Wise women have observed that the qualities that make for a “good” boyfriend are not necessarily those that make a good husband. The wild, unpredictable heartthrob in a romantic comedy may be great for a few dates, but he’ll probably be an unreliable partner in life. In the same way, the quiet, compliant child who never does or says anything to displease you may be an easy 6-year-old, but she may not make a very strong adult. Allowing your children to speak their minds in a respectful manner encourages them to develop the thinking skills they will need for the rest of their lives. Don’t shut them down like a tyrant, but don’t let them become dictators. Remember that power cannot persuade the heart. A boss that rules with an iron fist will lose every employee who can find a better opportunity, leaving him with the “rubber stamps.” The parent who runs a house that way will either lose his child when she’s old enough to leave or will raise an adult utterly dependent on a stronger person to tell him what to do. You don’t have an obligation to give them the answer they think they want, but you do…

On August 27, 1976, when an almost 19-year-old man left his homeland of Greece to enroll as an exchange student at Weston High School just west of Boston, it was as though the young man were taking his first bold steps out onto a wire suspended a hundred feet above the ground. He had only one year to learn a language he did not speak and earn admittance to an American college or else he would be forced to return to Greece to work for his father’s company—a future that would be undoubtedly secure, yet dishearteningly dependent. Thirty-six years later he has founded numerous companies, is presently the CEO of Strategic Pharmaceutical Advisors (SRxA), an international consulting, marketing, and education firm, and considers himself more American than his American-born daughter. This story is neither atypical from that of millions of immigrants who chose to leave the comfort of home, familiar surroundings and support systems in search of the American Dream, nor different from every young person’s brave first steps out along that quivering, indefinite, yet ultimately rewarding wire of risk. On that August day, 36 years ago today, I took my first steps on that wire. That was the day…

“Why Top Talent Leaves: Top 10 Reasons Boiled Down to 1” by Erika Andersen, Contributor, appeared on Forbes.com on Jan. 18, 2012. My comments, which were called-out by the author appear at the bottom of this page. Eric Jackson, a fellow Forbes blogger I follow and find both funny and astute, wrote a really spot-on post last month about why top talent leaves large corporations. He offered ten reasons, all of which I agreed with – and all of which I’ve seen played out again and again, over the course of 25 years of coaching and consulting. The post was wildly popular – over 1.5 million views at this writing. So why do we find this topic so interesting? I suspect it’s because we’re genuinely curious: What would make a very senior executive – someone who most certainly has been courted by his or her organization and then paid huge sums of money to join – decide to pack it in? Is it greed (an even richer offer down the street)? Hubris? Short attention span? Or do 1%ers actually leave jobs for the same reasons as the average Joe or Josie? According to Jackson (and, again, I agree with him) top talent…

Whether you run a company or a department of one, you know it is impossible to have uniform opinions about everything. So why would we expect our kids to think exactly like we do? Sometimes the most heartfelt discussions with your kids reach an impasse. I have at times failed to convince my daughter of something and she has failed to convince me. I don’t mean that we refused to give in to the other out of stubbornness; we legitimately did not see eye to eye. And we learned together that this was OK. It was more important to me to raise a daughter who could think for herself than to agree all the time. What is not OK during a disagreement is to storm out of the room. My daughter tried this a few times when she was younger. We would reach that impasse in our discussion and she would get up and walk away. I was irritated with her behavior to no end, but instead of yelling, I explained to her in a stern but polite way exactly how I felt: “I expect you to treat my opinion with the same level of respect as you want me…