5 ways to spot a great leader

By Melanie Williams

Life Health Pro Publications
October 24, 2012

Exactly what is it that sets apart great leaders from poor ones? Are there certain characteristics that make the difference in a leader’s effectiveness? According to Highland Consulting Group CEO Roxi Hewertson, who specializes in leadership development, there are. “Your attitudes and behaviors…are the biggest differentiators between great leaders and failing leaders.”
Here are the five behaviors and attitudes that distinguish great leaders from poor ones:
 Great leaders

1. Understand their own emotions. Emotional self-awareness is essential for great leadership. Great leaders know how to manage themselves and others in times of crisis and conflict.
2. Know their limits. The best leaders understand they can’t know and do everything. Instead, they leverage the skills they are good at and surround themselves with staff who posses complementary skills.
3. Have strong self-worth. Confidence is a product of high self-worth, while arrogance comes from fear or a sense of entitlement. The best leaders continuously test themselves, stretching, growing and learning.
4. Think positive. Great leaders view the world through the lens of abundance as opposed to scarcity, focusing on solutions, new ideas and silver linings. They may change course, but they never give up.
5. Value the greater good. Because of their strong confidence and sense of self-worth, great leaders have low ego needs and can therefore work for something greater than themselves. Their motto is “win/win or no deal.” Poor leaders

1. Dismiss others. Poor leaders don’t pick up on other people’s signals, showing a fundamental lack of empathy. They drive away staff members, who feel they are not trusted, heard, understood or respected.
2. Miss important cues. These leaders don’t understand the intricacies of organizational norms, hierarchies and politics. Often, they are leaders in name only.
3. Blame others. Poor leaders need to make someone wrong in order to feel right. You’ll rarely hear these leaders talk about how they plan to learn and grow from their mistakes.
4. Avoid conflict. Poor leaders fail to provide constructive criticism and attempt to dodge difficult work relationships. No team can be function well without the ability to resolve conflict.
5. Isolate themselves and their teams. These leaders are lone wolves who think only they or their teams are capable of doing a job. They believe that they are in it alone, and that no one understands them.

As Hewertson says, “Improving one’s emotional intelligence is a life-long journey—one that great leaders relish.”

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Crowley skews hard for Obama in disastrous presidential debate

The Washington Times

By Joseph Curl

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Another debate, another debacle for America’s media.

In the runup to the second presidential debate, CNN’s Candy Crowley declared that she would not just be a “fly on the wall” as she played the tiny role of moderator, that she would step in whenever she chose to say, “Hey, wait a second, what about X, Y, Z?”

And boy did she, cutting off Republican Mitt Romney repeatedly and often throwing the floor to President Obama with an open “let me give the president a chance here.”


More, she alone decided the topics for the debate, picking questions from the 80 so-called “undecided” voters chosen by the Gallup polling organization. Her selections were tailor-made for Mr. Obama — Mitt Romney’s tax plan, women’s rights and contraception, outsourcing, immigration, the Libya debacle (which gave Mr. Obama to finally say that the buck stops with him, not, as Hillary Clinton said, with her).

She even chose this question, directed to both men: “I do attribute much of America’s economic and international problems to the failings and missteps of the Bush administration. Since both of you are Republicans, I fear the return to the policies of those years should you win this election. What is the biggest difference between you and George W. Bush, and how do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?”

Ms. Crowley, who called Mr. Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as running mate a “ticket death wish,” asserted her unilateral power at the outset, telling the audience before the cameras went on that she planned to “give the debate direction and ensure the candidates give answers to the questions.”

After both candidates answered Question One, she blurted: “Let me get a more immediate answer” — whatever that means. But when Mr. Romney sought to correct falsehoods told by the president, she cut him off: “We have all these folks here.” In the end, Mr. Obama would get 9 percent more time.

At Question Two, Mr. Obama, asked by Mr. Romney how much he had cut federal oil permits, took over the floor — with Ms. Crowley’s silent approval. “Here’s what happened,” he said as he filibustered for a full minute. Mr. Romney sought to get the last word — as the president had the question before — but the moderator shut him down: “It’ doesn’t quite work like that.”

When Mr. Romney sought to counter Mr. Obama’s assertion after Question Three, Ms. Crowley again cut him off: “Before we get into a vast array….” she said before asking a completely different question.
The next question was pure Obama — workplace inequality (the president mention at every stop his Lily Ledbetter legislation). But the query gave him the platform to demand Americans pay for contraception for all women, saying the governor “feels comfortable having politicians in Washington decide the health care choices that women are making.”

For the record, Mr. Obama spoke for two minutes, then Mr. Romney, then Mr. Obama again. Ms. Crowley then rushed into the next question.

When the immigration question came up, both candidates gave their answers. Then the moderator once again butted in, ordering Mr. Romney to “speak to the idea of self-deportation.”

By then, Mr. Romney had had enough, and talked over her demands. “No, let — let — let me go back and speak to the points the president made and — and — and let’s get them correct.”

At the next question, the moderator lost all control. “Candy,” Mr. Obama said. “Hold on.” “Mr. President,” the governor said, “I’m still speaking.” They mixed it up for a bit, then Ms. Crowley said: “Sit down, Mr. Romney.”

The most shocking exchange took place on the Benghazi attack that left the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others dead.

Mr. Romney: “You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror? It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying.”

Mr. Obama made no defense. “Please proceed, governor.”

“I want to make sure,” Mr. Romney said. “Get the transcript,” the president said. Then Ms. Crowley jumped in to do her own fact-check, on the spot. “It — it — it — he did in fact, sir. … He did call it an act of terror.”

The truth is, he didn’t. The day after the attack, he said only this: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.” It took another two weeks before the White House would label the attack an act of terror.
The Obama people, of course, loved it — having blamed Mr. Obama’s dismal performance in the first debate on poor moderating.

“He’s back,” said Team O spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who lauded Ms. Crowley for her fact checking.
But then she caught herself and quickly added: “He was never really gone, but he’s back.”

Read more: CURL: Crowley skews hard for Obama in disastrous presidential debate - Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/17/curl-crowley-skews-hard-obama-disastrous-debate/?page=2#ixzz29bBZhdaf
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CEO threatens to fire employees if obama is reelected

This might not be right, but it could be an effective tactic to persuade the common worker to vote for Romney.  Actually, I think it is unnecessary, as it goes without saying, because most voting Americans already are feeling the economic effects of Obama's bad public policy and lack of experience in dealing with the problems at hand.   I give Mr. Siegel credit for being forward and blunt.

I share this article from By Noel Sheppard a writer with Newsbusters, an electronic news organization dedicated to exposing and combating  liberal media bias
October 09, 2012 | 17:57

David Siegel, the founder and CEO of real estate company Westgate Resorts, on Monday threatened to fire some employees if Barack Obama is reelected and carries out his plan to raise taxes on the so-called rich.
The following are highlights from an email message sent by Siegel to his staff that was obtained and verified as authentic by Gawker:

Subject: Message from David Siegel
Date:Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:58:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: [David Siegel]
To: [All employees]

To All My Valued Employees,

As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn't currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can't tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn't interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best.

Now, the economy is falling apart and people like me who made all the right decisions and invested in themselves are being forced to bail out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed 42 years of my life for. Yes, business ownership has its benefits, but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the costs of running a business have gotten out of control, and let me tell you why: We are being taxed to death and the government thinks we don't pay enough. We pay state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, sales and use taxes, payroll taxes, workers compensation taxes and unemployment taxes. I even have to hire an entire department to manage all these taxes. The question I have is this: Who is really stimulating the economy? Is it the Government that wants to take money from those who have earned it and give it to those who have not, or is it people like me who built a company out of his garage and directly employs over 7000 people and hosts over 3 million people per year with a great vacation?

Obviously, our present government believes that taking my money is the right economic stimulus for this country. The fact is, if I deducted 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, that's what happens to me.

Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate business, not kill it. However, the power brokers in Washington believe redistributing wealth is the essential driver of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change they want.

So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.

So, when you make your decision to vote, ask yourself, which candidate understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of protecting and saving your job. While the media wants to tell you to believe the "1 percenters" are bad, I'm telling you they are not. They create most of the jobs. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the "1%"; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country.

You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about.

 Signed, your boss,

 David Siegel

For those unfamiliar with Siegel, he is the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, a real estate and timeshare company.  He and his wife were also the subject of the recent documentary "The Queen of Versailles" about their desire to build the largest home in America.  According to Gawker, they were worth over a billion dollars in 2007, but that could be less now as a result of the real estate bust.

About the Author

Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.

Copyright © 2005-2012 NewsBusters

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/10/09/ceo-threatens-fire-employees-if-obama-reelected-and-raises-taxes#ixzz28qOeVGbA

The top 5 misconceptions about Christopher Columbus

 Today is Columbus Day, time to buy appliances on sale and contemplate other things that have nothing to do with Christopher Columbus. So much of what we say about Columbus is either wholly untrue or greatly exaggerated.

Tourists walk by the tomb of Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus in the Cathedral of Seville, Spain. Spanish researchers recently determined that Columbus' remains are indeed buried in the tomb, based on DNA results. Another Columbus tomb is located in the Dominican Republic, but DNA tests have not been conducted on the remains buried there.

He didn't 'discover' America, but he did earn a place in history.  Here are a few of the top offenders

By Christopher Wanjek LiveScience Bad Medicine columnist

updated 10/08/2012 12:19:50 PM

1. Columbus set out to prove the world was round.
If he did, he was about 2,000 years too late. Ancient Greek mathematicians had already proven that the earth was round, not flat.
Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. was one of the originators of the idea. Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. provided the physical evidence, such as the shadow of the Earth on the moon and the curvature of the Earth known by all sailors approaching land. And by the third century B.C., Eratosthenes determined our planet's shape and circumference using basic geometry. In the second century, Claudius Ptolemy wrote the "Almagest," the mathematical and astronomical treatise on planetary shapes and motions, describing the spherical Earth. This text was well known throughout educated Europe in Columbus' time. [Related: Earth Is Flat in Many People's Minds]
Columbus, a self-taught man, greatly underestimated Earth's circumference. He also thought Europe was wider than it actually was and that Japan was farther from the coast of China than it really was. For these reasons, he figured he could reach Asia by going west, a concept that most of educated Europe at the time thought was daft — not because the earth was flat, but because Columbus' math was so wrong. Columbus, in effect, got lucky by bumping into land that, of course, wasn't Asia.
The Columbus flat-earth myth perhaps originated with Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus; there's no mention of this before that. His crew wasn't nervous about falling off the earth.

2. Columbus discovered America.

Yes, let's ignore the fact that millions of humans already inhabited this land later to be called the Americas, having discovered it millennia before. And let's ignore that whole Leif Ericson voyage to Greenland and modern-day Canada around the year 1000. If Columbus discovered America, he himself didn't know. Until his death he claimed to have landed in Asia, even though most navigators knew he didn't. [Top 10 Intrepid Explorers]
What Columbus came across was the archipelago of the Bahamas and then the island later named Hispaniola, now split into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. On his subsequent voyages he went farther south, to Central and South America. He never got close to what is now called the United States.
So why does the United States celebrate the guy who thought he found a nifty new route to Asia and the lands described by Marco Polo? This is because the early United States was fighting with England, not Spain. John Cabot (a.k.a. Giovanni Cabot, another Italian) "discovered" Newfoundland in England's name around 1497 and paved the way for England's colonization of most of North America. So the American colonialists instead turned to Columbus as their hero, not England's Cabot. Hence we have the capital, Washington, D.C. — that's District of Columbia, not District of Cabot.


3. Columbus introduced syphilis to Europe.
This is hotly debated. Syphilis was present in pre-Columbus America. Yet syphilis probably existed for millennia in Europe as well, but simply wasn't well understood. The ancient Greeks describe lesions rather similar to that from syphilis. Perhaps by coincidence, an outbreak of syphilis occurred in Naples in 1494 during a French invasion, just two years after Columbus' return. This sealed the connection.
But aside from descriptions of syphilis-like lesions by Hippocrates, many researchers believe that there was a syphilis outbreak in, of all places, a 13th-century Augustinian friary in the English port of Kingston upon Hull. This coastal city saw a continual influx of sailors from distant lands, and you know what sailors can do. Carbon dating and DNA analysis of bones from the friary support the theory of syphilis being a worldwide disease before Columbus' voyages.
4. Columbus died unknown in poverty.
Columbus wasn't a rich man when he died in Spain at age 54 in 1506. But he wasn't impoverished. He was living comfortably, economically speaking, in an apartment in Valladolid, Crown of Castile, in present-day Spain, albeit in pain from severe arthritis. Columbus had been arrested years prior on accusations of tyranny and brutality toward native peoples of the Americas. But he was released by King Ferdinand after six weeks in prison. He was subsequently denied most of the profits of his discoveries promised to him by Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.
After his death, though, his family sued the royal crown, a famous lawsuit known as the Pleitos colombinos, or Columbian lawsuits, lasting nearly 20 years. Columbus' heirs ultimately secured significant amounts of property and other riches from the crown. Also, most European navigators understood by the end of the 15th century, before his death, that Columbus had discovered islands and a large land mass unknown to them.
5. Columbus did nothing significant.
With all this talk of a hapless Columbus accidentally "discovering" the New World, as well as the subsequent genocide of native cultures, it is easy to understand the current backlash against Columbus and the national holiday called Columbus Day, celebrated throughout North and South America. This isn't entirely fair.

While Columbus was wrong about most things, he did help establish knowledge about trade winds, namely the lower-latitude easterlies that blow toward the Caribbean and the higher-latitude westerlies that can blow a ship back to Western Europe. Also, while Columbus wasn't the first European to reach the Western Hemisphere, he was the first European to stay. His voyages directly initiated a permanent presence of Europeans in both North and South America.
News of the success of his first voyage spread like wildfire through Europe, setting the stage for an era of European conquest. One can argue whether the conquest was good or bad for humanity: that is, the spread of Christianity, rise of modernism, exploitation and annihilation of native cultures, and so on. But it is difficult to deny Columbus' direct role in quickly and radically changing the world.
Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work." His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.

 © 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.