Jim Bruce

The issue of employee engagement has surfaced in several ways over the past few weeks – what is it?, why is it important?, should I be concerned about my team’s engagement?, how would I improve it?, what could/should a team member do to increase his/her engagement?, etc.  This issue and these questions have led to […]

We began the 2015 Tuesday Readings with a series of readings focused on being intentional.  A week later, we focused on being intentional about developing new practices to strengthen our leadership.  We next focused on the art of saying “NO,” about being intentional in adding to your deliverables.  And then, last week, we focused on […]

We began the Tuesday Readings for 2015 with a focus on being intentional, and followed that with an essay on practices and then, last week, on the art of saying “no.”  Today we want to take a next step and turn to your calendar and being intentional about it.  It’s been noted that you have a […]

Almost everyone I run into bemoans their busyness, the large number of To Do’s that are in front of them, and the seeming inability to make headway in reducing the length of the list.  Author and consultant David Allen suggests that the typical mid-level manager, at any one time, spanning all aspects of his or […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Jim Dezieck, Leadership Coach at MOR Associates.  In the essay, Jim focuses on developing new practices.  As I indicated in last week’s Tuesday Reading, building new practices is one step in becoming more intentional. Everywhere in our work at MOR we promote practical action, through practices, as the […]

Happy New Year! At the beginning of each new year, many individuals, particularly Americans, develop New Year’s Resolutions for themselves.  Doing this is neither new nor all that unique.  Babylonians made resolutions 2500 years ago, and since then, everyone has followed. About 45% [1] of all Americans will make resolutions this year – typically to […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, “How to Spend the First 10 Minutes of Your Day” <http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-spend-the-first-10-minutes-of-your-day/>, appeared in the HBR blog and is from the pen of Ron Friedman, founder of ignite80, a consulting firm that helps leaders build thriving organizations.   Friedman notes that if you were given the privilege of working in the kitchen of legendary […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a reflection written for his cohort by Patrick Widham, IT Support Manager at Montana State University and recent IT Leaders Program alum.   When we started the first session, I mentioned that I was like a sponge and wanted to soak in all of the information I could.  Looking back on […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, “Why We Humblebrag About Being Busy,” comes from the pen of Greg McKeown and recently appeared in the HBR blogs.  McKeown is author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and is a business writer, consultant, and researcher specializing in leadership, strategy design, collective intelligence and human systems. McKeown begins his essay “We have […]

This week, at least in the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day, traditionally a day of giving thanks for the harvest (that provides our food) and for the preceding year. History suggests that this celebration goes back in the United States at least to a 1621 feast in the Plymouth Colony celebrating a good harvest […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, “Listening”, was written by Zachary Jacques as a Leadership Reflection for the ITLP 2014 Leaders Program cohort.  Zach is Director of Research Administration Information Services at Cornell University. One of my goals with the MOR ITLP program is to improve my presence, including presentation skills.  I have spent a good amount of […]

The Tuesday Reading today is 7 Ways You’re Unconsciously Undermining Yourself.  The essay was written by Gwen Moran for FastCompany.com.  Moran writes about business, money and assorted other topics for leading publications and web sites.  She is co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Business Plans. There are things we all do that undermine ourselves, that make others think we’re not effective […]

Ten years ago today, the first workshop of the first MOR IT Leaders Program, held at the University of Chicago, came to an end.  Beth Hayes, Penn State participant in that first cycle, has written of that time: “Attending the IT Leadership Program was a game changer.  As our session began, I was concurrently moving […]

The Tuesday Reading today is “7 Bad Habits That Made Me a Terrible Boss”.  This essay first appeared in inc.com where its author, John Brandon, writes the Tech Report column.  He is also a contributing editor at Inc. magazine. Brandon has frequently written about his mistakes and how to he was a terrible leader.  The habits he writes about […]

Last summer, for a leadership reflection, John Shutt, Instructional Media Coordinator at Michigan State University, pointed his colleagues in their leadership program, to a short audio clip of Jim Collins’ discussion of “Creating a Pocket of Greatness.”  Collins is a noted leadership author known for his books Good to Great and Level 5 Leadership. The central focus of […]

The Tuesday Reading today is “3 Underappreciated IT Leadership Skills?”, a commentary appearing this past July in Information Week.  The essay’s authors are Whitney Hischier and Rajiv Ball, lecturers at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business where they teach the Business Leadership for IT Professionals program. Ball and Hischier note that today’s world is far […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is actually a Marshall Goldsmith video “Leadership is a Contact Sport”.   In this video Goldsmith teaches a very straightforward model for development as a leader or as a team member.  It has eight steps: 1.  Ask.  Create a habit of asking people important questions – how could I have done a […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a reflection written for his cohort by James Lewis, Academic Technology Support Infrastructure Manager, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas, Austin and a recent IT Leaders Program alum.  While preparing to write this leadership reflection, I initially thought I would focus on the challenges of creating networks for those of […]

The Tuesday Reading today is “Take a Walk, Sure, but Don’t Call It a Break”, an essay that appeared early in the year in the HBR blogs.  Its author, Dan Pallotta, is an expert in nonprofit sector innovation and a pioneering entrepreneur.  He is founder of Pallotta TeamWorks, which invented the multi-day AIDSRides and Breast […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is “To Get Honest Feedback, Leaders Need to Ask”, as essay from the pens of Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner which appeared on the HBR Blog Network.  Kouzes and Posner are coauthors of The Leadership Challenge:  How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations.  Both are at Santa Clara University where Posner […]