Leadership – Evocateur

People Presence and Company Essence

May 28, 2021 evoker Emotional Intelligence, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Mergers and Acquisitions

The emotional force field at work and in M&A There are many force fields within companies: innovation and risk-tolerance force fields, or the shared knowledge force field across an enterprise that carry specific languages all their own. Fundamental to them all is the emotional force field (EFF) of trust and respect and inclusion that employees sense in their bones as they experience work dynamics day by day, zoom meeting by zoom meeting. Much of this[…]

“How Can I Fix Those People”

January 30, 2019 John Schuster Leadership

We all see messes and problems in the world that we don’t like and want to go away. Companies losing money, teachers on strike, government shutdowns that seem unnecessary. We gain and seek information on the messes and their cause, we form our opinions, we start to voice those opinions in small or in big ways, depending on our motivations But when it comes to messes, all kinds, there is one step to take before[…]

A New Year for Our Neglected Democratic Infrastructure

December 20, 2016 John Schuster Leadership, Self development

We are gearing up it appears, if legislative forecasting for 2017 can be believed, for a big spend on the long-neglected infrastructure of highways and sewers and bridges. It took us decades to get to this mandate and let’s hope we intelligently add to our public assets. Democracy itself has a less visible infrastructure, but one just as badly in need of repair. Like physical systems, we use the democratic infrastructure all the time: they[…]

I am in charge—NOT!

February 7, 2011 John Schuster Leadership, Self development

At times, we need to be in charge and be decisive. At other times, and just as often, we need to ride it out and surrender. Life is a series of lessons on discerning which strategy to employ at any particular time, for any particular dilemma. Our culture favors being in charge, of course. And this works for about half the time, and especially in the ascendant part of adulthood. Then, there is the other[…]

Executive Evocateurs: Masters at Developing Talent

July 16, 2010 John Schuster Articles, Leadership

Leaders do good business when they understand that they are getting results and growing and nurturing people. They know that as they go higher in the organization they gain increased authority, but the power to execute their plans is increasingly in the hands of the doers– middle managers down to the front-line performers. In other words, as authority increases, the power to execute decreases. This can be a problem, but the best executives know how[…]