Leadership

Last week my attention was drawn to a 2007 article by Harry M. Jansen Kraemer, Jr. “What is this thing called CEO leadership?“.  Kraemer is clinical professor of management at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and an executive partner with Madison Dearborn, a private equity firm based in Chicago.  He is also the former […]

On March 15,2011 Harvard Business Review’s Management Tip of the Day was “Live Your Mission, Don’t State It“.  Two sentences – “A mission statement is an abstraction.  An organization on a mission is inspiring.” – caught my eye in this summary of Dan Pallotta’s HBR blog entry “Do You Have a Mission Statement, or Are […]

Today’s reading focuses on building a practice to increase your daily personal effectiveness.  The IT Leaders Program emphasizes being intentional and planful with the use of your time.  Specifically, we’ve suggested identifying and formally setting aside regular times to plan your week/day.  For example, you might schedule time Sunday evening or on Monday morning to […]

Have you ever been in a meeting to make a decision and before the context can be outlined, a few meeting participants have taken over and are going deeper and deeper into a solution based on a suggestion of one of the individuals?  Today’s reading, ”Go Broad Before You Go Deep,“ from Roger Schwarz’s Fundamental […]

In the sports world, a “clutch” player performs best when the pressure is on.  [See “Learning to be a ‘Clutch’ Leader” by Sean Silverstone, editor of HBS’s Working Knowledge newsletter.]  In the thinking of Paul Sullivan, New York Times business columnist and author of “Clutch:  Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t,”  the best example of a “clutch” […]

Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft and previously a key figure at Software Arts and at Lotus, and founder of Groove, is leaving Microsoft after a short transition period.  Shortly after he made his announcement, Ozzie wrote “Dawn of a New Day,” as an email to Microsoft’s Executive Staff and his direct reports.  He also posted […]

This Tuesday’s Reading “Lessons in IT Leadership:  Doing Less with Less and Failing for Success” is from Mark Katsouros, Director of Telecommunications and Network Services at the University of Iowa.* In Katsouros’ view, the combination of expanding IT demands and customer expectations in concert with dwindling resources have meant that doing more with less has been […]

Today’s reading is “The Four Capacities Every Great Leader Needs (and Very Few Have)” <http://bit.ly/beWaWF> by Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project, a company that helps individuals and organizations fuel energy, engagement, focus, and productivity by harnessing the science of high performance.  This entry appeared in FastCompany’s Expert Blog on October 15, 2010.  (It […]

Today’s reading, “Introverts:  The best Leaders for Proactive Employees“, is a piece by Carmen Nobel that appeared in a recent issue of the HBS Working Knowledge newsletter.  The article reports on the research of Francesca Gino, associate professor in the negotiations, organizations, and markets unit at the Harvard Business School. The key takeaway from Professor […]

Yesterday, EDUCAUSE released its 2010 study of undergraduate students and information technology.  The study’s ROADMAP, prepared by Judith Borreson Caruso and Shannon Smith, the study’s authors, can be found on the EDUCAUSE site at <http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheECARStudyofUndergraduateStu/187215> (click on ROADMAP at the bottom of the page) or downloaded directly from <http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ECM/ECM0906.pdf>.   I believe that this document is must […]

I came across today’s reading, “Leaders Develop Daily, Not in a Day“, last week in John Maxwell’s GIANT Impact newsletter.  Maxwell is an internationally know writer — over 19 million books sold — and speaker on leadership. His’s thesis in this piece is very straightforward:  “Unless we set aside time to grow into the person […]

Today’s reading, suggested by Chris Paquette, Senior Consultant for Survey Services at MOR Associates, comes to us from the September 2, 2010 issue of the Economist – “Declining by degree”.  The author is an anonymous Economist consultant, Schumpeter, who generally writes on individuals and ideas behind the latest trends in business and management.  (Presumably the pseudonym refers […]

Today’s reading “If You Mess Up, Fess Up!” comes to us from Fast Company’s Expert Blog.  It’s author is Paul Glover, who founded the Glover Group, a management consulting firm focusing on improving workplace performance, after a long career as a labor/employment law attorney. Glover’s bottom line is very straight forward:  “Everyone makes mistakes.  It is how we deal […]

The Leaders Program workshops have introduced all of you to the 4 I’s at one time or another.  Today’s reading introduces you to the four A’s, strategies from the Mayo Clinic staff – ”Need Stress Relief?  Try the Four A’s”– for coping with stress:  avoid, alter, accept, and adapt. Since the early August incident between a […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading comes via Jim Hall’s blog <http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jhall/blog/>.  Jim is an ITLP alumnus and is currently campus IT Director at the University of Minnesota Morris. The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article a few weeks ago, How to Run a Meeting <http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Run-a-Meeting/66237/> by Gary A. Olson,  provost and vice president for academic affairs […]

Today’s reading – “How to Become an Effective Delegator” – takes us again to the subject of delegation.  Delegation is the fastest way for each of us to create space in our minds and on our calendar for more strategic work.  And, this, I dare say, is something that we all could benefit from. Today’s piece is by […]

Today’s Reading, “Never Duck the Tough Questions”, is an interview with Dawn Lepore, chair and CEO of Drugstore.com.  The interview was conducted by Adam Bryant and originally appeared in the Corner Office column of the July 18, 2010 New York Times. What impressed me from the column was the set of leadership lessons Ms Lepore learned over […]

Today’s reading “How to Stop the Blame Game” is by Nathanael Fast, assistant professor of Management and Organization at USC’s Marshall School of Business.  It appeared in the May research blog of the Harvard Business Review. Fast points back to the recent “grilling” of three oil company executives by U.S. Senate committees.  He noted that the executives […]

Today’s reading comes from an Amy Gallo posting How to Handle the Pessimist on Your Team to the Harvard Business Review BLOG.  Gallo is a writer, editor, and business consultant.  Her writing on management issues regularly appears in the HRB BLOG.  Earlier she was a consultant at Katztenbach Partners, a strategy and organization consulting firm where she was involved […]

Chip and Dan Heath, authors of “Made to Stick,” released a new book in February – “Switch:  How to change things when change is hard.”  Today’s reading is a review of the book by Keith McFarland which appeared in BusinessWeek. McFarland is founder of McFarland Strategy Partners and author of The Breakthrough Company, and BOUNCE. In Switch, the Heath […]