By ERIN WHITE | Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Last November, veteran nurse Dianne Baker was named acting supervisor for the outpatient cardiac rehabilitation center at a hospital near Philadelphia.

Ms. Baker, whose new duties included managing three other employees, quickly found herself at sea. She wasn't sure how to oversee former peers and stumbled over the paperwork and finances. Monthly financial reports were "like reading gibberish to me," she says. After operations m...

Character and Traits in Leadership

Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing. — Warren Bennis, Ph.D. On Becoming a Leader

Building Excellence

Leaders do not command excellence, they build excellence. Excellence is “being all you can be” within the bounds of doing what is right for your organization. To reach excellence you must first be a leader of good character. You must do everything you are supposed to do. Organizations will no...

Motivation and Leadership

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. — Explorer Ernest Shackleton in a 1890 job ad for the first Antarctic expedition

A person's motivation is a combination of desire and energy directed at achieving a goal. It is the cause of action. Influencing someone's motivation means getting them to want to do what you know ...

Leading & Leadership

Goals

Your thinking skills can be considered directional skills because they set the direction for your organization. They provide vision, purpose, and goal definition. These are your eyes and ears to the future, allowing you to recognize the need for change, when to make it, how to implement it, and how to manage it. You find vision by reaching for any available reason to change, grow, and improve. Just as you perform preventive maintenance on your car, you must ...

Leadership, Management, Command, & Control

The four pillars of an organization are Leadership, Management, Command, and Control. They are important for every leader and manager to understand because they directly drive the organization. Used properly, the business will grow; used improperly, the business will sink.

These are not distinct processes, but rather concepts that all leaders perform in order to build and strengthen their organizations.

As the above diagram shows, the four pill...

Concepts of Leadership

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. — Warren Bennis

Good leaders are made not born. If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a never ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience (Jago, 1982). This guide will help you through ...