanks, Danilo.