Dave Anderson | Tag Archive | Oxymoronic Leader

The Dad’s Against Not Keeping Score Society of Iowa Board of Directors met monthly.  Since the local chapter of the DANKS started, little progress had been made.  There had been a lot of meetings held but not a lot of decisions made.

The Chairman of the Board was Dan Slakovski.  He ran one of the largest bread companies in the state of Iowa.  It had been in the family for generations. Continue Reading…

The meeting ground to a halt as soon as Sean spoke.  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

This all too familiar phrase had killed many great ideas within Sean’s team.  But, Sean’s people had hope.   A recent restructuring placed a new leader between the team and Sean.  Maybe the new guy could get things done. Continue Reading…

Carole wanted a stress free team.  Her first boss was tough.  Being on his team was stressful.  Whenever she asked him for permission to do something, he would pepper her with questions.

At meetings, he would often let people argue. This made Carole uncomfortable.  Nothing on his team seemed to happen without debate.  But, now it was Carole’s turn to lead.  Continue Reading…

Brad decided to write a book about effective management techniques.  The title:  How to Win, described his leadership philosophy.  Just win baby!  That was his motto and it had served him well. Continue Reading…

The Oxymoronic Leader is not one person.  He is all of us.  I have been him and so have you.

Merriam-Webster defines an oxymoron as:

“a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly : something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements”

Am I leading if the adjective used to describe me is contradictory or incongruous to what a leader really is?  No!  Continue Reading…