Times are tough. Business is down. The recession is still lingering. Everyone is a little tired of being tired. The winter seems to never end. As a Leader I often talk of (and enjoy being in) the leadership hot seat. On second thought, perhaps not all of the time…

After the winter we have had in the mid-Atlantic, many of us are happy to enjoy the “little things,” like sunshine and temperatures above 50 degrees. But for most of the winter, it has been hard to live without the heated seats in my SUV. Let me say, these are not your average heated seats. These get hot. Really, really hot. So hot that my son Josh and I often have contests on who can take the heat the longest. Remember as a kid taking a red hot candy and putting it under your tongue? The seats are that hot. Who wins? It’s 50/50 on most days. The truth is, we often think, “this can’t be healthy”. Is it possible that something is wrong here and that we could achieve second or third degree burns? No, of course not.

Then the special safety recall notice came in the mail. To quote it, “the front seat electric heating elements on your vehicle may overheat and cause an interior fire or result in injury under certain operating conditions”. I hope you can imagine how we have laughed about what we thought was just a funny household game. Now, the potential is there — we could actually catch fire and get the burn that we have been teasing about for years.

Since my words often about leadership — I guess my leadership hot seat will never be the same…