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 Leadership Growth

I began Historical Solutions LLC as a leadership enterprise. I offer history-based seminars to executives, board members, managers, directors, and supervisors who are seeking to improve their leadership abilities. Leadership development is central to my life’s work in making history a useful tool in the life of you and your organization.

History is excellent content for developing leaders. Leadership is 90% people and 10% everything else. The issues pertaining to people are timeless. Motivation, communication, vision, organization, crisis management, problem solving, delegation, and a dozen other aspects of leadership are all things that have been confronted by leaders for centuries. History shows the “do’s and don’ts” of leadership. It’s up to you and me to remember to use them.

I should be more precise. A particular type of history does that. It’s the type of history that combines research into a major leader or leadership event with an eye on linking it to applications in today’s world. That’s what I emphasize. That’s what I help each of my participants to find—the takeaways from yesterday that can work both today and tomorrow. To those people who insist that you have to separate history from the current day or you distort the past, I say this: poppycock.

My history-based approach to leadership development is not for everyone. You need to be willing to read articles (written by me) and to think abstractly, introspectively, and reflectively. You have to be willing to be honest with yourself and to actually try something different. You have to be accepting of the need to participate; sitting on your hands with downcast eyes won’t cut it. Finally, don’t expect to have the dialogue stop within the walls of your organization. You’ll find that this approach is very far-reaching, spanning your home, community, and spiritual life.

Notice what I didn’t include—a love of history. I don’t care if you like history or not. That’s not mandatory. The other stuff is.

If you’re in a position to decide on using my services or not, rest assured I’ll be candid with you about whether I think it will succeed in your organization, with your team. After conversing with you, I’ll say whether I think my approach is right for you.

Here is my leadership development service model:

  • My seminars can stand alone or form into a series. They are usually 2-3 hours long. A pre-session article is distributed to participants. The sessions include interactive discussions, scenarios, and analysis. Afterwards, I conduct a personalized, confidential follow-up email discussion with each participant.
  • Before launching a series or one-time session, I execute an organizational assessment which consists of four confidential interviews with stakeholders of your choice. After the four interviews are complete, I submit an Assessment Report that outlines the key issues identified (these form the basis of the session or sessions).
  • After each session is done, I submit a Summary Report that describes what I believe are the important points identified, raised, and embraced by the participants. My preference is for an organization’s executive team to commit to implementing at least one organization-wide takeaway from a session or series.