On two occasions, the person I had chosen as airplane captain came through as environmental leader in this second exercise. These exercises reinforced my belief that leadership indeed depends on the situation. As circumstances change, leadership must change. A certain set of skills, instincts, and personality traits may be perfect today, but useless tomorrow.

Intuition, luck, mistakes, serendipity – there you have four vital business concepts that every manager should know.

One good question and one good answer are services to all. A sure sign of a troubled company is one where employees don’t care enough to ask and, if that’s the case, they’ll never care enough to fully deploy their talent. Just as curiosity is an antidote to boredom and indifference, the informed are more likely to remain interested, engaged, and alive with purpose.

The stress-free workplace that is most productive is the one where workers respect each other’s differences.

Even so, these symbols still cause quite a fuss. Thirty percent of all issues in organizations are what I call boarding school stuff: rewards and punishments, how to dress, what time to show up, how to address superiors, how to behave properly. Even worse, they include fodder for the “green-eyed monster,” jealousy, things like why somebody got a raise and somebody else didn’t, why she got the better client account, or why he was asked to join the board.

Exchanging the old boss for a new boss is not situational leadership. True situational leadership – flexible, effective, evolutionary – can only arise from self-management. And that means that situational leadership doesn’t change fundamentally with circumstances. It is always about giving up control.

A high percentage of organisations develop a military rationale, whereby only a very small number of people make all of the decisions. There is little wonder, then, that people aren’t keen to get out of bed and come to work on a Monday morning.

At Semco, you are what you do, not what or whom you control.

I believe no one can afford, endure or can stomach leaving half a life in the parking lot when she or he goes to work. It’s a lousy way to live and a lousy way to work.

There is no contest between the company that buys the grudging compliance of its work force and the company that enjoys the enterprising participation of its employees.