#1 Leader; Market Leader; #1 Leadership Skill; Clinton on Leadership; Mumbai and Delhi

"…keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

The Leadership Challenge — tune in today March 27, 2pm ET to hear Jim Kouzes, co-author of one of my favorite books of all time, The Leadership Challenge. More info below, but first…

World's Best Leaders — Pope Francis tops FORTUNE's list of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders. Angela Merkel (if only the US followed her lead), Alan Mulally, Warren Buffett, and Bill Clinton round out the top 5. And coming in at #46 is Xavier Trias, the mayor of Barcelona! Take three minutes to click through the list of 50 and see how many you know (more telling who didn't make the list).

Bill Clinton on Leadership — gracing the cover of FORTUNE this week, Bill Clinton shares his views on leadership. Notes Clinton, the attributes of a leader include "steadfastness in pursuit of a goal, flexibility in determining how best to achieve it, the courage to make a hard decision, and the confidence to stay with it and explain it." Take 2 minutes to read through his additional attributes of an effective leader – it's worth it.

Why Pope Francis as Top Leader? — because he's accomplished more in a year than most leaders do in a lifetime, effecting change in a 2000 year old culture – and he's accomplished this through leading by example. Take 30 seconds to read Geoff Colvin's opening paragraph on why FORTUNE chose Pope Francis as the #1 world leader.

Market Leadership — Jim Stengel, the former CMO for P&G and author of Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies (and recent Growth Summit keynote), is writing a five part series on growth for FORTUNE. Here's a link to his first article on how the best companies use their values to power marketing. Isn't this what Pope Francis is doing? What does your company stand for and are you bringing (demonstrating) this message succinctly to the market? We're all in the P-P business – people to people – and ALL people purchase based on emotion, then justify with logic, not the other way around. Remember when the main selling point for IBM was "you won't lose your job if you go with IBM"? Leadership is all about making the emotional sell. Take 3 minutes to read Jim's first article.

#1 Leadership Skill — As we continue to survey audiences around the globe (Sofia and Prague this week) on which of the four Decisions their companies must focus: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash – the one which has raced to the top in ALL countries is People. It is obvious that the talent war is on and, to help win the battle fast-growing companies are turning to the Topgrading hiring method. The knowing how to interview and select the right talent is the #1 leadership skill. Have at least one person in every company learn & implement Topgrading with our Online Course (earn a Master Practitioner Certification), which includes Guided Implementation by a Topgrading Expert. You can enroll for the next Master Course – here – the course starts April 24.

Leadership Webinar 27 March, 2pm ET — Jim Kouzes is co-author of one of my favorite books of all time, The Leadership Challenge, which has sold over 2-million copies. And according to The Wall Street Journal, Jim is one of the twelve best executive educators in the United States. This is a rare opportunity to hear from him directly (many of you heard him keynote our FORTUNE Summit). He's conducting a free 1-hour live Webinar where he'll discuss his "Great Leadership Creates Great Workplaces" presentation. It's scheduled for March 27th at 2:00pm ET. This is a unique opportunity to spend time with a true business leadership legend (I have my oldest son listening as well). To grab your spot in the Webinar.

Mumbai and Delhi — next Tuesday, 1 April, is our Global Marketing Summit in Mumbai; then 2 – 4 April I'm in Delhi leading a Rockefeller Habits workshop for YPO.

COACHING:

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