Leadership

… and School Will Soon Be Back in Session I’m sure that it is as hard for you, as it is for me, to realize that summer vacations are over, Labor Day is upon us, and children of all ages are going back to school. My middle three grandchildren are either at college or will […]

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”                   – Brenè Brown   The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines vulnerable as capable of being physically or emotionally wounded, open to attack and damage.   Robert Stolorow,1 psychologist, author, and a founding faculty member at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Study, has […]

… How are you seen? “All the world’s a stage …  And, one man [or woman] in his [or her] time plays many parts.”                                                                 […]

… Own them, learn from them, don’t repeat them mis•take  noun  an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.   “The only man [or woman] who never makes a mistake is the man [or woman] who never does anything.”                                     – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States     We all make mistakes, […]

… How Do I Respond?   Recently, I came across a short essay by one of my favorite leadership writers, Paul Axtell.  Axtell is an author of several books, including Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations,1 and a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review blogs. The piece that caught my attention is “How to […]

Today, most organizations, including a university’s IT organization, structure their work through a set of teams. Other examples include professional sports teams with their structure, their practice day-after-day of plays they may execute in the game, and a surgical team that performs the same procedure, for example, hip replacement, under tightly controlled conditions, perhaps multiple […]

… How do I respond?   Compliments are a good thing, right? Everyone likes to be recognized for a job well done. Especially from someone whose work you admire. They are a special form of positive feedback. However, many of us find accepting a compliment with grace to be a major challenge. Too often, our […]

… Helpful thoughts for the next stages of your life’s journey   Every year beginning near the end of May and continuing into early June, there is a flurry of activity at this country’s educational institutions. In the U.S., there are over 4,200 degree granting colleges and universities and over 20,500 high schools who each […]

Yesterday was Memorial Day, our holiday for remembering all those – some 1.4 million from the American Revolution until now – who gave their lives in conflicts while serving in our nation’s armed forces.    The idea of having a time to commemorate those who have died in the line of duty while serving their […]

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 […]

Daniela Aivazian is the author of today’s Tuesday Reading.  She is an Organizational Effectiveness Specialist in Stanford University’s University IT organization.  Her essay first appeared as a leadership program reflection earlier this year.  [Dani may be reached at [email protected].]   In my second IT Leaders workshop, my coach said something that stopped me in my tracks. “Words matter,” […]

The MOR Leaders Program employs a leadership model which calls for leaders to focus on providing direction – establishing vision, developing strategies, and coping with change; aligning people – communicating direction, engaging people in implementation, and building commitment; and motivating them to do the work – “holding up the banner,” coaching and empowering, and recognizing and rewarding success. This […]

… it’s really not an option  Reflection is about “careful thought.”  Jennifer Porter, leadership and team development coach, says that “the kind of reflection that is really valuable to leaders is more nuanced than just ‘careful thought’.”  The most useful reflection involves the conscious considerations and analysis of beliefs and actions for the purpose of learning.”  […]

. . .  to help you avoid your biases Today’s Tuesday Reading turns again to focus on another aspect of bias, how to keep our minds from falling for bad advice.   In the March 6, 2018 Tuesday Reading Biases, we noted that an individual’s personal cognitive biases can be helpful and adaptive, and also that they may […]

Steven Westlund is the author of today’s Tuesday Reading.  He is the Director of Enterprise Applications Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis.  His essay first appeared as a leadership program reflection earlier this year.  [Steve may be reached at [email protected].]   A few weekends ago, my wife and I watched Alexandra Dean’s documentary, Bombshell: the Hedy Lamarr […]

… When Hiring Staff Last week’s Tuesday Reading focused on cognitive biases, forces that can influence an “individual’s personal construction of his or her social reality.” This personal construction and not the objective input received from your senses may dictate your behavior in the social world.  As a result, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual […]

… “If you have a brain, you’re biased.”1    The Cambridge English Dictionary defines bias as a “personal opinion that influences your judgment.”  We all have such personal opinions.   Cognitive biases2, 3 are systematic deviations from the norm as individuals create their own “subjective social reality” based on their perception of the information they are receiving from […]

… my team is a safe place for interpersonal risk taking   Early this decade Google was focused on building the perfect team.  Even earlier, the company had endeavored to capture large quantities of data about employees and how they worked.  They knew, for example, how frequently particular people ate together (more productive people had larger […]

… men and women can both be “victims” and “perpetrators”   Turn on the radio or television, read a magazine or newspaper, surf the web.  You’ll likely hear or see a story about sexual harassment or assault or mischief on the part of someone in power – a broadcast personage, a media executive, a politician, […]

Brian McDonald is the author of today’s Tuesday Reading. He is the president of MOR Associates an organization he founded in 1983 based on the belief that many organizations do not maximize the contribution most people want to make at work. More recently, he has led the development of the MOR family of leadership programs.   During […]