:: rawblogXport ::

:: Monday, March 10, 2003 ::

Leadership Skills Include Focusing on People The best leaders "don't just sit in the office, they put a finger on the pulse of the organization and get a real sense of what is going on in their organization," says Terence M. O'Sullivan, general president of the 818,000-member laborers' union since 2000. He claims that it is critical for leaders to have a vision, passion, aggressive determination and a real sense of where they want to take their organization. He also noted that a union or a company can't succeed because of one leader. "Everyone has to be a leader, but someone has to put a plan of action in place." Persuasion also helps. "You can be passionate or visionary, but if you can't convince others, it is hard to move forward," says O'Sullivan.

That kind of goal setting is very important in the eyes of Douglas J. McCarron, general president of the 540,000-member carpenters' union, which withdrew from the AFL-CIO in 2000 largely over the issue. A leader has to be "very disciplined to achieve [a] goal," he says . McCarron says he "sees no concrete goals" in many parts of the labor movement.

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