It is quite unusual to find a quality as humility amongst the most important leadership quality, especially if it is found at the top of the list.
Ego is the most powerful force in business—for good or bad. More powerful than money, more potent than talent. Ego is the invisible line-item on every company’s profit and loss statement. The problem arise when ego is subtly managing us in the absence of 1) humility, 2) curiosity, and 3) veracity.
This is the theory of Dave Marcum and Steve Smith, the authors of egonomics. Their work was sparked by Jim Collins’ landmark research in Good to Great, who discovered that leaders of companies who break the gravity of good to become truly great have two common—but extremely rare— characteristics: 1) fierce personal resolve/ego drive, 2) extreme personal humility. We hope to make that unique combination far less rare in business.
Curious about this new concept I read some more about this theory and looked back at my 10 years of corporate experience as I was reading. I have to say it make complete sense. Some of the skills and attitudes considered most appropriate for leaders in business are actually counterproductive.
Below is the link to a 10 min. video that present this theory in more details. It is also a promotion of the workshop they offer, however there is a lot of interesting information to be found as well.
http://www.whatisegonomics.com/
Dave Marcum and Steve Smith also have a blog containing information about their theory and its different applications.
Lara Briozzo Jagersma
Randy Pausch is a respected university professor in computer science that in the last six month has become an internationally renown and inspiring speaker thanks to his ‘last lecture’.
Randy Pausch is in the terminal stage of pancreatic cancer and despite that he has an incredibly positive attitude towards life that he shared in this lecture.
This below is a 70 minutes lecture.
After watching this lecture it is impossible not to think about your own dreams and how far you have already come in realizing them.
There are a lot of tools you can use in this lecture, a lot of encouragement and light-hearted laughter.
I sincerely hope you wil succeed in realizing your dreams.
If you want to find out more about Randy Paush visit his website:
Lara Briozzo Jagersma
