Influence

…  the right of every person to be valued and respected Last December’s first Tuesday Reading was Let’s Choose to Be Civil.1 There I used Georgetown University professor Christine Porath’s definition of “incivility” – disrespect or rudeness including mocking or belittling someone, teasing in ways that hurt, offensive jokes, arriving late to meetings, focusing on your smart device […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Theresa Bamrick, CIO at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory operated by Stanford University. Her essay first appeared as a leaders program reflection last fall. [Theresa may be reached at <[email protected]>.]    I come from a cranberry and fishing town near Cape Cod, MA. My parents were born in the Greatest […]

Harry Davis is the first individual to connect leadership and performance art that I ever encountered. He is the Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Distinguished Service Professor of Creative Management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. We met at the 2008 MOR Leaders Conference1 where Professor Davis was the featured speaker. His […]

… a technique that allows people to iterate on ideas without using harsh or judgmental language. While used typically in teams and on the ideas of others, plussing works equally well on one’s own ideas – when one’s self critic can be particularly vocal. You may never have previously encountered the word “plussing.” Neither had […]

… a strong desire to know or learn something Previous Tuesday Readings have focused on curiosity,1,2,3 on the very related topic of asking questions,4,5 and the further related topic of psychological safety6 on numerous occasions. Given these six examples along with a larger number of additional Tuesday Readings focused on aspects of this topic I’ve not listed as References, […]

Some two weeks ago, Senator John McCain died. While some saw him as a maverick, someone with a strong independent streak, he was also determined to do what he believed right, even at a high personal cost. He is an American hero – for his five and a half years as a prisoner in a […]

The MOR Leaders Program, as the name implies, is about leadership.  Just what is it that leaders do and how do they go about doing it?  Two weeks ago, we focused on the humble leader.  There we wrote about what makes a leader humble1 and how a leader can cultivate those characteristics in his or her […]

… conjunction (joining two words, phrases, or clauses) as in   “Rachel plays the piano and sings.”  (macmillandictionary.com) Eric McNulty, director of research at the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, notes that over the years words like “paradigm shift,” “synergy,” “sustainability,” “resilience,” “agile,” “lean,” as well as others have come onto the stage, and often inform new […]

At least with my family, preparation for Thanksgiving dinner began several weeks ago as decisions were made about where we would gather and who would prepare and bring what food to share.  It’s always a wonderful time to get as many family members as can come together to express our thanks for another year and […]

Last week, during the closing session’s CIO Panel at one of the MOR Leaders Programs, every CIO on the panel commented on the importance of trust.  Earlier in the session in a similar vein, I had noted that followers want leaders who are credible, trustworthy, leaders who do what they say they will do.  Max […]

… Hunting, Fishing, Trawling Every organization has hidden leaders.  They’re everywhere.  They consistently step up to deal with client problems, with intractable issues, with extra effort to meet an unusual request from a key client, etc.  We often don’t think of such individuals as leaders, after all they don’t have a positional title that would […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, It Began with Curiosity, is an essay by Jill Purdy, Director of Finance at the University of Nebraska-Kearney.  [She may be reached at [email protected].]Her essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year. When my father had a heart attack five years ago, he was flown to Sanford Heart Institute in Sioux […]

One of the central tenets of leadership is that you put your leadership skills to work wherever you are.  This follows from a strong belief that leadership is not about a position or a title but rather the simple idea that leadership is more about a set of skills that you can develop and make […]

As young children, one of the first things we began to do after we had learned to talk is to ask questions.  Our brains thirst for information, for knowledge, to understand.  Paul Sloane, author of the Innovative Leader, tells us that asking questions is the simplest and most effective way of learning.  So, if as […]

Only look back if that is where you want to be. Today’s Tuesday Reading, Don’t Look Back, is an essay by Scott Orr, Manager, Research and Infrastructure Computing, Dean’s Office, School of Science, Indiana University.  The essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year. Our last Indiana MOR Leaders Workshop focused on influencing others and […]

“The important thing is not to stop questioning … Never lose a holy curiosity.”                                 – Albert Einstein Young children are incessant askers of questions.  Endless, relentless.  Based on a 2013 Telegraph Media Group Survey of some 1000 mothers in the U.K., kids […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, “Don’t Get Gun Shy”, is an essay by Lizz Duke, Senior Systems Analyst and member of the ServiceLink Team at NYU.  The essay first appeared as a program reflection in November 2016.   I got my first job as a teenager at the Pathmark supermarket near my house.  I started there as a […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is Nancy Koehn’s Whiteboard Session, The Ingredients of Great Leadership (a 4 minute video).  Professor Koehn, a historian, is the James E. Robinson Chair of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.  She is a prolific writer currently writing about lessons from the leadership journeys of a group of leaders including Abraham Lincoln and […]

Civility and Respect?  You might be thinking, why a Tuesday Reading on this subject?   I would have thought so too until several essays by Catherine Porath crossed my desk.  Porath has studied civility and respect for over two decades.  Her studies have clearly demonstrated that civility and being respectful pay off.  She writes:  “It […]

Always on the Stage We say over and over again “Leaders are always on the stage.”  Why?  Because someone is always watching.  Someone is always taking the leader’s behavior to inform their impression of her or him and as an example of how to behave.  Good or bad, it’s OK.  We think, if it works […]