Relationships

Welcome to 2010!  I trust that each of you had a wonderful time with family and friends.  Just before Christmas Roger Schwartz published “Giving and Receiving Gifts in Conversation” in his Fundamental Change newsletter.  I found the article so thought provoking that I have published it here as this week’s reading  by permission. Two Decembers ago, I […]

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 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 […]

Much of a leader’s time is spent, formally or informally, working to influence decision makers, typically peers, cross-organizational colleagues, or those higher up in the organization.  The Tuesday Reading this week – Effectively Influencing Decision Makers:  Ensuring That Your Knowledge Makes a Difference – focuses on just this subject. To begin the article, Marshall Goldsmith quotes […]

There’s lots of advice on finding and attracting staff and on identifying and retaining top performers you already have.  Stephen DeMaio, in a recent blog entry – “How to Identify Employees’ Hidden Talents” – argues that it is even more important to look for your current staff’s hidden strengths to find new skills and talents that have […]

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 […]

For today’s reading we turn to advice from José Carlos Eiras, former CIO of DHL-Express US and also European CIO and Global Services Information Officer at General Motors, found in “Practical Advice for CIOs Struggling to Survive in Tough Times“. After talking briefly about the choices IT leaders struggling with tough times — either ”hunker […]

Power is a subject that is not often discussed in public.  Yet, an individual cannot be a leader without having power, “the potential to influence others.”  In this week’s Tuesday Reading, “Power Plays:  How to Use Your Power Wisely” from the December 2008 Issue of the Center for Creative Leadership’s Newsletter Leading Effectively, outlines nine strategies for levering your […]

This week we turn our attention to Generation Y, those individuals with ages 21-31, the youngest members of our staff.  The reading is “Leadership Lessons We Can Learn from Generation Y” which appeared in the July 9, 2008 issue of Fast Company. Bea Fields, author of this piece and Executive Coach, Speaker and Author as well […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is John Baldoni’s column “Why Leaders Need People Skills”.  This is a familiar topic to alumni of the IT Leaders Program but I thought that we could all benefit from Baldoni’s point of view.  He notes:  “Top executives [and I would say leaders at all levels] are … returning to a most fundamental tenet of […]