The Truth About Grit

In 1869, Francis Galton published “Hereditary Genius,” his landmark investigation into the factors underlying achievement. Galton’s method was straightforward: he gathered as much information as possible on dozens of men with “very high reputations,” including poets, politicians, and scientists. That’s when Galton noticed something rather surprising: success wasn’t simply a matter of intelligence or talent. Instead, Galton concluded that eminent achievement was only possible when “ability combined with zeal and the capacity for hard labour.”

Lewis Terman, the inventor of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, came to a similar conclusion. He spent decades following a large sample of “gifted” students, searching for evidence that his measurement of intelligence was linked to real world success. While the most accomplished men did have slightly higher scores, Terman also found that other traits, such as “perseverance,” were much more pertinent. Terman concluded that one of the most fundamental tasks of modern psychology was to figure out why intelligence is not a more important part of achievement: “Why this is so, and what circumstances affect the fruition of human talent, are questions of such transcendent importance that they should be investigated by every method that promises the slightest reduction of our present ignorance.”

Unfortunately, in the decades following Terman’s declaration, little progress was made on the subject. Because intelligence was so easy to measure - the IQ test could be given to schoolchildren, and often took less than an hour - it continued to dominate research on individual achievement.

However, in recent years, psychologists have come up with a term to describe this mental trait: grit. 

Although the idea itself isn’t new - “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,” Thomas Edison famously remarked - the researchers are quick to point out that grit isn’t simply about the willingness to work hard. Instead, it’s about setting a specific long-term goal and doing whatever it takes until the goal has been reached. It’s always much easier to give up, but people with grit can keep going.

While stories of grit have long been associated with self-help manuals and life coaches - Samuel Smiles, the author of the influential Victorian text “Self-Help” preached the virtue of perseverance - these new scientific studies rely on new techniques for reliably measuring grit in individuals. As a result, they’re able to compare the relative importance of grit, intelligence, and innate talent when it comes to determining lifetime achievement. Although this field of study is only a few years old, it’s already made important progress toward identifying the mental traits that allow some people to accomplish their goals, while others struggle and quit. Grit, it turns out, is an essential (and often overlooked) component of success.

For more on this fascinating subject, see - http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/02/the_truth_about_grit/?page=full 

The Truth About Grit

Integrity and Character

INTEGRITY and CHARACTER are two values of Positive Leadership.

Integrity is ‘doing the right thing even when no one is looking.’ Unknown

‘A man’s reputation is what other people think of him; his character is what he really is.’ Unknown

Here are some reference materials which speak to these values:

Integrity and Character

The Benefits of Being Positive

Over the years much research has been carried out on the positive effects of being positive and the negative effects of being negative. The research is clear. It really does pay to be positive and the benefits include enhanced health and longevity, happiness, career advancement, athletic performance and team building. Being positive is not just a nice way to live. It’s the way to live. In this spirit here are 11 benefits of being positive:

1. Positive people live longer - In a study of nuns, those that regularly expressed positive emotions lived on average 10 years longer. (The Nun Study)

2. Positive work environments outperform negative work environments. (Daniel Goleman)

3. Positive, optimistic sales people sell more than pessimistic sales people. (Martin Seligman)

4. Positive leaders are able to make better decisions under pressure. (Heartmath.org)

5. Marriages are much more likely to succeed when the couple experiences a 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions whereas when the ratio approaches 1 to 1, marriages are more likely to end in divorce. (John Gottman)

6. Positive people who regularly express positive emotions are more resilient when facing stress, challenges and adversity. (Several Studies)

7. Positive people are able to maintain a broader perspective and see the big picture which helps them identify solutions where as negative people maintain a narrower perspective and tend to focus on problems. (Barbara Fredrickson)

8. Positive thoughts and emotions counter the negative effects of stress. For example, you can't be thankful and stressed at the same time. (Several Studies)

9. Positive emotions such as gratitude and appreciation help athletes perform at a higher level. (Heartmath.org)

10. Positive people have more friends which is a key factor of happiness and longevity. (Robert D. Putnam)

11. Positive and popular leaders are more likely to garner the support of others and achieve greater success in the workplace. (Several Studies)

The Benefits of Being Positive

Respect

Respect

Leadership Lessons from India

With the Indian economy predicted to grow by 7.5 percent this year, experts say it could be time for Western CEOs to learn some lessons from their Indian counterparts. While Western economies continue to stutter, a report forecasts India will soon return to the high-growth trajectory it enjoyed before the crisis. At the same time, new research published recently in the Harvard Business Review shows the heads of India's biggest companies have a very different approach to leadership from Western bosses.

These are some of the key differences between Indian and Western bosses:

• Indian leaders lead with a sense of social purpose.
• Indian firms invest an enormous amount in their employees' training and development, whereas U.S. firms have largely abandoned investing in employees, seeing it as a waste if they leave the business.
• Indian bosses place far less emphasis on shareholders than is typical at Western businesses. As a result they're more able to take a long-term view.
• U.S. companies often think about strategy in terms of chasing customers or pursuing market opportunities, but Indian firms will more often start by identifying their strengths, identifying their customers' needs, and then try to meet those needs.
• Indian leaders see themselves first and foremost as being a personal role model for their employees.

For more, see - http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/03/05/india.leadership.lessons/

Leadership Lessons from India

The Gesture of a Winner That Means Victory and Hope

For more on Seve's inspiring story and for information on how to support his foundation, which is one of Positive Leadership's charities of 2010, please go to: http://www.seveballesterosfoundation.org/

The Gesture of a Winner That Means Victory and Hope

Exemplary Leadership

In their book, The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition, Kouzes and Posner introduce the five practices of exemplary leadership. Based on their 'personal best' case studies from leaders who turned around their organisations, from all different cultures and circumstances, these are the five important lessons to learn. 

Looking in depth into the dynamic process of leadership, through many case analyses and survey questionnaires, Kouzes and Posner uncovered the five practices common to personal-best leadership experiences:

1) Model the Way
2) Inspire a Shared Vision
3) Challenge the Process
4) Enable Others to Act
5) Encourage the Heart

The key behind these factors is that they are not traits capable of being exhibited by only those with the right personality. They are principles to follow which will transform your leadership into its strongest form. They are available to anyone who accepts the leadership challenge. 

Exemplary Leadership

Caution: May Cause Leaders to Excel!

Caution: May Cause Leaders to Excel!

Why Nerves Help Leaders Perform at their Best Under Pressure

Jack Nicklaus said this about 'fear' and 'nervousness':

'There is a difference between fear and nervousness. I have always been nervous at golf. I have played 90% of my rounds in major championships with a touch of tremor. There has always been some floppiness in my stomach. Moreover, I have always welcomed those feelings in that, so long as I am playing well enough to have genuine confidence in my game, they will get me up, keep me alert, and prime me for maximum effort. Over the years, nervousness has done me more good than harm.'

(From Jack Nicklaus: My Story)

Why Nerves Help Leaders Perform at their Best Under Pressure

Being a Leader Means Picking the Best Athletes

Michael Rubin, the 37-year old founder and CEO of GSI Commerce, is one of America’s 15 most powerful CEOs under 40, according to Forbes.

This is a leader we can all learn from. Rubin isn’t just an entrepreneur. He’s a true business prodigy, a rare individual with passion for business coursing through his veins and a unique ability to focus on one thing, being the best at something. Everything else is secondary.

Rubin’s story is insightful and inspiring. He opened a ski shop at 14 and was running a $100 million public company by the time he was 22. This year, GSI topped a billion dollars in revenue providing ecommerce and interactive marketing services to some of America’s top retailers.

Here’s what he has to say about the leadership attributes that made him what he is today:

‘Q: You’ve always been the boss. How’d you learn to manage?

Rubin: You know, I’m like a sponge and I believe in the school of hard knocks. I think if you ask a lot of smart questions, listen well, and have the tenacity to grow and learn, you just do it. I’ve also learned management and leadership skills by watching successful executives run their businesses. I’ve got some great leaders as clients. It’s a great opportunity to learn from them.

Q: What distinguishes your management style?

Rubin: I think it’s just like a sports team; you have to pick the best athletes.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge for your company?

Rubin: Prioritisation. We have so much opportunity, we really have to prioritise well, choose what to do and what not to do. Prioritisation and picking the right athletes.’

Being a Leader Means Picking the Best Athletes

Shareholder Value No Longer The Holy Grail For Business Leaders

Companies will increasingly drop their focus on maximising shareholder value in favour of longer-term goals because of the damage the financial crisis has caused to corporate reputations, according to the head of Britain's largest business lobby group.

Speaking at the RSA in London, Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI, forecast that "Jack Welch capitalism" was "drawing to a close".

Mr Lambert said there was an increasing recognition among companies that the consequences of the financial crisis could be poorer relations between companies and the public and increased regulation. Therefore, he added, business leaders are gaining a greater appreciation of the fact that protecting their reputation can avoid these results, which threaten to impact the long-term performance of companies. This means an increasing focus on longer-term goals that aid suppliers, customers, employees and communities, as well as shareholders. 

Mr Welch, a former chief executive and chairman of General Electric, was a champion of improving returns to shareholders in the 1980s, as US businesses faced up to the threat of competition from Japan. However, according to Mr Lambert, even he now believes shareholder value is "the dumbest idea in the world".

The CBI leader said: "If you concentrate on maximising value to shareholders over the short term, you put at risk the relationships that will determine your longer-term success. One of the strongest messages coming through from our member companies is their concern about business reputation, and the declining trust in business.

"They recognise that public confidence in business has been shaken by the events of the last two years. They worry that business is in danger of being seen as the problem rather than the solution.

"A positive outcome from all this, they suggest, will require a change of mindset, behaviour and communications."

For more, see - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businesslatestnews/7539653/Shareholder-value-no-longer-the-Holy-Grail-suggests-CBI-director-general.html

Shareholder Value No Longer The Holy Grail For Business Leaders

From the Basketball Court to the Boardroom - Leadership Lessons

As CEO of Telstra, Australia's largest telecommunications company, David Thodey is responsible for simultaneously managing the company's waning land-line business and its booming wireless operations.  Here is what he says about sport and business:

‘You're a keen fan of basketball. What lessons do you take from the court to the boardroom?

You need good teamwork, good attack, good defense. You need to have good ball skills and really know what you are doing.

You need to be able to rely on your team mates and you need to have a strong bench. Also, know your competitors. There's lots of analogies there.’

For the full interview, see:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704353404575114791966557902.html?KEYWORDS=telstra

From the Basketball Court to the Boardroom - Leadership Lessons

Why Flattery is Effective

Forget rational argument: to achieve lasting business victories, you'd do better to spend your time complimenting people on their dress sense, writes Andrew O'Connell. Rational persuasion lasts only until a better counter-argument comes along, O'Connell notes, but subconscious "gut feelings" -- like the irrational sense of well-being that follows even an obviously insincere complement -- are harder to shake off. For more, see - http://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/03/why-flattery-is-effective.html

Why Flattery is Effective

Empowerment, Vision and Positive Leadership

Empowerment, Vision and Positive Leadership: An Interview With Alan Mulally, Former CEO, Boeing Commercial--Current CEO, Ford Motor Company:

http://jmi.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/1056492609355749v1?eaf

Empowerment, Vision and Positive Leadership

Winners Learn From Failure

Resilience (learning from failure) is one of the values of Positive Leadership. Here is what Michael Jordan has to say about 'failure':

Winners Learn From Failure

A Positive Communications Environment Predicts Team Success

An atmosphere of negativity can adversely impact business outcomes. Research published in 2004 has examined the communication patterns of business unit management teams engaged in strategic planning (Losada and Heaphy, 2004).

Results showed the single most important factor in predicting business unit profitability and customer satisfaction – a factor four times more powerful in predicting team success than any other factor – was the ratio of positive comments to negative comments among team members.

Positive comments are those that show support, helpfulness, or appreciation. Negative comments express disapproval, blame or criticism. The researchers concluded, 'we need to have teams within organisations that are able to tap into the liberating and creative power of positivity'.

In a 2004 discussion of innovative ideas for management, Harvard Business Review editor Bronwyn Fryer noted the difficulties associated with the traditional problem-solving management approaches and the growing interest in creating positive, strengths-based organisational environments.

He argued that ‘‘companies where the focus is on amplifying positive attributes such as loyalty, resilience, trustworthiness, humility and compassion – rather than combating the negatives – perform  better, financially and otherwise.’’ Fryer concluded that ‘‘a positive workplace atmosphere is worth developing . . . and it may be the foundation of true organisational success’’ (Fryer, 2004).

What is your communications environment like?

A Positive Communications Environment Predicts Team Success

Talent Management and March Madness

Millions of Americans are in the final stages of watching the NCAA College Basketball Tournament at present – the so called ‘March Madness’. This year, the Final Four includes a number of surprise teams from the original cast of 65. 

There are some broader lessons about talent management in the results so far. For the most part, the teams that have made it to the Final Four or who exceeded expectations earlier in the tournament have top scorers who are more experienced players. 

Take a look at the Final Four. The top three scorers for both Duke and Michigan State are two juniors and a senior. For West Virginia University, it’s a senior and two sophomores. For Butler, it’s a junior and two sophomores. When you look at the stats for the two big ‘Cinderella’s of the tournament, Cornell and Northern Iowa, there are five seniors and one junior making up the top trios of those teams. In contrast, number one overall seed, Kentucky’s top three was made up of two freshmen and a junior. 

The point here is that great teams need time and experience to gel. So, with that in mind, here’s a quick list of talent management lessons that can help keep your team from being “one and done.”

Recruit for the long run: Do your best to keep your recruiting pipeline active and full of players who bring talent and the capacity for longer term growth.

Build teams, not just stars: It’s great to have some superstars on your team, but they’re going to be even more effective when integrated into a system focused on smooth handoffs and high production.

Keep teaching: Raw talent is just that. Raw. The best teams are those that get consistent coaching and teaching over a longer run period so that skills are refined and taken to the next level.

Coach for resilience: The best teams exhibit grace under pressure and have the resilience to bounce back from deficits. Good coaches nurture that quality by running drills on high pressure situations (think of the need for a game winning inbound pass with 1.8 seconds left) and by reminding experienced teams that they’ve been there before.

Talent Management and March Madness

Social Media and Leadership

Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead (J-B Warren Bennis Series) by Charlene Li argues that a new organisational structure is required to accommodate and benefit from the culture of sharing that social media has fuelled over the last four years. The information flow we all experience daily can no longer be organised into neat org-chart silos. Instead, it demands a new kind of leadership — one based on letting go of the command-and-control model and embracing openness and relationship building.

Information sharing and dialogue, both internal and external, are key to the openness Li prescribes. But how can leaders be open in a world where they need to be in control? “If you think you are in control, you’re fooling yourself. As soon as you start listening, you realise you’re not in control.” Li proclaimed. “And letting go will yield more and better results.”

Here’s a distilled version of the five steps she laid out for achieving open leadership:

1. Have an open — but not undisciplined — strategy. Align openness with your organisation’s strategic goals. Examine your 2010 goals, pick one in which both openness and social media can have an impact, and start there.  “Every organisation is both open and closed. You must be strategic with what you are open about and not,” Li advises.

2. Understand the upside. Clearly define your goals.  What is the value of an open approach — beyond ROI?  Customer lifetime value, for example, should include the value of new customers that come from referrals, the value that their new insights bring to your product offering and the value of their word-of-mouth support. New customers who come with valuable networks — which you can then tap into — are the most valuable. The more open and engaged you are, the more you’ll be able to get value out of these expanded networks.

3. Find and gather support from others who are realists/optimists. Seek out leaders on your team who are open, rather than the pessimists or worried sceptics who are conditioned to default to a command-and-control mindset. The stakes for embracing openness are high, but the costs of not engaging optimistic allies are also high.

4. Manage risk with ‘sandbox covenants’. Clearly define the outlines and risks of your experiments so your team members feel secure rather than threatened by change. At the same time, be sure to let them know that these experiments in openness are not going to stay small forever.

5. Embrace failure. In same way you have a success file, keep an accessible failure file.  This is an important way to stay authentic and open to the fact that not everything succeeds.  Team members will recognise that all true relationships involve failure and success. 

Social Media and Leadership

Leaders Stand for Something

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, consistently emerged from public opinion polls as the most esteemed American woman of the mid-20th century, and one of the most highly regarded and inspirational women in the world. Though born into a world of extraordinary privilege, she was admired by people of all races and classes. One columnist called her "the most influential woman of our times."

Two features stand out in her life: First, how comfortable she appeared to be with herself and, second, how clear and outspoken she was about her values and principles. This clarity was especially striking because many of her beliefs were not widely shared by society of the time.

She did more than speak though. When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused in 1939 to let Mariam Anderson, the black contralto, sing in Philadelphia's Constitution Hall because of her race, Roosevelt publicly resigned from that then-august organisation. It was a step that might today seem little more than politically correct, but then it required great courage and created considerable comment.

Values are at the heart of Positive Leadership. As GE CEO, Jeff Immelt says: ‘The future belongs to leaders who want to win without ever losing track of their own values.’

Values are simply what you consider most important in life, as revealed not only by your claims and statements but also, especially, by your decisions and deeds. When we ask people “What are your values?” they sometimes have difficulty answering. But no one has trouble with the questions, “What’s important to you?” or "What are you passionate about?" They’re all the same thing.

Values, or guiding principles and beliefs, can range from the highest ethical and moral aspirations – for freedom and equality and justice, for example – to such basic requirements as safety and comfort. Values can be psychological states, such as closeness and communities, or needs, like the desire to win or excel.

Every time you make a choice – when buying something in a shop or deciding to take a new job or asking someone to be your spouse – you’re reflecting your values, what’s important to you.

So, in fact, all of us have dozens of values, if not more. But when we speak of values here we mean the few that are absolutely core to you, the ones around which you construct your life and make large, life-shaping decisions.

The reason values are critical is that they define you. To know you, to follow you, someone must know what’s important to you. That’s why values reside at the heart of Positive Leadership.

Without knowing a leader's values, those in the leader's group have no way of knowing or predicting what he or she will do. Without a clear set of values, clearly expressed and lived, a leader can only ask others to follow blindly, something most people rightly hesitate to do.

All of us can be inspiring as leaders. Most of us won't have a public persona like Eleanor Roosevelt's. And most of us are unlikely to face a crisis in which we're asked to condone or support racial prejudice. But we will have to face different situations where remaining ourselves, fully authentic, will be difficult, and holding true to who we are and what we believe will make us inspiring to the people who work for us. 

Leaders Stand for Something

What Leader-Coaches Do To Help Their Teams Win

Watching the recent Six Nations rugby championship makes you think about what coaches do to help their teams win. If your coach is any good, he or she does all of the things listed below:

• Makes sure you know the rules of play
• Gets you in shape
• Drills you on plays
• Plays to your strengths
• Defines your role
• Challenges you to improve
• Boosts your confidence
• Builds team camaraderie
• Helps you win during the game
• Thinks long-term about the team’s needs

A leader-coach also does all of these things. Consider for a moment: drilling you on plays and helping you win during the game.

When your actions affect hundreds of people, you need to be drilled in advance so you’re prepared to do the right thing: how to communicate, who needs to be in the loop, what pitfalls to avoid, how to detect early signs of trouble. A leader-coach will take his or her team through simulations and exercises designed to get you prepared. At HSBC Bank, for example, managers are drilled on how to handle cross-border disputes. At Sprint, IT managers are drilled on crisis management. It’s easy to see how this investment can pay off. At Sprint, dozens of network problems are headed off each day because their teams are prepared.

Leader-coaches also help you win while you’re playing the game. They provide real-time feedback as you’re handling an issue, offering support and giving useful insights. Their doors are open, they keep their heads, they offer perspective. 

What Leader-Coaches Do To Help Their Teams Win

Have the Courage to Follow Your Heart and Intuition

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs, Founder Apple  

Have the Courage to Follow Your Heart and Intuition

Leaders Need to Focus on More than the Bottom Line

We hear the economy is on the right track. The dark clouds are lifting. Leadership is praised. But really, wasn’t it leadership – or lack of it – that landed us in this mess?

When banks were handing out mortgages for a smile and a signature, then bundling exotic instruments with unknown global impact, where were senior leaders to put a stop to it?

When accelerators started sticking worse than gum on a shoe, where were Toyota leaders to stomp the brakes?

Recent research on key leadership questions, including: what constitutes effective leadership in the 21st century? how has leadership changed to keep pace? what are today’s leadership best practices? leads to some interesting conclusions:

Our study found that leaders have focused on financials, both before and now during the recession – with a kind of tunnel vision on the bottom-line. Asked about their top challenges, U.S. leaders selected “cost pressures,” followed by “growing the business,” and “driving sales.” Beyond that finding, three of five U.S. leaders in the study (60.8 percent) rated bottom-line business results as more important than any other leadership concern.

This focus on financials begets lopsided leadership prone to errors in judgment and action. Take another area of leadership action: diversity. Before the recession, encouraging diversity was all the rage. But last year, when U.S. leaders were asked to rate practices in six critical “zones of leadership,” more than half (51.8 percent) ranked diversity the least important zone (with similar results in three of the four global regions surveyed).

The many possible reasons for this result include perceptions that diversity is “political correctness” (rather than a critical way to leverage human potential), that “people at bottom are the same” (blinding leaders to the unique gifts of diversity), and that diversity, while important, is low-priority in a down economy.

Exacerbating these misperceptions is a global reluctance to reflect – defined as the leader’s skill and will to step back and ask, “What role could I be playing in the problems I’m facing?”

The poor ratings for diversity also likely reflect the fact that it’s harder to manage diverse people, that some countries surveyed (e.g. China) have very little diversity, and (let’s face it) that ethnocentrism still lives.

Whatever its causes, this result reveals a pernicious blind spot among today’s leaders about the meaning and, yes, the bottom-line value of diversity. For companies with global operations, the research does predict that renewed focus on diversity may happen sooner rather than later: these businesses identified their most pressing challenges in the broad area of diversity, notably in “creating virtual workplace structures” and “succeeding with mergers and acquisitions.”

To survive our economic maelstrom, however, leaders would do well to leverage the unique contributions of diverse people, driving innovation and honing a competitive edge in a shrinking global workspace.

Looking forward, the research revealed that long-term success will take a new leadership mindset. While business is one undeniable focus for most leaders, success in the 21st century requires leaders who can assess their own strengths and liabilities in several “leadership zones,” adjust current strategies, and adopt new strategies. Only then will they be ready for the unknown challenges and opportunities to come.

For more, see - http://www.achieveglobal.com/LeadershipResearchAG/

Leaders Need to Focus on More than the Bottom Line

Meg Whitman Builds a Team

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman talks about leadership and the role of gender:

Meg Whitman Builds a Team

How James Cameron Leads

If you sat through the endless list of credits for Avatar, you saw that it took about 3,000 people to make the film, which has now grossed more than $2.5 billion worldwide, shattering box office records, earning three Oscars and reinventing cinema for the digital age. The boss of all those people was director James Cameron.

While researching her book, The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron author Rebecca Keegan watched the director's often controversial management style up close. One of Hollywood's most innovative filmmakers, Cameron is also one of its toughest taskmasters, a man who ran notoriously grueling sets for movies like The Terminator, Aliens and Titanic. After Titanic, Cameron spent years away from the movie business indulging a lifelong passion--deep ocean exploration. The experiences he had leading groups on the open sea tempered the director's management style. But working for Cameron is still roughing it by Hollywood standards. From her seat on the Avatar set, these are the rules Keegan believes Cameron manages by:

Break New Ground

"It's Avatar, dude, nothing works the first time," read a whiteboard in the spare Los Angeles warehouse that served as the sci fi film's motion capture soundstage. Breaking new ground is Cameron's raison d'être — nothing interests this man unless it's hard to do. But innovation has also become a way of bonding his teams, both on Avatar and on his deep sea expeditions. "We're out in the wilderness working far beyond the borders of the known," Cameron says, comparing his CG and undersea projects. "We're doing extraordinary things that outsiders would not even understand." For Cameron, a sense of exploration isn't just personally enriching, it's a crucial tool for motivating and uniting his teams.

Firing Is Too Merciful

Everyone who has been part of Cameron's cast and crew has bitter war stories about working for him, and yet they all seem to forget them when they're clutching Oscars and cashing cheques. Many Cameron alumni will share a story from their first film with him, a day they were sure they were going to be fired, almost hoped for it. But Cameron rarely fires people. "Firing is too merciful," he says. Instead he tests their endurance for long hours, hard tasks, and harsh criticism. Survivors tend to surprise themselves by turning in the best work of their careers, and signing on for Cameron's next project.

Lead from the Front

Cameron is almost comically hands-on. He does things elite directors don't do — hold the camera, man the editing console, sketch the creatures, apply the makeup. The truth is, he would do nearly every job on a movie himself if he could. But any film, much less one as ambitious as Avatar, relies on collaboration. Forced to lean on others, Cameron sets the pace. Among his 3000-strong stable of artists and engineers, he's the first to try a new challenge, the last to quit at the end of the day, and the hardest to please.

Good Enough Isn't

Avatar took more than twice as long to make as an average film. Much of that added time was due to the film's Herculean design demands and its reliance on untested technologies, but some of it was thanks to Cameron's perfectionism. Hours were spent on the smallest details, like getting alien sap to drip precisely right. A column in one special effects shot annoyed Cameron. After 15 minutes debating its placement while teleconferencing with weary Weta Digital artists in New Zealand, he declared, "That column is worth $50 million of the domestic gross!" shaking his head at his own obsessiveness. It's hard to argue with Cameron's nitpicky style, however, when audiences thrill to immerse themselves in the richly detailed worlds he creates.

Hire 'People' People

Aware that he can be a hard man to work for, Cameron wisely surrounds himself with amiable deputies. "I have my bad days, and on my best days I'm no Ron Howard," he admits. Cameron's closest associates, his producer, Jon Landau, and the head of his production company, Rae Sanchini, are management savants. They know when an exhausted crew needs a pep talk, when a wounded artist's ego needs soothing, when an anxious studio executive needs reassurance. And — a talent never to be underestimated — they know when to order the pizza, and tell the boss to quit for dinner!

How James Cameron Leads