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Posts Tagged ‘values’

Trust, Commitment and Caring – Lou Holtz Philosophy

Posted in Association Management Companies, CM Services, Leadership, Uncategorized, Volunteerism, tagged , , , on September 17, 2014| 1 Comment »

Just about everyone knows who Lou Holtz is.  Some people love him, others may not care for him (especially if you’re not a Notre Dame fan).  For those who don’t know, Lou Holtz was a very successful (mostly college) football coach.  He is probably best known for coaching Notre Dame from 1986 to 1996.  During that time he lead Notre Dame to an unmatched record and a National Championship.

Coach Holtz credits much of his success to the lessons he learned from his mentors.  He also credits it to a philosophy he honed during his early years of coaching.  While Holtz has many beliefs, he boils the philosophy down to three key points:  Trust, Commitment and Care.

I have heard coach Holtz speak.  He is very motivational.  I recently watched an interview with him on a Golf Channel show called, “Feherty”.

I was pleasantly surprised that coach Holtz’s philosophy to success so closely mirrors the values we believe in at our company.  You see, we have said for twenty years that there are six core values to success in our business – Trust, Commitment, Responsibility, Care, Growth and Enjoyment.

More specifically, we say:

  • Be trustworthy
  • Commit ourselves to each other, our company and the industries we serve
  • Act responsibly
  • Care about others
  • Grow every day
  • Have fun

We try to apply these values in every action we take and every interaction we have.  We believe that doing so leads to success.

Coach Holtz at least agrees with Trust, Commitment and Care – they are his cornerstone values.

What values do you consider critical to success?

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Was Machiavelli Right? Are the Best Leaders Situational or Steadfast?

Posted in Association Management Companies, CM Services, Leadership, Uncategorized, Volunteerism, tagged , , , , on February 24, 2014| 1 Comment »

I subscribe to an electronic newsletter published by booz&co called ‘strategy+business’.  It often has interesting business and leadership related articles.  If you read this blog regularly, you know I enjoy reading about leadership, particularly business leadership.  I even have a few opinions of my own on the topic that I occasionally share.

A recent article in ‘strategy+business’ caught my eye.  It was titled, “After 500 Years, Why Does Machiavelli Still Hold Such Sway?”.  I was drawn to the title because I don’t think much of the leadership style Machiavelli espoused.  However, over the years I have met many people whom I would characterize as “Machiavellian” – incorporating the values (or lack thereof) described by Machiavelli in his work ‘The Prince’.

So the writer of the article makes his claim that Machiavelli’s theories are alive and well today in leaders who practice “realism” or “situational leadership”.  He goes on to describe a study he conducted of business school students.  He provided the students with two case studies of successful business leaders.  One was a leader who had developed core values and stuck by those values even when doing so seemed to be against his “best interests”.  The second was a leader whose behavior toward others was “situational”.  If he needed to be a ruthless bully, he would be.  If he needed to be compassionate and caring, he would be.

Guess what  – the students wanted to be more like the “situational leader”.

I thought the article was interesting, but flawed.  I don’t think having uncompromising values and being situational in one’s behavior are mutually exclusive.  In other words, I believe a leader can have core values by which he governs his decisions while at the same time can recognize that every situation and every person is different.

Unlike Machiavelli, I believe great leaders develop core values and make decisions based on those values – never compromising them.  What do you think?

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