The Leadership Challenge Forum 2009 kicked-off this morning with Barry Posner's final stateside keynote for the next year. That's right folks, Barry is off on a tour of the world. Together with his wife, Jackie Schmidt Posner, Barry is headed to teaching gigs in Hong Kong, Australia, and Turkey, in addition to visits to multiple other countries where he will be collecting data on and case studies of leadership for the fifth edition of The Leadership Challenge.
But before we get to that book, Jim and Barry are currently at work on their next book, tentatively to be published next summer.The initial writing process and the seedlings it produced were the subject of Barry's speech.
Barry started out by referencing his speech at last year's event, when he and Jim were just starting to ponder this book--it was to be a book about millennials and what leadership means to them. However, their research over the last year has led them to understand that leadership doesn't really mean anything different to millennials than it did to prior generations. So the new book has evolved into Enduring Leadership Truths.
So far, Jim and Barry have determined Five Leadership Truths:
Truth #1 - Leadership development begins with self development; it’s about the individual; what is the first question most people want to ask a new leader?
Truth #2 – You can’t do it alone
Truth #3 – The foundation of Leadership is Credibility
Truth #4 – You either lead by example or you don’t lead at all.
Truth #5 – Being forward-looking most differentiates leaders.