Emotional Intelligence

Throughout ITLP we talk about the importance of listening, of choosing to carefully pay attention to and to understand what is being said. Today’s Reading “Soft Skills:  Listening for Better Leadership” addresses this topic.  In the piece, the author Diann Daniel notes that listening conveys respect, not listening makes people feel devalued and less motivated;  good listening empowers, not […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading is “Six Tips for Fessing Up to Your Mistakes” by Deborah Brown-Volkman, president of Surpass Your Dreams, a career, life, and mentor coaching company. If you haven’t made a mistake you can pass this week’s reading.  But, somehow, I think you may find the column interesting.  We all mistakes and it is […]

Over the past week or so, it has seemed that everywhere I turned I ran across an article or a book with leadership or leader in the title:  Vigilant Leadership, Adaptive Leadership, the Leader of the Future, Better Leadership, and Total Leadership.  Today’s piece, Mark Hanna’s “Probing the Periphery:  Mastering Vigilant Leadership” is from the June […]

This week, I want to share with you “Memo to a Young Leader” by William Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company and thinker, writer, and entrepreneur.  In this piece, which appeared in the May 8, 2008 issue of BusinessWeek, he asks five questions that you need solid answers for to be an inspiring leader. 1.  Why should great […]

Too often, we take people for granted.  In this week’s Tuesday Reading “Staff Retention:  The Power of Appreciation at Work”, Mike Robbins quotes the U.S. Department of Labor as noting that 64% of Americans who leave their jobs say they do so because they don’t feel appreciated.  And, Gallup reports that 70% of people in the U.S. say […]

Have you ever had a manager who was abrasive on your staff?  You know, the person who causes you headaches, who have aggressive management styles that create interpersonal friction, reduce motivation and trust to rubble, and disrupt work well beyond the group they lead.  In “Taming the Abrasive Manager:  Words from the Boss Whisperer”, Laura Crawshaw, president of […]

During a 2005 guest lecture at MIT’s Sloan School of Management the following question was asked:  “What should you be learning in business school?”  Jack Welch answered:  “Just concentrate on networking.  Everything else you need to know, you can learn on the job.”  In this week’s reading, “Great Leaders Build Off Great Relations”  <http://www.cio.com/article/152451>, John Baldoni talks […]

In “Situational Awareness 101”, John Baldoni points out that “A sound sense of situational awareness is vital to leadership decision making.  A leader must know context (what is happening), circumstance (what has happened) and consequence (what could happen) at all times.” In this short piece, Baldoni talks about context, circumstance, and consequence and concludes “Ignoring […]

One of the topics we discuss in the IT Leaders Program is giving and receiving both positive and negative feedback.  In today’s reading “Learning to Accept Criticism“, John Baldoni reinforces the importance of giving and receiving  criticism noting that they are essential leadership capabilities.  He then gives several helpful suggestions:   –  Know your facts […]

In “Total Leadership” <http://www.cio.com/article/109250?source=nlt_cioinsider>, Patricia Wallington, former CIO at Xerox, discusses a topic, conflict and confrontation, that makes most of us very uncomfortable.  She begins by noting that confrontation is a regular feature of IT.  She then asserts that IT leaders must become experts in the art of confrontation.  Her approach has seven steps —    […]

Today’s reading focuses on Emotional Intelligence, a topic discussed in the leader’s program.  In this piece —  “Soft Skills for CIOs and Aspiring CIOs:  Four Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence“, or <http://tinyurl.com/29au7g>, Diann Daniel argues that soft skills and emotional intelligence are must haves for IT leaders and workers today.  As she notes and as been identified by […]

You will remember Joe Raelin as one of the authors whose papers you were assigned to read for the first workshop of the Leaders Program.  In this paper, “The ‘Bottom Line’ of leaderful practice,“ which you can download from http://www.leaderful.org/pdf/BottomLine.pdf he argues that the one thing that most makes a leader is a compassionate approach, a […]

We all experience pressure, almost daily.  Sometimes the pressure is generated by the schedule and expectations we set for ourselves;  sometimes from the expectations others place on us.  Rick Brenner’s Chaco Canyon had three (short) columns last December that focused on several aspects of pressure associated with projects: Communications and Expectations  <http://www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/061213.shtml> The Unexpected <http://www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/061220.shtml> […]

Today, I’m sending along references to two pieces from Rick Brenner’s Chaco Canyon Consulting email newsletter on empathy. The Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary tells us that empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having […]

Many people have observed that journaling will change the way that you go about your work and your life.  In today’s reading, Rick Brenner of Chaco Canyon Consulting observes that you record what you did and why you did it.  And, you record what you didn’t do and why you didn’t do it.  You record […]

In the April 1, 2006 issue of Business 2.0, Jeffrey Pfeffer,  Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford’s Graduate School of  Business, argues that it pays to invest in leaders who blame  themselves when things go wrong.  His focus is on CEOs and he uses  the metric of stock prices in his argument.   However, the […]

I found this piece —     Why Everyone in an Enterprise Can — and Should — Be a Leader http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=printArticle&ID=893   — which was originally published in December 2003 recently and thought it was really worth sharing.  Based upon work by individuals at Wharton and McKinsey, it points out that everyone, no matter their […]

  I really enjoy reading Rick Brenner who writes the email newsletter  from Chaco Canyon Consulting.  The last two issues of the newsletter  has focused on tactics for tough times:        http://www.ChacoCanyon.com/pointlookout/060201.shtml        http://www.ChacoCanyon.com/pointlookout/060208.shtml   In these two pieces Rick focuses on problem solving:      – What problem as I […]

Is It Blame or Is It Accountability? —  When we seek those  accountable for a particular failure, we risk blaming them instead,  because many of us confuse accountability with blame.  What’s the  difference between them?  How can we keep blame at bay?   Today’s reading comes from the Chaco Canyon newsletter.  In it Rick Brenner […]

It is very hard to get our work done without collaboration.  Sometimes those collaborators are on our team, sometimes in our organization, sometimes they are elsewhere in our university, and sometimes they are outside our university in suppliers, government agencies, etc.  When collaboration occurs things go well.  But sometimes it doesn’t;  our needed collaborators resist, […]