King’s Less-Known Speech Teaches 3 Leadership Lessons We Can All Use Now

Issue 218 — January 16, 2023

January 16, 2023: The nation celebrates the birthday of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King today.

For many, the holiday acknowledging Dr. King’s transformational significance in American History has become primarily a welcome long weekend off from work. For others, it’s the opportunity to reflect on Dr. King’s legacy in secular and religious settings, as President Joe Biden did at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King had been the pastor.

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I Wish My Mother Had Taken Mackenzie Scott’s Advice

Issue 215 — December 19, 2022

My mother’s Wedgewood Bone china and Tiffany crystal wine, water, and cordial glasses glisten in the hutch I bought, where they could be not just stored but seen.

Mother had kept them packed away for many years. Why? Because she was “saving them for nice,” as she put it.

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Hoda Kotb’s Excellent Advice for Women at Forbes 50 Over 50: “Say It Out Loud.”

Issue 214— December 12, 2022

“Say what you want out loud.”

That was the most quoted takeaway from the fireside chat interview between Morning Joe co-anchor and founder/partner with Forbes in the “Know Your Value” initiative, Mika Brzezinski and NBC’s Today Show cohost Hoda Kotb at the gathering of women chosen for Forbes 50 Over 50 2022 on December 8 at Forbes’ New York headquarters.

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Are You the One Who Sent The $2000 Check?

Issue 211 — November 21, 2022

If you sent that check — it came last week without information as to the donor — to Take The Lead, thank you! This post will be published to coincide with Giving Tuesday so whoever you are, your timing could not be more perfect.

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Six (Nonpartisan) Leadership Lessons from the 2022 Elections

Issue 210 — November 14, 2022

I believe so strongly that #votingisleadership that I created a hashtag for it. Civic engagement is in my view a critical part of leadership. We are all shaped by our communities and so must be part of shaping them.

Politics, as political scientist Walter Truett Anderson defined it, is the clash of uncertainties from which social realities are constructed.

Goodness knows that several big uncertainties in the cultural zeitgeist are clashing.

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