"4 Vital Things Every Leader Must Do" - Effective Leadership Skills Video #1

I retired from the U.S. Army in 1987 as a lieutenant colonel, after 20 years of service. Since then, I've been the CEO of a company that creates leadership development resources. That amounts to a ton of experience leading and helping others become strong for leadership, work and life. Professionally speaking, it's been exciting because I've been able to work in areas that I'm passionate about.

Most of the time I do my work in front of a computer, in my office in my home in the Texas Hill Country. Most of my neighbors are retired. I mean, REALLY retired, as in hunting, fishing, playing golf and puttering around in a workshop. When I see them from time to time I get the feeling they believe I'm retired, too. Which I'm not. And probably never will be. Because my work is just too much fun. So, to set the record straight, when they ask me what I've been up to lately, I almost always reply, "Well, I've been sitting at my computer, writing my ass off, hour after hour, day after day."

Sometimes I go to Newport News, Virginia, where the main office of my company, Performance Support Systems, is located. The last time I was there, my business partner, Meredith Bell, and I were talking about baseline leadership concepts, and the discussion was so productive I told her we ought share it with others. So we turned the cameras on.

The result is a series of eight brief videos, each a segment of that discussion. What I like about them is that they deal with some of the basic issues surrounding leadership, stuff every manager should know up front when trying to get the best work from a group of people. So we produced the series for the supervisors, foremen, section chiefs, managers and business owners who are the primary users of our new online leadership coaching system, ProStar Coach.

Each video presents a bite-sized chunk of information. We'll share them on YouTube and other platforms. And I'll post them here. That way you, like my neighbors, will get to know the part of me that thinks about leadership and being strong for life, hour after hour, all day long.

Here is the first segment. Enjoy...



Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (2010 photo by Kathleen Scott, used with permission0