Steeds Beter door Oplossingsgericht Werken (OGW), Persoonlijke Leiderschap (Covey) en Lean.

Werkboek, met theorie en praktijk oefeningen voor professionals en studenten. VNN, Groninge

Het einde van succesvol leiderschap?

A successful leader is someone who succeeds in increasing the profit of an organisation in particular in case of an unsuccessful organisation. In this way, a successful leader shows how leadership changes an organisation internally and externally. The more successful a leader is, the more profit for society. It is challenging to become a successful leader, as it requires much skills and a certain character. Because of this, there has been an extensive need for leadership programs. This need has even been increased in the last forty years due to technological and economic changes in society. Now, the leadership industry is profiling on international and regional levels. It has even become an industry of millions. Yet, it remains questionable whether these leadership programs offer what they promise: successful leadership. This article tends to answer this question by addressing three questions. Firstly, which experts play a role in the leadership industry? This question will be addressed by considering the different types of leadership experts, such as scientists and guru’s. Secondly, did the leadership industry lead to more successful leaders? The article tends to answer this question by considering previous research on the successfulness of leadership programs such as the seven habits of successful leadership. Thirdly, to what extend did successful leadership reach its limits? This question will be answered by considering the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes

Noord-Nederland op weg naar een rookvrije generatie?

Over the past century the prevalence of smoking dropped by more than half in the Netherlands. Yet still about a quarter of our population smokes, and smoking tobacco is still the single most important cause of illness and premature death. In our country daily too many children start smoking and too few smokers succeedeach year to stop smoking permanently. Many people now realize that smoking is not healthy and most parents would prefer their children not to smoke. The health risks are however still often underestimated as well as how addictive smoking is, how relatively simple children can become addicted to tobacco and how difficult it is to quit. Moreover many seem to understand insufficiently how solid this addiction isrooted in our society. Smoking is not just a major social and individual problem,but it is above all a problem of social network structures inside often a strong transgenerational transmission of this addiction. In this article we discuss a vision fora sustainable approach to the tobacco problem, which not only population-based measures should be taken, but additionally mainly a regional and local approach desired. By de-normalizing smoking and by changing knowledge and attitudes among individuals and within social networks, with better support for smokers to quit smoking in a possible smoke free environment, will eventually have fewer children start smoking and more going to stop smoking. In the long term this could lead to a more vital region, where not only the current residents, but also the next generations will benefit from.<br/