Sometimes being innovative and being creative isn’t enough.  Sometimes you need persistence, luck, and fortitude—and more often than not, you just need to be in the right place at the right time. Just look at Verdi’s Stiffelio.
For the first time since its 1993 Metropolitan Opera debut, the Met presented Verdi’s seldom produced 1850 opera Stiffelio.  That it exists at all is something of a miracle, and that it turns out to be a terrific opera …

Recently, I read a new comic book entitled, Logicomix by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, that shines light on the world of philosophy, mathematics, and….organizational leadership. Logicomix is first and foremost a story about the search for the foundations of mathematics. While the book takes a studied look at many mathematicians and logicians it focuses on the life of Bertrand Russell. The drama of the story stems from the seemingly inevitable madness of 20th century …

One of the challenges in higher education is to rekindle or maybe even reformulate the entrepreneurial spirit.  The challenge that administrative and academic leadership faces is to create organizations with an entrepreneurial culture. Organizational leadership must become proactive and individuals must be rewarded for their proactive activities.
In an age of cost-cutting, where centralization has become the answer to the economic turbulence, the challenge for organizational leaders is to think about not what the organization will …

Some people want to see you fail. They want to see you stumble and they want to see you make the wrong decisions.
When you are proposing a new idea, agenda, or plan you will face what I like to call the “got-you game.” Like we’ve said on this blog before, the “got-you game” starts when you try to build support around your idea. People will say, “You’re idea is not good enough!” or “Can you …

Over the last number of years, I’ve had occasion to interview a number of artists who in many ways have to be considered a success. While success in the art world is subjective, I would consider a successful artist as someone who does not simply define themselves as an artist, but as a person who pursues artistic development as a career and who lives, for the most part, off an income directly or indirectly supported …

Charisma has been played up as a key to leadership. It is, however, a double-edge sword. In the hands of some it’s hope, in the hands of others it’s terror. Charisma is more of a promise of leadership, rather than leadership. In the final analysis charisma may get them on your side, but the real issue is execution. Charisma is a overplayed attribute. A characteristic that may be helpful, but not a attribute that determines …