A few days ago, my son graduated from high school, just a few days shy of Canada’s 150th birthday. The school that he, like his two sisters before him, graduated from is a public, co-ed, French-language high school in a predominantly English-speaking city.
There are entire sections in libraries devoted to leadership and many great leaders and thinkers have spent their lives trying to define and describe leadership. And there are innumerable courses and programs designed to help people become good leaders by focusing on one aspect or another of what makes a great leader.
I’m naturally optimistic but there are, I think, objective reasons for us to be concerned. I fear that we may be witnessing a fundamental shift in our socio-economic environment, one that could completely upend the kind of life that many of us, in developed countries, expect and take for granted.
Academic research has shown that happiness makes employees more productive while conversely, lower happiness is systematically associated with lower productivity. Similarly, a growing body of research supports the connection between diversity in the workplace and higher profitability
I’ve been suffering from migraines for over 30 years. I’m much better now but at one point in my life, in my mid-thirties, I reached a peak of 19 days per month.
As I press “enter” to publish this article, I’m a few hours away from addressing an audience of leaders on the topic of courage in the workplace.
I was having lunch recently with a colleague from another organization. We have similar jobs, are about the same age, have been married to our respective spouses for a long time and have children in either high school or university.
Most people know that judo, like many corporations, has a well-defined system of ranks. While companies use titles like “Associate”, “Director” or “Vice-President”, judo uses a system of belts: White to brown for the Mudansha and black for the Yudansha.
If you took a look at my LinkedIn profile, you would notice, in 2009, a 7-month gap in my employment history. That’s because on this very week exactly 8 years ago, I lost my job as an executive of a major financial institution, a job I had been extremely proud of and that in many ways, defined how I thought of myself.
As I mentioned in a previous post titled “Dad, What Degree Should I Get?”, I have two daughters in university and a son wrapping up his senior year of high school. My children went through their teens in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-2008, when the “good times” – if there ever was such a thing for most people – screeched to a halt and a difficult period set in for so many in this country and elsewhere.
I had the privilege this afternoon, after class, to have an extended conversation with a number of my Judo students which left me quite thoughtful.
Perhaps it’s because of the dead leaves on the ground, but I’ve found myself having a number of discussions these past few weeks about depression, anxiety and mental illness in its many, many forms. It was a heart-wrenching conversation with a colleague from work just a few days ago that finally decided me to write this post.
