Tag: Leadership Skills

One of my leadership tips is “Do what you love…love what you do.”  That approach has served me well for more than 20 years.  In fact, my career started as a GS-3 Cooperative Education Student Trainee (NASA doesn’t even have GS-3s!) with the Department of Health & Human Services’ Regional Personnel Office in Dallas, Texas.  Following that tour, I worked for their Assistant Secretary for Personnel Administration in Washington, D.C.  From those experiences, I learned that I wanted a career in Human Resources, so I pursued a Master’s degree in HR management from Texas A&M University then became a Graduate Cooperative Education Student with NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in 1995.

Now, just a little more than 20 years later, I’ve been promoted as JSC’s fifth HR Director and recently became a member of the Federal Government’s Senior Executive Service (SES).  As the keystone of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, the SES was established to “…ensure that the executive management of the Government of the United States is responsive to the needs, policies, and goals of the Nation and otherwise is of the highest quality.”

Last year, I learned that NASA’s Associate Administrator (the highest ranking career senior executive at NASA) required new SES members to read The Shadow Side of Power: Lessons for Leaders.  So on Easter weekend 2015, I read it.  Now, as I prepare for my SES orientation, I thought it would be a good idea to review what I learned…

Click here to continue.

Last night was the Women’s Final Four Championship in NCAA Basketball.  No surprises, the University of Connecticut—one of the most heavily favored teams to win a championship in the history of sports—won big!  Their Senior Class went 151-5 with 4 National Championships–a true dynasty, reminiscent of the UCLA Men’s basketball teams of the 1960s & 70s—winners of ten NCAA national championships over a 12-year period, including a record seven in a row (no other men’s basketball team has won more than two in a row!).

In the Summer of 2014, I purchased Coach Wooden’s Leadership Game Plan for Success to discuss with Cody (12 years old at the time).  We discussed some big questions, like “What does the Golden Rule mean to you?” and “How can we apply Wooden’s two sets of threes?”

• Never lie, cheat, or steal
• Don’t whine, complain, or make excuses

The book provided rich fodder for father-son dialogue, but there are a number of leadership lessons for all of us as well.  As Wooden’s subtitle suggests, he provides 12 lessons for extraordinary performance and personal excellence.

Click here to continue.