Today, we turn to Business Week’s September 18, 2009 Leadership column for the piece “How Authentic Leaders ‘Walk the Walk’".
In the article, Alan Deutschman, says that being an authentic leader means two things:
1. You must share the struggle and the risks with your people.
2. You must make sure that your actions consistently reinforce the one or two most important values you hold up for your organization.
Today’s Tuesday Reading takes a look at Higher Ed 2.0. Our reading is “Who Needs Harvard?” from the September 2009 issue of Fast Company. The article’s subheading says it all: “Free online courses, wiki universities, Facebook-style tutoring networks – American higher education is being transformed by a cadre of web-savvy edupunks.”
For today’s Tuesday Reading, we turn to a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Q&A – “How Team Leaders Show Support – or Not”– with HBS faculty member Teresa Anabile.
Though from 2004, the findings remain valid. Professor Anabile’s research points to two key concepts for leaders who want to gain their staff’s confidence:
1. Perceptions of team leader support are more positive when the leader
- gives timely feedback
- support the team member’s actions and decisions
This week’s Tuesday Reading is an entry – “Humility as a Leadership Trait”– from John Baldoni’s Harvard Business Publishing blog.
Baldoni asserts, and I agree, that leaders who want to inspire followers need to demonstrate both their accomplishments and their character. Key to demonstrating character is being humble. And, humility is essential to leadership because it authenticates a person’s humanity.
The article suggests three ways a leader can demonstrate humility: