Jim Bruce

Last week we began a series of Tuesday Readings on the subject of feedback:  Feedback in the workplace is the sharing of information between co-workers about the impact that their behavior is having on the team’s results, its processes, and/or its relationships.  It can be positive in the form of affirmation of specific good work a […]

“We all live in the world with only the vaguest notion of our impact, and sometimes that matters.  Clearly, when we’re effective or helpful, we ought to know it.  And when our actions are working against us or others, we ought to know that too.  Given how most of us put our heads down and […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading “Leadership Happens Through Action and Behavior” first appeared as a Weekly Reflection for the University of Minnesota Advanced Leaders Program.  It’s author, Chris Grantham is Chief of Staff to the Vice President and CIO at the University. Many of you know I have a 19-month-old daughter, Iris, whom I adore absolutely and […]

 In addition to all of the things you have to do in your job is the important responsibility of managing the relationship with your boss.  It takes time and energy.  And, managing it is as important as any of your work, and doing it well can simplify your job by eliminating future problems. Stop for a […]

No, today’s Tuesday Reading is not bad driving advice!  The curves here are those Brad Wheeler, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer for Indiana University and a professor of information systems in IU’s Kelly School of Business, is speaking of in his January/February 2014 EDUCAUSE Review essay “Speeding Up On Curves” which is […]

“Character is the tree.  Reputation is the shadow.”  —  Abraham Lincoln Earlier this month, Fred Kiel’s new book, Return on Character, caught my attention. Kiel is co-founder and principal at the KRW Research Institute which focuses on creating character-driven leadership cultures.  The book is the result of a seven-year study involving 121 CEOs and their senior teams.  […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading focuses on managing difficult conversations.  Most likely each of us will have at least one difficult conversation today.  We’ve all had difficult conversations that have gone badly and we instinctly fear that the one on the horizon will do so as well.  Today’s reading is actually a video produced by Fred Kofman.  […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, Gratitude, is a reflection written earlier this year by Jaime Thompson.  Jaime supports IT in the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota and is a participant in the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) there. What I am feeling this week is gratitude and how I identified it was through a […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, More About Questions, continues our discussion from the past two weeks.  As we’ve noted there, being able to ask good, well-formed questions is as important to a leader as being able to listen well.  Today, we’ll focus on crafting our questions, on asking questions, and finally on those terrible questions we should […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, Asking Good Questions, continues the series begun last week.  There we noted that asking good questions is as important as listening well.  After all, a major part of a leader’s job is initiating and building relationships, collaborating to craft a vision and strategies, developing an understanding of the work and desired results, […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading begins a short series of readings on the subject of asking questions.  It was Voltaire who said, “It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers.” Mark Suster, entrepreneur turned venture capitalist said it this way:  “The ability to ask questions effectively is one of […]

Today’s reading, IMPACT, was written by Bruce Barton, as a reflection in one of the Leaders Program cycles.  Bruce manages the Shared Development Group of the General Library System at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.   Something I’ve been thinking about: Name five leaders.  Chances are that the same names will appear on many […]

Last week Mary Jordan’s post on the Linkage Leadership Blog showed up in my Inbox.  She is a Principle Consultant and Co-Leader of the Change and Transition Leadership Practice at Linkage, an international consulting practice focusing on developing organizations. We have all heard this admonition to “be still” at various times in our lives.  Usually, at […]

I suspect that we all have heard enough about Secretary Clinton’s decisions, first to use a non-government email server for both her government-related email as well as her personal email, and subsequently about the processes followed to preserve or delete emails.  And, that you like me want to be done with it.  Even with that as […]

We’ve all been in situations where we’ve succumbed to peer pressure.  We often argue to ourselves that it’s too hard to step up with a different point of view – we won’t be liked, we’ll do harm to our relationships, and after all it’s not that big of a deal.  However, in many cases, it […]

Last week I was attracted to a short piece [1] on networking by Marc Thompson.  Thompson is an author, leadership coach, and investor.  The article’s title, “Why Jeff Bezos, Tony Hsieh and Al Gore Told Me to Stop Networking,” was what caught my eye.  Thompson notes at the beginning of the piece that the typical advice […]

“Humble listening” is among the top four characteristics of leaders.     – Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”     – Henry Ford “To be able […]

For the past three weeks, the Tuesday Readings have focused on one or another facet of employee engagement.  Today, we shift the focus a bit and turn our attention to “Employee Morale.”  Our author is Vi Bergquist, CIO at St Cloud Technical & community college.  Vi’s essay was a recent weekly reflection in one of […]

The past two Tuesday Readings have focused on employee engagement, first, on February 10, 2015, focusing on what employee engagement is and then on February 17, turning to a set of five expectations that employees have of their supervisors.  The data shows that if these expectations are met, engagement will increase.  And, that’s a good thing.  […]

Last week’s Tuesday Reading, “Employee Engagement – What?” focused on what employee engagement is.   According to Kevin Kruse in Employee Engagement 2.0, “Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.  This emotional commitment means engaged employees actually care about their work and their company.  They don’t work just for a […]