Presence

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is by Dr. David Sweetman, MOR Associates Leadership Coach and Consultant.  David may be reached at [email protected].]   Given the positive feedback we received from our Tuesday Reading a few weeks ago that featured the perspectives of multiple MOR alums, we plan to include that style as part of our ongoing program […]

[This reading is from Vania McBean, Assistant Director of Information Technology for University Recreation and Wellness at the University of Maryland – College Park.  She is a recent MOR program alum.  Vania may be reached at [email protected].] From time to time, as leaders we have to stop and press the pause button. MOR practice requirements […]

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Chris Paquette, Director of Survey Services at MOR Associates. Chris may be reached at [email protected].] Future historians will point to this as the moment when COVID-19 profoundly and instantly transformed how we worked and interacted. Videoconferencing, previously a useful supplement to in-person meetings and teleconferences, has become the primary way […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Dave Acheson, Network Operations, Information Systems and Technology, Chapman University. His essay first appeared as a leaders program reflection earlier this year. [Dave may be reached at  <[email protected]>.]    Since my MOR Associates Leaders Program came to an end, I have struggled to continue the strides I felt […]

… and Why It Matters Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Julian Koh, Associate Director of Telecommunications and Network Services at Northwestern University. Julian is an alumnus of the MOR Leaders Program. [He may be reached at  <[email protected]>.]      I was recently fortunate enough to take a vacation where I had two very interesting conversations […]

– Upping your game In last week’s Tuesday Reading, Questions: How many have you asked today, we argued that the practice of asking questions is more important than any one of the answers we may be given, as asking builds our knowledge, teaches us about people, engages others, communicates value, sets an example, and develops […]

Ever have the fear that someone is always watching you, just waiting for you to foul-up?   Michael Gervais, psychologist and co-founder of Compete to Create, a high performance mindset training course, wrote in a recent Harvard Business Review essay “How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You,”1 that our “fear of other people’s […]

Self-awareness, one of the key elements of emotional intelligence, is one’s “capacity for introspection and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Self-awareness is how an individual consciously knows and understands their own character, feelings, motives, and desires. There are two broad categories of self-awareness: internal self-awareness […]

Two weeks ago, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I wrote about gratitude – the importance of expressing gratitude, how to cultivate a practice of showing gratitude, and about the impact our showing gratitude has on others.  After completing that essay, I watched the CBS Friday (November 15) Evening News. The last of the evening’s news items was […]

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 […]

… 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, […]

… Others Most Certainly Are   Some 150 years ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”     What Emerson was saying is that the way you show up, your presence, can so over power what you say that your words have little […]

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,” […]

Thank you to Amy Peters, Business Planning Manager, University of Michigan, Information & Technology Services, and Michael Warden, Sr. Director, Service Management, Health Information Technology & Services, University of Michigan, for sharing this perspective!   Our MOR experiences were transformational, and we hope it’s the same for each of you! Participation is a unique opportunity for you to learn […]

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 […]

So, what do I do now? We all make mistakes.  Sometimes they are small and personal like forgetting to put the trash at the curb to be picked up.  Or, larger and embarrassing, like writing the amount differently in numbers and words on a check.  Or, sending a critical email to the wrong addressee.  Or, […]

Keep that “elevator speech” fresh!    Today’s Tuesday Reading, Missed Opportunity, is an essay by Brent Tuggle, Lead Windows System Administrator, in Technology Services at the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign. The essay first appeared as a program reflection early this year. I wanted to take a moment to share a recent experience I had and an […]

Overcoming a Bad One The very first exercise we do in the MOR Leaders Programs is one on first impressions.  Sit or stand in a circle, take notes on the first impression you have of the individuals in your circle, add some notes about the first impression that you think you create, and share.  For […]

You can find many lists of leadership competencies.  Some result from a careful examination of the work in a particular job family or from role descriptions.  Some come from discussions about what it takes to be a really good leader in a mid-level position at, say, an education institution.  Other lists are developed based on […]