Leadership

MIT’s Leadership Center <http://mitleadership.mit.edu/> hosted Anne Mulcahy, then Xerox’s Chairman and CEO at the Sloan School’s Dean’s Innovative Leader Series in November 2006.  A synopsis of her remarks will be found at <http://mitleadership.mit.edu/r-mulcahy.php> and a video of the entire presentation is available at MIT World <http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/412/>. Mulcahy assumed the leadership of Xerox in 2001 when many […]

If you are leading a change initiative, then you must be an influencer for that initiative to be successful.  Yet studies have shown that only one in five leaders are able to influence positive change in a way that it lasts.  What’s going on? Today’s reading is “The Influencers:  The Top Five Reasons Leaders Lack Influence”.  In this […]

Today’s Reading is Preston Cline’s ”Leadership Lessons from Mt. Kilimanjaro“ which appeared in the November-December issue of the Wharton Leadership Digest <http://leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/digest/index.shtml> and is reproduced below by permission. The lesson here is simple and clear:  In life there will always be error, failure.  It is better to fix the error when it is first noticed and small, than […]

Todays reading, Jennifer Kahnweiler’s “Why Introverts Can Make The Best Leaders” comes from Forbes.com.  Kahnweiler is the author of “The Introverted Leader:  Building on Your Quiet Strength” and is president of AboutYOU, an Atlanta based leadership consultancy. Many leaders describe themselves as introverts and somewhere in their leadership journey they have addressed the issues of being disregarded or […]

Having heard a number of people talk about “leading-up, I decided to do a Google search on the words.   This led to far more references than I had time to explore.  However, I found one — “Leading Up”  The Art of Managing Your Boss” a review of Michael Useem’s 2001 book, “Leading Up:  How To […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is the Conversation Starter by Larry Senn “Lead from the Top of the Mood Elevator” from Harvard Business Publishing.  Senn is the founder of Senn Delaney and an authority and practitioner in the field of culture shaping. The key point of this piece is rather straight forward:  Almost everyone experiences mood changes throughout […]

Nancy Lublin, CEO of Do Something, is the author of this week’s Tuesday Reading, “How to Write a Mission Statement That Isn’t Dumb”.  Her article appears in the December 1, 2009 issue of FastCompany. Lublin argues that our mission statements don’t have to be dumb, that is, neither clear nor useful.  They should, she continues, “convey clearly […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a piece which I reproduce below “Using Curiosity to Create Accountability with Powerful People” by Roger Schwarz of the Skilled Facilitator. In his piece, Schwarz notes that when people are accountable to you, you [should] expect then to explain the key decisions and actions they have taken.  Yet, when we are talking […]

Today’s reading “Lessons from Your Leadership Journey” is a recent entry in Brian McDonald’s blog at the ITLP Leadership Development Community Practice website <http://bit.ly/L7Om>.   Early in every Leadership Program cycle, everyone has an opportunity to reflect on their past experiences as a leader and identify lessons they learned from these experiences.  In doing this, some people […]

Today, we turn to Business Week’s September 18, 2009 Leadership column for the piece “How Authentic Leaders ‘Walk the Walk’”. In the article, Alan Deutschman, says that being an authentic leader means two things: 1.  You must share the struggle and the risks with your people. 2.  You must make sure that your actions consistently reinforce the […]

For today’s Tuesday Reading, we turn to a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Q&A – “How Team Leaders Show Support – or Not”– with HBS faculty member Teresa Anabile. Though from 2004, the findings remain valid.  Professor Anabile’s research points to two key concepts for leaders who want to gain their staff’s confidence: 1.  Perceptions […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading is an entry –  “Humility as a Leadership Trait”– from John Baldoni’s Harvard Business Publishing blog. Baldoni asserts, and I agree, that leaders who want to inspire followers need to demonstrate both their accomplishments and their character.  Key to demonstrating character is being humble.  And, humility is essential to leadership because […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading is from BusinessWeek’s August 25, 2009 Communications Column:  “How to Give a Lousy Presentation”.  We all make a lot of presentations.  And, I know that you are like me and know that you are able to do better most of the time.  This piece gives you 15 excellent ways to make a lousy presentation.  It […]

For this week’s Tuesday Reading, we turn to the Career Strategies Column in the Wall Street Journal for a short piece “You’re a Success, Now Get Down to work”. Near the end of this piece, its author Alexandra Levit writes:  “Just because you’re skilled or talented in a particular area doesn’t mean you should simply pass […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is “The Success Trap”, from Jeffrey Pfeffer’s August 25th,  BNET Column, The Corner Officer on August 25, 2009. Pfeffer’s thesis is simple:  When we become successful, it is very easy to drop our guard, to not maintain our standards (much less build on them), and to rest on our laurals. He argues that to […]

For today’s reading we turn to John Baldoni’s blog at the Harvard Business Review for his piece “How to Make People Passionate About Their Work”.   Baldoni notes that generating passion for what you do is essential, and doubly so in difficult times.  He goes on to say that it is essential for a leader to have passion […]

It seems like every week I hear of universities planning for, going through, or having recently experienced layoffs, terminations, or position eliminations as a result of the economic crisis we are experiencing.  Today’s reading – “Ask the Expert:  How Do Effective Leaders Handle Change?” — is by Mark Hannum, Principle Consultant at Linkage and looks at practices that […]

Somehow, Tuesday came and I was completely oblivious to my commitment to send out something for everyone to reflect on.  Don’t know where my thoughts were that morning!  In spite of my forgetfulness, we do have a very good piece for this week from ITLP IX’s Vision Team – Tom Lewis (University of Washington), Todd Rheinfrank […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading is a piece “Anxiety for Fun and Profit” which I found on a recent flight in the April 2009 issue of United’s Hemisphere magazine. The article’s key thesis is “We need just the right amount of worry to achieve our goals in life.”  Too much anxiety, you succumb to perpetual negative thinking;  […]

John Maxwell, a very prolific writer on leadership, is the author of our Tuesday Reading for today:  “Influence:  Connecting with People”. Maxwell’s thesis is straightforward;  … “until leaders learn the art of connection, their influence remains minimal.”  To help us make connections, he offers eight practical steps: 1.  Don’t take people for granted. 2.  Possess a difference-maker mindset. 3.  Initiate movement toward […]