The keys to inspired leadership

Bill Gates writes about leadership lessons he has learned. (Stefan Postles/Getty Images)

Leadership. What is it, exactly? What are the hallmarks of leadership? And why does it seem so hard to find good leaders?

The topic was at top of mind for a number of LinkedIn Influencers this week. Among them: JP Morgan Chase & Co chief executive Jamie Dimon — who recently succeeded in keeping his CEO and chairman title at the bank, Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates, Yahoo! Inc product leader, Anand Chandrasekaran and Johns Hopkins Medicine International CEO Steven Thomson.

JPMorgan Chase & Co's Jamie Dimon. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Each brought a different perspective to leadership, including highlighting characteristics of good leaders, passing on lessons learned from volunteer work and sharing insights from one of the world’s most famous investors.
A look at leadership, from people who’ve been there and done it.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Co
“Leadership is an honor, a privilege and a deep obligation. When leaders make mistakes, a lot of people can get hurt. Being true to oneself and avoiding self-deception are as important to a leader as having people to turn to for thoughtful, unbiased advice,” Dimon writes in his Influencer post on the hallmarks of a good leader. “I believe social intelligence and ‘emotional quotient,’ or EQ, matter in management. EQ can include empathy, clarity of thought, compassion and strength of character.”
Other traits upon which Dimon expounds: discipline; high standards; the ability to face facts (even when they aren’t pretty); openness; building a setup for success; morale-building; loyalty; meritocracy and teamwork; fair treatment; and humility.
Then there’s what Dimon calls the “grey area of leadership” that are open to interpretation.
“This grey area contributes to the complexity of the challenges that leaders — and those who govern them — face.” Among them: motivators, compensation and performance.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Gates, in his inaugural Influencer post, writes about what he has learned from famous investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. Gates writes that Buffett’s “brilliant way of looking at the world” doesn’t just apply to building a business.
“It’s not just about investing. [Buffett] has a whole framework for business thinking that is very powerful. He says a shareholder has to act as if he owns the entire business, looking at the future profit stream and deciding what it’s worth.”
“Use your platform. He’s been willing to speak frankly and criticize things like stock options and financial derivatives [in his company newsletter]. He’s not afraid to take positions, like his stand on raising taxes on the rich, that run counter to his self-interest.”
“Know how valuable your time is. There are only 24 hours in everyone’s day. Warren has a keen sense of this. He doesn’t let his calendar get filled up with useless meetings. On the other hand, he’s very generous with his time for the people he trusts. He gives his close advisers at Berkshire his phone number, and they can just call him up and he’ll answer the phone.”
Anand Chandrasekaran, product leader at Yahoo
Chandrasekaran, who leads Yahoo’s global search business, writes on the leadership lessons he has learned from volunteering around the world, concluding that “our best work comes when purpose, passion and profit are aligned. However, experiencing moments when you can feel them coming together are few and far between.”
Lessons include:
“Playing for the long term. One of the first things I learned was that any problem you're  tackling … has been around for decades, if not centuries. When one is tackling such a long-term challenge by definition one develops a long term mindset.”
“Assuming positive intent. We've all been there — speculating what someone's intent is. Partnerships between volunteer groups are uniquely driven by deep trust and shared purpose. It's incredible how things get simplified when one starts by assuming positive intent by all the other parties in any interaction.”
“Problems without passports. Very few things (especially challenges) that come along can be solved by one person. Collaboration is not a luxury, but a necessity.”
Other influencers who weighed in on leadership this week:
Steven Thomson: CEO of Baltimore, Maryland-based Johns Hopkins Medicine International. Thomson offered solutions to the traps which trip up many promising leaders.
Michael Moritz: Chairman of California-based venture capital firm Sequoia Capital wrote on the delicacy of conveying the truth.
Influencers is an occasional column that takes a peek at what LinkedIn Influencers, thought leaders in their fields, have to say about topics or events in the news.

Justin Timberlake: The secret of his success

(Photo: Getty Images)

Teen pop idols tend to disappear when their fans grow up. So how did child star Justin Timberlake become one of America’s biggest stars? Greg Kot explains.

Justin Timberlake and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis lead this year's MTV Video Music Award nominations with six each.

Justin Timberlake is only 32, but his CV is already stuffed with Grammy Awards, critical accolades and multi-platinum albums. His recent one, 20/20, his first studio release since 2006, is the year’s biggest-seller so far in the US, with a sequel on the way in September. In between, he’s squeezing in a few stadium concerts with his pal Jay-Z, as one half of Legends of the Summer, which is shaping up to be  one of the summer’s biggest tours.
But his most impressive accomplishment just might be that he hasn’t turned into Shaun Cassidy, Tiffany or any number of former teen idols. Nobody thinks of him as the former singer in N’Sync anymore, let alone a Mouseketeer.
For what might’ve been, check out 19-year-old Justin Bieber. “I’m an artist and I should be taken seriously,” Bieber complained at the Billboard Music Awards a few weeks ago. This from a guy who tried to smuggle his pet monkey across international borders. He appears to have entered the temper-tantrum stage of his kiddie-pop years, prompting many pundits to question whether he’ll have any kind of career left once he hits adulthood.
Such is the way for most pop idols who find fame around the same time they reach puberty. The usual lifespan for most is about three or four years, and then they become punch lines or has-beens. Each decade had a few who burned holes in the hearts of adolescents and then burned out when their audience grew up. The ‘60s packaged the Monkees and the Cowsills; the ‘70s served up Bobby Sherman, the Partridge Family andthe Osmonds,; for a brief time in the ‘80s, it was all about Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and New Kids on the Block; the ‘90s produced Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync; and the 2000s brought the flourishing of the Disney/Nickelodeon franchise and the emergence of Lindsey Lohan, Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus.
A cunning plan?
So how did Timberlake avoid tumbling from pin-up to afterthought like so many others before him? He had a sense of humour, for starters. Even as N’Sync was selling millions of albums to giddy pre-teens, he appeared to be in on the joke. A few seconds say it all in the video for one of the group’s biggest hits, Bye Bye Bye: the music stops and a curly-haired Timberlake lifts his head, smiles slyly, laughs and darts off. Who really knows if that’s Timberlake’s little take-the-money-and-run inside joke, but it sure plays that way in retrospect.
The turning point arrived with his 2002 solo debut, Justified. The energetic and surprisingly sophisticated mix of dance tunes and ballads, pop and soul, instantly cast him as an adult, and earned comparisons to the Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson, another teen star who grew into a substantial artist (at least until it all started to go horribly wrong in the ‘90s). Timberlake took his notoriety to a whole new level when he accidentally-but-not-really ripped Janet Jackson’s costume during the 2004 Super Bowl half-time, which gave the world the indelible phrase ‘wardrobe malfunction’. Even that bit of naughtiness couldn’t tarnish the singer’s likeability rating, though. He dutifully apologised at the Grammys a few weeks later and went home with two awards.
Hollywood beckons
A series of films followed and then a second solo album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, another leap in ambition with its suite-like songs. On tour, he presented himself not just as a piece of gyrating eye candy, but as a serious musician and band leader, a lithe, loose-limbed singer-songwriter fronting a 12-piece band.
Yet as his Hollywood profile ramped up, questions arose about whether Timberlake would ever make another album. The carefully orchestrated campaign to introduce 20/20 was his response. The music pushes even further than its predecessor, with seven songs clocking in at seven-plus minutes.
The album’s genre-busting sprawl is another example of Timberlake’s survival instinct. He’s surveyed the musical landscape and realises he can’t compete with Nicki Minaj or Katy Perry for sheer pop pizzazz. So instead he’s moved into a hybrid area, gliding through a series of Frank Ocean-like moves in the way he’s mixing and matching styles. It’s a bit of a stretch – too often 20/20 sounds unfocused, emotionally remote, a series of unnecessarily busy arrangements that convey ambition more than heart.
As resilient as Timberlake has been, he still has a way to go as an artist. When he appeared at the Grammys this year, wearing a tuxedo in a sepia-toned Cotton Club-style big-band setting, he looked fantastic, a suave retro-soul man for the 21st Century. But as this former teen idol surely realises, making sophisticated music for adults requires more of an investment than just looking good. Somehow, one senses Timberlake will figure it out. He usually does.
Greg Kot is the music critic at the Chicago Tribune. His work can be found here:
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Nelson Mandela biopic to have world premiere at Toronto

 

Elba is one of several actors to have portrayed the former South African president on screen

The film version of Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom is to have its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

Luther's Idris Elba plays Mandela in the biopic, one of a host of titles confirmed by organisers on Tuesday.
Others include The Fifth Estate, a film about Julian Assange starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the WikiLeaks founder.
The Railway Man starring Colin Firth and August: Osage Country with Meryl Streep will also debut at the event.
The 38th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) runs from 5 to 15 September.
Other films that will screen for the first time include 12 Years a Slave, the new film from Shame director Steve McQueen, and The Invisible Woman, actor Ralph Fiennes's drama about Charles Dickens.
Additional British film-makers in the line-up include Stephen Frears, Roger Michell and The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade, who will use the festival to launch his comedy The Double.
Titles already tipped for awards success include Dallas Buyers Club, in which Matthew McConaughey plays a Texan who takes on the medical establishment after being diagnosed HIV positive.

 

 

Rush, Ron Howard's film about racing driver James Hunt, will have its international premiere

The festival will close with Life of Crime, an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel The Switch, featuring characters previously seen in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown.
Piers Handling, chief executive officer and director of TIFF, said the first round of films "offers a taste of the powerhouse line-up at this year's festival".
"These are the works that will have everyone talking because they capture the mood of the times."
Toronto is now regarded as a crucial launchpad for films hoping to impress voters and juries during the annual film awards season.
Silver Linings Playbook won its top prize last year, the first of many David O'Russell's romantic comedy amassed in the run-up to February's Oscar ceremony.
Some are already tipping Elba for accolades for his work in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, which tells of the anti-apartheid campaigner's rural upbringing and how he coped with being in prison for 27 years.
Naomie Harris plays Winnie Mandela in Justin Chadwick's film, which is scheduled to have its UK release next January.

The new Mercedes CLA250 borrows from the familiar

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Apparently Mercedes-Benz product planners see this as a salient strategy for growth, as the company's flashy new CLA rips a page right out of its larger CLS's book. The CLS, the original "four-door coupe”, has spawned so many imitators since its 2004 debut that it is only fair, Mercedes should be permitted to copy it, too.
On the eve of the 2013 Detroit auto show, Mercedes revealed its plan for recruiting a new generation of customers to the three-pointed star, and it took the form of a racy, nominally affordable compact sedan.
The CLA, like the CLS, features a low, sloping roofline and four doors with frameless windows in the manner of a coupe. But as anyone who has viewed the CLS from the back seat, the design invites rear passengers to bang their heads on the doorframe during ingress and egress.
Those lines do look slippery; according to Mercedes, the CLA's 0.23 coefficient of drag, a measure of aerodynamics, is the lowest number ever for a production model.
The car also breaks ground as Mercedes' first front-wheel-drive model for the US market. In an interview after its introduction on 13 January, Dieter Zetsche, chairman of Daimler, the Mercedes parent, told BBC Autos that the CLA was based on the same front-drive platform used by the diminutive A-Class and B-Class hatchbacks in other markets.
"The US market isn't very fond of hatchbacks, as we are in Europe, so this car should be well-received", he surmised.
The result is very close to the Acura TSX in size and specification, and it is young drivers who grew up with front drive that the company is targeting with the CLA, which will start for less that $30,000 when it goes on sale in September. An all-wheel-drive 4Matic version will follow in 2014, as will a more powerful twin-turbocharged engine.
While the CLA has an entry-level luxury price, all of the expected Mercedes technology is present. A collision-alert radar system is standard equipment, along with a 5.8-inch infotainment display.
Power is from a 208 horsepower, 2-litre 4-cylinder engine driving the front wheels through a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission. A 2.2-litre diesel engine is available for Europe, but is a long shot for the US, Zetsche said. The car's base engine in Europe will be a smaller-displacement gasoline engine developed in partnership with Renault and Nissan, he added.
Whether the CLS can, like Bowie, top the charts recycling old ideas remains to be seen, but Zetsche is undaunted. "We never talk about future volume," he said, "but we are very confident this car will be a success.”

OJB thanks Governor Rotimi Amaechi for the $100, 000 donation

OJB thanks Governor Rotimi Amaechi for the $100, 000 donation

I'm sure by now you all have heard that Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi donated $100, 000 to music producer, OJB Jezreel, who is down with a kidney ailment.

The money was transferred to OJB's account on Friday July 5th. Lagos State governor, Raji Fashola was also in touch with OJB's family and facilitated the stages of dialysis OJB is undergoing at LASUTH. The ailing pioneer music producer has thanked Governor Amaechi for his generosity.

"I really thank God for Governor Amechi's kind heart. All I can say is that God will fight his battles as he saved my life. I also thank all Nigerians from all works of life who heeded my appeal for funds to go for my kidney transplant. God bless everyone.

Lauryn Hill begins her prison sentence

Lauryn Hill begins her prison sentence

Four months after she was sentenced to 3 months in Federal prison for tax evasion, Grammy award winning singer Lauryn Hill has turned herself in...

From TMZ

Lauryn Hill has just reported to federal prison in Connecticut, where she will begin her 3 month sentence for tax evasion.

Officials tell TMZ ... the former Fugees singer was booked into the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury at 11:15 AM EST. (Yesterday July 8th)

We're told the FCI is a "minimum security type facility" where inmates live in "barracks type" housing.

We're also told 38-year-old Hill will not be isolated in the facility -- and will be housed with the general population.

Nigerian writer Tope Folarin wins Caine writing prize

Nigerian writer Tope Folarin wins Caine writing prize

This is delightful news. Two Nigerians have won the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing two years in a row. Last year, Nigerian writer, Rotimi Babatunde, won the prize for his story Bombay's Republic - a book about Nigerian soldiers who fought in the Burma campaign during World War II. And this year, another Nigerian has won. His name is Tope Folarin, a US-based writer. He won the prize for his story - Miracle - a short story set in an evangelical Nigerian church in Texas.

Tope, who was shortlisted with three other Nigerians and a Sierra Leonean for the prize, received $15,000 at an event that held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Congrats to him.

After text fight with 15yr old son, 50cent rewrites his will, cuts him off

After text fight with 15yr old son, 50cent rewrites his will, cuts him off

After an embarrassing text message exchange between 50 Cent and his 15 year old son Marquise leaked online, (If you missed it, read it HERE), 50cent has cut him and his mother off his will. He also blamed Marquise's mother for the leak to Radar Online. See what he wrote on Twitter a few hours ago after the cut...

President Jonathan At The 2013 Nigerian Army Day Celebration In Abuja

PHOTONEWS: President Jonathan At The 2013 Nigerian Army Day Celebration In Abuja

Photo Credits: State House Photos

Venezuela And Nicaragua Offer Asylum To Edward Snowden

Venezuela and Nicaragua have offered asylum to Edward Snowden, the US whistleblower who is believed to have spent the past two weeks at a Moscow airport evading US attempts to extradite him.
The Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his Nicaraguan counterpart, Daneil Ortega, made the asylum offers on Friday, shortly after they and other Latin American leaders met to denounce the diversion of a plane carrying the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, due to suspicions that Snowden might have been on board.
The invitations came as Snowden sent out new requests for asylum to six countries, in addition to the 20 he has already contacted, according to WikiLeaks, which claims to be in regular contact with the former National Security Agency contractor.
Most of the countries have refused or given technical reasons why an application is not valid, but several Latin American leaders have rallied together with expressions of solidarity and welcome.”As head of state of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela, I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young Snowden … to protect this young man from persecution by the empire,” said Maduro who, along with his predecessor Hugo Chávez, often refers to the US as “the empire”.
The previous day, Maduro told the Telesur TV channel that Venezuela had received an extradition request from the US, which he had already rejected.A copy of the request, seen by the Guardian, notes that Snowden “unlawfully released classified information and documents to international media outlets” and names the Guardian and the Washington Post.
Dated 3 July and sent in English and Spanish, it says: “The United States seeks Snowden’s provisional arrest should Snowden seek to travel to or transit through Venezuela. Snowden is a flight risk because of the substantial charges he is facing and his current and active attempts to remain a fugitive.”It adds that he is charged with unauthorised disclosure of national defence information, unauthorised disclosure of classified communication intelligence and theft of government property.
Each of these three charges carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000.
Describing Snowden as “a fugitive who is currently in Russia”, it urges Venezuela to keep him in custody if arrested and to seize all items in his possession for later delivery to the US. It provides a photograph and two alternative passport numbers – one revoked, and one reported lost or stolen.Maduro said he did not accept the grounds for the charges.
“He has told the truth, in the spirit of rebellion, about the US spying on the whole world,” Maduro said in his latest speech. “Who is the guilty one? A young man … who denounces war plans, or the US government which launches bombs and arms the terrorist Syrian opposition against the people and legitimate president, Bashar al-Assad?
“The Bolivian government, which has said it would listen sympathetically to an aslyum request from Snowden, said it too had turned down a pre-emptive US extradition request.
Ortega said Nicaragua had received an asylum request from Snowden and the president gave a guarded acceptance.”We are an open country, respectful of the right of asylum, and it’s clear that if circumstances permit, we would gladly receive Snowden and give him asylum in Nicaragua,” Ortega told a gathering in Managua.
So far, the countries that have been most vocal in offering support are close allies of Venezuela. Ecuador has also expressed support for Snowden, though the government there has yet to decide whether it would grant aslyum. It is already providing refuge for the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for about a year.
Many in Latin America were furious when the Bolivian president’s flight from Russia was denied airspace by European countries, forcing it to land in Vienna, where Morales had to spend more than half a day waiting to get clearance to continue his journey.
Morales said the Spanish ambassador to Austria arrived at the airport with two embassy personnel and asked to search the plane. He said he refused.The Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, acknowledged on Friday that the decision to block Morales plane was based on a tip that Snowden was on board.
“They told us that the information was clear, that he was inside,” he told Spanish TV, without clarifying who the tip was from.It is assumed the US was behind the diversion, though US officials have said only that they were in contact with the countries on the plane’s route.France has apologised to Bolivia.
Morales said when he finally arrived in La Paz: “It is an open provocation to the continent, not only to the president; they use the agent of North American imperialism to scare us and intimidate us.”At a hastily called meeting of the Unasur regional bloc, many governments condemned the action against Morales plane.
“We are not colonies any more,” Uruguay’s president, José Mujica, said. “We deserve respect, and when one of our governments is insulted we feel the insult throughout Latin America.
“The Argentinean president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, was also present, along with a senior representative of President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil.Regional support may make it easier for the country offering asylum to resist US pressure for extradition. But whether Snowden can make it to South America remains uncertain, as are his current circumstances. He has not been seen or heard in public since he flew to Russia from Hong Kong.
WikiLeaks says it is in touch with him and that he has widened his search for aslyum by adding six new countries.In a tweet, the group said it would not reveal the names of the nations “due to attempted US interference”. [Uk Guardian]

Genevieve in all-star extravaganza 'Weekend Getaway' on iROKOtv

Genevieve in all-star extravaganza 'Weekend Getaway' on iROKOtv

You've already seen the pictures from the star studded premiere... Well now Weekend Getaway is online to watch exclusively on iROKOtv PLUS! It has been too long since Genevieve has graced the screen so this is something to look forward. Plus the guys are hot too.

What is the movie actually about you ask? It's about a bored bachelor meeting his online love, a married couple looking to revive the spark in their relationship and a wealthy cougar descend upon the tropical paradise that is Le Meridian Hotel in Akwa Ibom for a weekend getaway.

The movie is a Nollywood 'Who’s Who' extravaganza starring Genevieve Nnaji, Ramsey Nouah, Ini Edo, Mona Lisa Chinda, Bobby Obodo, Alex Ekubo, Bishop Ime Umoh Bryan Okwara, Uti Nwachukwu, Uru Eke, Bryan Okwara, Beverly Naya & Ini Ikpe.

Subscribe to iROKOtv PLUS now and watch one of the biggest films of the year, Weekend Getaway

Kanye West's Yeezus album makes the history books

Kanye West's Yeezus album makes the history books

Kanye West's new album Yeezus made history this week but not in a good way...at least not in a way Kanye would have liked! :-)

The album holds the crown for the fourth biggest drop in second week sales for a #1 debut album since Sound Scan started keeping track in 1991.

Kanye released the new album with no pre-sales, no singles and no videos. And even though it debuted at No.1 with 327,000 in sales, it quickly slipped to No.3 the following week, falling by 80%. Continue...

Peter Okoye also gets his own £1.2million champagne from Amosu

Peter Okoye also gets his own £1.2million champagne from Amosu

Don Jazzy was the first person to get the over N300million Goûtdediamants champagne from luxury designer, Alexander Amosu, now Peter Okoye has his own complimentary Taste of Luxury.
 
Alexander Amosu recently created the world's most expensive champagne called Taste of Diamonds, valued at 1.2million pounds (Read about it here). It's £1.2m and they are just giving it away? OK! :-)

Don Jazzy pictured with Amosu's 18ct yellow gold with diamonds IPhone 5

Luxury designer Alexander Amosu posted this photo of Don Jazzy on his instagram page showing the prolific music producer with the 18ct Yellow Gold with diamonds IPhone 5  that he (Alex) created with Apple Inc last year. Very expensive phone!..:-)

Ethiopian lawyers to sue BBA Housemate, Betty, for having sex in public

Ethiopian lawyers to sue BBA Housemate, Betty, for having sex in public

Some lawyers in Ethiopia are gearing up to sue BBA The Chase Housemate, Betty Aberra, for having sex in public. Betty had sex with fellow Housemate, Bolt from Sierre Leon, just three days after entering the BBA House.

According to a local radio show in Ethiopia called Ethiopikalink, if Betty is convicted, she could face up to six years in prison as it is an offense to have sex in public in the country. (Well, she had sex on a bed, in a room...Hehe)

The lawsuit is not the only thing Betty is facing since leaving the BBA House, she's also facing nationwide condemnation from groups who have asked the media and companies to boycott her.

Islamic group wants separate camps for male and female corps members

Islamic group wants separate camps for male and female corps members

The Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) has called on the management of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to stop mixing males and females in the National Youth Service Scheme physical exercise at orientation camps as it violates Islamic tenets and offends the sensibilities of Muslims.

This JNI Secretary General, Dr. Khalid Abubakar, said this at the end of a peace and unity conference for Muslim scholars in Kaduna State.

Abubakar called on the NYSC to respect the decency and chastity of female corps members during physical exercises and other activities at the orientation camps, and provide alternative camps for female Muslim corps members. (Nigerian Telegraph)