Growing Leaders Archives - Hal M. Lewis

John From Haywood County

Hal Lewis — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 03:03:24 +0000

About an hour’s drive from Asheville, NC, on the Tennessee border is a bald mountain known as Max Patch. Situated along the Appalachian Trail, it is reputed to have exquisite vistas and cool trails (here “cool” also refers to the… Continue Reading →

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First and Third, One Man Out

Hal Lewis — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 00:43:51 +0000

In the same week the Jewish world lost one of the great educators of our time, Jonathan Woocher, I had my own educational epiphany, the result of a most-unlikely happenstance. The precedent details are too boring to explain, except to… Continue Reading →

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What’s Wrong With You? Or Is It Me?

Hal Lewis — Tue, 30 May 2017 22:18:03 +0000

Now that I blog, people tell me I have license to complain about things. Truth is, that’s what has always annoyed me about this so-called “literary-form” from the very beginning (see my inaugural post). Who gives a rat’s ass about… Continue Reading →

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A Note to the Team At Work

Hal Lewis — Sun, 21 May 2017 03:03:08 +0000

Dear Colleagues: The issue of personal loyalty has so dominated the news of late that I thought I’d take a moment to offer a few thoughts on the subject. I’d like to think that I have been clear about this… Continue Reading →

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Leading Means Having To Say You’re Sorry

Hal Lewis — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 23:17:25 +0000

I have no idea if Erich Segal was right in averring that, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Such matters are far removed from my area of expertise. But I am pretty sure that as a leader there… Continue Reading →

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Blind Loyalty Is Not Loyalty At All

Hal Lewis — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 01:29:23 +0000

A new report coming out of the White House describes the “reassignment” of a respected member of the administration’s security team for disagreeing with the president. A spokesperson explained the move by saying that people who disagree with the president… Continue Reading →

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Dysfunctional Discourse and Internecine Invective

Hal M. Lewis — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 23:01:39 +0000

The very organizational leaders who seek commonwealth between religious traditions, who extol the benefits of communal harmony, would do well to consider why the same principles of peaceable discourse, respect, and sensitivity are so often missing from our own community conversations. Continue Reading →

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When Arrogance Meets Anger in Leadership

Hal Lewis — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:17:10 +0000

Most of us are familiar with the type. We’ve worked with them and maybe even tried to love them – individuals who live in a state of perennial woundedness. You know what I mean – the kind of people who… Continue Reading →

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A Word (or Two) of Wisdom This Inauguration Day

Hal Lewis — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 22:14:04 +0000

Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (known by his initials RaMHaL) was an eighteenth-century mystic, whose most famous work is Mesillat Yesharim, The Path of the Upright. In his discussion of humility, Luzzatto notes, “You will observe that the more ignorant a man… Continue Reading →

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Hypocritical Leaders

Hal Lewis — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 00:03:56 +0000

A recent NY Times column with the provocative title, “The Real Problem with Hypocrisy,” makes the counter-intuitive claim that the trouble with hypocrisy is not, as many of us believed, a “failure of will or a weakness of character.” No,… Continue Reading →

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