One of the topics we discuss in the IT Leaders Program is giving and receiving both positive and negative feedback. In today's reading "Learning to Accept Criticism", John Baldoni reinforces the importance of giving and receiving criticism noting that they are essential leadership capabilities. He then gives several helpful suggestions:
- Know your facts -- if you are going to criticize your boss (and for that matter anyone), you'd better get it right.
In "Five Bad Habits to Lose on the Road to Success", John Baldoni highlights several bad habits -- from Marshall Goldsmith's newest book What Got You Here Won't Get You There -- that leaders need to abandon:
In “Total Leadership” <http://www.cio.com/article/109250?source=nlt_cioinsider>, Patricia Wallington, former CIO at Xerox, discusses a topic, conflict and confrontation, that makes most of us very uncomfortable. She begins by noting that confrontation is a regular feature of IT. She then asserts that IT leaders must become experts in the art of confrontation. Her approach has seven steps --
• Anticipate
• Confront the issue, not the person
• Seek understanding
• Get help
In this piece, Becoming a Change Leader, May 8, 2007 CIO <http://www.cio.com/article/108351/Becoming_a_Change_Leader>, Maya Townsend, founder and principal consultant of Partnering Resources, introduces four key factors which she argues are crucial to successful change initiative
Today's reading focuses on Emotional Intelligence, a topic discussed in the leader's program. In this piece --
You will remember Joe Raelin as one of the authors whose papers you were assigned to read for the first workshop of the Leaders Program. In this paper, "The 'Bottom Line' of leaderful practice,“ which you can download from http://www.leaderful.org/pdf/BottomLine.pdf he argues that the one thing that most makes a leader is a compassionate approach, a leaderful practice that exhibits humility and seeks to serve others rather than power for its own sake. As a result, people learn to count on others because they have learned that each
Today's reading the "The 'Pull Leadership' Manifesto" by Stever Robbins, founder and president of LeadershipDecisionworks. This piece from the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Archives caught my eye because of its thesis: "We need leaders who inspire others to follow, who engender loyalty." Robbins calls this "pull" leadership and then goes on to identify twelve key characteristics of pull leadership: Pull leaders
1. Create social systems that inspire people to join.
2. Take responsibility.
We all experience pressure, almost daily. Sometimes the pressure is generated by the schedule and expectations we set for ourselves; sometimes from the expectations others place on us. Rick Brenner's Chaco Canyon had three (short) columns last December that focused on several aspects of pressure associated with projects:
Communications and Expectations <http://www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/061213.shtml>
This week we return to Rick Brenner's Chaco Canyon newsletter for the column "Asking Brilliant Questions". Throughout the leaders program we encourage participants to ask questions: You do that as you are being present, you do it in meetings to draw out information from your colleagues, you do that as you coach. In this column, Rick suggests seven types of questions you may find helpful as you work to move projects forward.
Have a great week. . . . . jim
Today, I'm sending along references to two pieces from Rick Brenner's Chaco Canyon Consulting email newsletter on empathy.
The Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary tells us that empathy is "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner."