Learning from Martin Sorrell will be perfect. I won't leave him alone, I'll be asking him questions the whole day, just like a striker. He's going to have to tell me everything.
My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that's what I try to do.
It's easier to coach a technical founder how to be CEO and manage a business than it is to teach a professional CEO the nuances of that particular business.
Leadership has become a heavy industry. Concern and interest about leadership development is no longer an American phenomenon. It is truly global. Though I will probably be in less demand, I wanted to move on.
I have spent years as a leadership coach to the very wealthy and have been able to get behind the eyes of some of the world's best, studying the minute details of what makes a person great.
The Leadership Training Institute of America is a cultural think tank providing training and opportunity in leadership development and cultural dynamics.
I think a CEO lives or dies in whether he's been able to hold on to elements of culture that are needed in the company.
I think we're ready for succession. We just must try to do it right.
I've been in entertainment, politics, business, business coaching, public affairs, documentaries, programming, news, theater. So, there aren't many things I see that I haven't seen something like that before.
If a better person emerges, I will hand over management control.
I fell in love with the topic of leadership. For three decades, that has been a major focus of my hands-on work: listening to and working with leaders, their teams and their organizations.
If I can impact an executive and his or her team, I can help to change the culture of an organization.
Talent is the No. 1 priority for a CEO. You think it's about vision and strategy, but you have to get the right people first.
Why do I need succession planning? I'm very alert, I'm very vibrant. I have no intention to retire.
Too many people who come in as CEO of a poorly performing company assume that none of the incumbent executives are worth retaining. That's not always the case. Sometimes the talent is there, but it's not being led well.
Something I had learned from 30 years as a psychotherapist turned Fortune 500 executive coach when helping people to calm down is that it is much less important what you tell others than what you enable them to tell you and, in the process, tell themselves that results in them calming themselves down.
Change in leadership does not only come in a pin stripe suit with a bald spot on its head.
I taught my executive team how to argue.
In one of the largest studies ever done on the effects of executive coaching - over 70,000 respondents - we learned that the biggest mistake coaches make is in not following up. It didn't matter who the coach was or what method they used. Failing to follow up made any approach to coaching ineffective.
We started Kotter International to improve leaders' ability to deal with big, important transformations in organizations - and in their lives.
What I didn't appreciate about myself is that I'm good at coaching leaders.
Strong succession planning is a critical element of all the Johnson enterprises.
Like any startup in hyper-growth mode, growth often brings change, and with it, evolution in the executive team.
I wouldn't be a CEO today if I didn't do different things to build capabilities and build experiences because to come a leader, you need varied experiences.
In my ministry, I've been fortunate to privately advise many national leaders, celebrities and people of unusual influence.
