Good Leaders Lead Without Deceiving Their Followers or Themselves

Most of us can't stand it when we learned that a politician, our boss, or someone in an authoritative position has been lying to us. In fact, nothing boils our blood quicker. Over the years, I have been fairly hard on those who stand up at the podium and tell us they are better leaders, claiming we should vote for them due to their leadership skills. I often laugh and think that if someone has to tell us they are great leader, then obviously they haven't been showing us or leading by example in the first place.

Indeed, what is that famous quote when it comes to politicians; "how do you know when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving." It is a sad state of affairs that we have to think like this, but perhaps the reason we do is we've been led astray far too many times by those who call themselves leaders. Of course there is something worse than a leader deceiving all of us, and that would be a sociopath or psychopath that also deceives themselves.

Now then, along this line of thinking there is a very good book I'd like to recommend that you read. In fact, it is written in simple layman's terms that anyone can understand, and it is a book that I own in my personal library. The title of the book is;

"Leadership and Self Deception - Getting Out of the Box," by The Arbinger Institute, Berrett-Koehler Publishing, 2000, 181 pages, ISBN: 1-57675-094-9.

The book explains how people lock themselves and their mind in a box and fail to understand the people around them. It's almost as if they don't care, and that their job is to accomplish the task, mission, or objectives without regards to the people involved, or the team which is to make it all happen. This can get leaders into trouble. Often leaders believe they are better than everyone else when they are not, and even if they are, that doesn't give them any advantage treating people like crap.

Often the authoritative style leadership works good in the beginning, but it also creates yes-men, and people who do not give their full potential, or volunteer pertinent information, or their full experience and observations to the cause. In this case it is the leaders fault for using their own particular style without regards to the people involved.

Thus, I think you'd be wise to read the book, it's a quick read, not more than a day and a half, with plenty of time to think in between the chapters. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative eBook on Change Management. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

How I Killed Pluto by Mike Brown Book Review

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

If you are older than 15, you probably learned at school that the solar system includes 9 planets. This was not always the case. In ancient times there were only seven. Seven is a good number. It is a meaningful number as there are seven days in a week. Earth was the center of the world and did not count while the Sun and the Moon did. During and after the Copernican revolution the number changed quite often. Earth become a planet but the sun and moon were deleted from the list. Then came William Herschel and discovered Uranus, then came Adams, Leverrier and Galle predicting and finding Neptune. Meanwhile more large objects were found in what's now called "The Asteroids' belt" (Ceres, Palas, Juno, Vesta) and for some time they were also counted as planets and finally Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto in 1930 making a nice (but meaningless) number of 9 Planets. Then come Mike Brown and on his pursuit to find the tenth planet actually killed the ninth.

Mike Brown's story is detailed in his book "How I killed Pluto and why it had it coming". Well Pluto is not to blame for anything. It is just there, but Mike managed to write a story which is a great mix of: history, biography, science, philosophy and even a thriller. A thriller you might ask? Yes, chapter nine is written as a thriller and describes how private observational data was exposed on the Internet and might have been used by other researchers to get first credit for Mike's discovery (I can't resist to compare this case to James Watson and Francis Crick who used Rosalind Franklin's data without her knowing about it to get the breakthrough they needed in their DNA research). In this chapter you will also read Mike's philosophical thoughts about science, why and when some observations must be kept secret, and why others must not.

The story reaches its climax when the International Astronomical Union (IAU), in 2006, decided what is a planet (and thus deciding if Mike discovered new planets or the opposite, reduced the number of planets by removing Pluto), and although Mike had much more to gain as a planet discoverer, he strongly felt that Pluto should not be a planet. If you need someone to blame for Pluto's fate, Mike is a good choice, and occasionally he gets a number of complaints on this issue. However, even though Pluto is not a planet, it is still important, as the rest of the distant objects out there, since their existence requires new theories about the creation of the solar system itself and Mike relates to this subject throughout the book.

As you read, you will enjoy the story, as it goes from Mike's early childhood to that of his daughter, Lilah. You do not have to be an astronomer to enjoy the book (although it helps). However, as an amateur astronomer I liked the fact that Mike is also an observer. Mike isn't just a researcher, looking through telescopes (and the biggest ones - Keck and Hubble) and at thousands of pictures of the sky to find new planets (sorry, not planets but "dwarf planets"!). Throughout the book Mike shows us what it is to observe, he describes how much he loves to watch the moon and the planets. The book ends with Mike describing the conjunction of Venus Jupiter and the moon. It happens from time to time and I remember hosting a star party to share this experience with people from my community. Also, Mike gives a good explanation about naming the new objects he finds, and although the meaning of Haumea, Makemake, Eris and Sedna is known and written in many places, the reasoning behind giving these names is detailed in the book.

Read more astronomical articles at The Venus Transit site.