Tag Archives: leadership skills

Sandberg: Are You Bossy or Merely Showing Leadership Skills?

Sheryl Sandberg with quote
I shared this photo of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg from the Take The Lead Facebook page (please go like the page right now, so that Take The Lead will earn a dollar!) onto my own Facebook page.

It has sparked an interesting and somewhat contentious conversation

Posted in 9 Ways Blog, Gender, Leadership, Workplace | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

How Do I Lead When I’m Not in Charge?

puzzle-person-keyI get a little nostalgic in October remembering my late parents whose birthdays were this month. So when Bonnie McEwan, president of the public interest communications firm Make Waves, suggested I write about how people in middle management can be leaders, I chuckled to think of one of my father’s favorite sayings:

“Everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time.”

That conjures up amusing pictures that equalize people regardless of their stature in the formal organization chart.

But the question of how to be a leader whether or not you have the formal authority isn’t about cutting others down to size. That famous scene from the 1980 movie 9 to 5 where the secretaries, played to the comedic hilt by Dolly Parton, Lilly Tomlin, and Jane Fonda, tie up their boss and make him beg for mercy. It’s sweet revenge in fantasy, but in reality comes from a place of feeling powerless to influence or lead in any other way…

Posted in 9 Ways Blog, Gender, Heartfeldt Leadership Advice, Inspiration, Leadership, No Excuses, Politics, Workplace | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

She’s Doing It: Barbara Strachan Gives Girls of Incarcerated Moms Hope

FBI Director Robert Mueller presents GSACPC’s Barb Strachan with the Community Leadership Award.I still have my Girl Scout badge sash and a newspaper article about the year my father chaired the cookie sale in Temple, TX. I was in junior high school and looked pretty dorky in the photo, wearing my full green regalia. Daddy–never one to do anything in a small way–bought 12 dozen boxes of cookies. The freezer was packed with Thin Mints and those butter cookies I love with tea, and my friends knew what they’d be having for snacks at my house for the next year.

But enough of that. Today’s Girl Scouts are doing much more interesting things. “She’s Doing It” this week features Barbara Strachan, the Program Director of Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB) for the Arizona Cactus-Pine Girl Scout Council

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She and He Are Doing It: Earl and Suzanne de Berge Lead Their Dreams in Guatemala, Part I

Suzanne & Earl De Berge

Suzanne and Earl de Berge

This week’s “She’s Doing It” column features both a he and a she: a couple who have worked together throughout their adult lives in their Arizona-based business and now are devoting their skills to amazing community development work in rural Guatemala. First of a two-part series.

Suzanne and Earl de Berge founded the public opinion research firm Behavior Research Center in 1965, with Suzanne running the business end and Earl the research end. Politically independent, I met them when BRC began doing opinion research for Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the early 1980’s. They were usually correct in their recommendations, helping us win ballot initiatives and score some big wins in a tough political climate. Here’s Earl’s description of what they are doing now, why this is their dream, and how they are leading–not following–it.

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Copyright 2010 Gloria Feldt