Dave Anderson | Leadership Training and Consultation

Headline: West Point, The Best Public College in America — US News and World Report in 2011.

My alma mater opened in 1802 as an engineering school. In 2011 it was ranked third in the nation for undergraduate engineering, still lockstep with its 200-year-old original purpose. But at its heart, West Point is a leadership school.

The primary mission of West Point has been to provide leaders of character for our nation.

The question, “Can character be developed?” is answered every May when a new group of 1,000 second lieutenants complete four years of character development. In June of 1984, I began my journey from typical high school graduate to trained Army officer four years later. West Point changed my attitude about what the word character means.

Though I was trained to lead at West Point and led men in combat as a lieutenant in the Army, I was still a baby when it came to recognizing a problem on my team, coaching it and documenting it appropriately in the corporate world.

The Story

I hired Tory myself (name changed). He had the talent to be a top salesperson. He had the gift of gab and people were naturally drawn to him. In fact, we were a lot alike, and I enjoyed spending time with him.

The first time I noticed it, I raised an eyebrow and forgot about it. A month later, there it was again. I was thinking it through when my cell phone rang and I moved to a more urgent issue. Continue Reading…

Organizational or personal values describe HOW we operate. Many organizations claim to follow certain values because they list them on their websites, or they are on a poster in their offices.

However, many employees will say their organization has values published, but admit those companies do not live by them. Why? I believe there are two reasons:

The values are not defined. In other words, no one ever lays out exactly what each value looks like in practice.
The values are not consistently communicated. Organizations and individuals must be marinated in their values consistently to make them part of their character.

I was caught in the trap of my own making. I watched my company cut leadership training from its training curriculum in the early 2000’s. As the years went on, I began to bark about this lack of training for leaders. I believe that an organization that does not develop its next generation of leaders begins to stagnate and eventually staggers.

Then it hit me, complaining is not leading. I had complained for too long. Continue Reading…

Direct TV warns us: “Don’t have a grandson with a dog collar.” While I am tempted to blame my issues on the cable television industry, especially their “customer service centers”, I believe my issues, particularly my character issues are internally derived.

Becoming a leader of character is a process that never ends. It is a never ending road towards a destination you can never completely reach. But, leaders must take this road daily in order to grow and lead well.

I had the benefit of my father, General Jim Anderson, and four years of training at West Point to guide me towards being a leader of character. One of the reasons I began to blog, consult and coach on this subject is I realized how blessed I was compared to most aspiring leaders. I had guides! Continue Reading…

I really don’t care what I hear on the news. We do not have an issue with self-esteem in America.

My proof? The American Idol auditions! The fact that some of these people can gripe, scream and even cry on national television because Steven Tyler (Aerosmith: My favorite band!) told them they were not ready for the big time makes my case. Most people have too much self-esteem.

Most corporate sponsored leadership training is ineffective. Why?

Many consultants attempt to jam their round peg of a program into the square hole of an organization.
Most training has a short half -life because there lacks accountability within the client organizations to actually implement the ideas generated at training events.
Leadership training often focuses on what a leader needs to do to others versus what the leader needs to change in himself/herself.

Character is now a buzzword. I use the term buzzword here to describe words that we hear frequently yet are rarely defined by the speakers. The GOP nomination fight is full of buzzwords. I hear athletes described on Sportcenter using some of the same buzzwords as the politicians use. The problem is, if you dig into those words’ real meanings, you would see how much of a stretch the speakers are making.