Tuesday Reading

  In today’s reading “How to Deal with Problem Employees”, John Baldoni addresses an issue that every manager and leader will, sooner or later, have to address -– confronting an employee whose behavior disrupts other staff.  When such behavior occurs, if we don’t step up, we are saying by our actions that it is OK for […]

In today’s Tuesday Reading “It’s Not About You”, Robert Joss, Phillip H. Knight Professor and Dean, Stanford Graduate School of Business, recalls a Jack Welch talk about leadership and Welch’s book, Winning.  As Joss recalls, Welch’s most profound comment was that leadership is not about you;  it’s about the people who work for you.  “The day you become a […]

Throughout ITLP we talk about the importance of listening, of choosing to carefully pay attention to and to understand what is being said. Today’s Reading “Soft Skills:  Listening for Better Leadership” addresses this topic.  In the piece, the author Diann Daniel notes that listening conveys respect, not listening makes people feel devalued and less motivated;  good listening empowers, not […]

Today’s reading is “The Success Delusion — Why It Can Be So Hard for Successful Leaders to Change” from the Marshall Goldsmith Library.  Goldsmith’s thesis is straightforward:  The more successful we become, the more positive reinforcement we get, the more difficult it will be for us to make the changes we need to make to continue […]

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 […]

Early in every Leadership Program group, we spend some time talking about delegation.  Today’s Tuesday Reading, “How Well Do You Delegate?” from the Mind Tools website, brings us all back to this topic. In the piece, you’ll find an opportunity to test how well you currently delegate as well as find some suggestions as to what and when to delegate, […]

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 […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading is “Six Tips for Fessing Up to Your Mistakes” by Deborah Brown-Volkman, president of Surpass Your Dreams, a career, life, and mentor coaching company. If you haven’t made a mistake you can pass this week’s reading.  But, somehow, I think you may find the column interesting.  We all mistakes and it is […]

A number of you are fans of David Allen and follow many of the recommendations in his book, “Getting Things Done.”  Our reading this week is “The Curse Of The Eternally Urgent” which you will find at <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-allen/the-curse-of-the-eternall_b_96512.html>. In this piece Allen argues that many of the fires and crises that we find on our desk […]

In my reading not long ago I found a pointer to a short piece by Sean Silverthorne – “The Power of the Humble Checklist“.  As the author points out, and as I will confirm, having a standard checklist for complex, but nevertheless, routine tasks – e.g., the pilot’s pre-flight checklist or the hospital’s safe-surgery checklist – […]

We all remember Ron Heifetz from the first day of the IT Leaders Program.  There we learned about “adaptive leadership,” “giving work back to the workers,” and about “getting up on the balcony.” Today’s reading “The Leader of the Future” reports on a series of 2007 conversations that William Taylor, a founding editor of Fast Company, had […]

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen a number of pieces about how email is disruptive, how some companies are suggesting ways to that staff might step away from the constant flow of interruptions, how IM, blogs, and wikis can be effective in reducing your email load, etc.  So, there seems to be even more […]

Over the past week or so, it has seemed that everywhere I turned I ran across an article or a book with leadership or leader in the title:  Vigilant Leadership, Adaptive Leadership, the Leader of the Future, Better Leadership, and Total Leadership.  Today’s piece, Mark Hanna’s “Probing the Periphery:  Mastering Vigilant Leadership” is from the June […]

This week, I want to share with you “Memo to a Young Leader” by William Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company and thinker, writer, and entrepreneur.  In this piece, which appeared in the May 8, 2008 issue of BusinessWeek, he asks five questions that you need solid answers for to be an inspiring leader. 1.  Why should great […]

Today’s reading is “The Hiring Manager Interviews:  Harvard Business School’s CIO Builds Trust and Respect Among His IT Staff by Involving Them in His Hiring Process” which you can find at  <http://www.cio.com/article/358465/The_Hiring_Manager_Interviews_Harvard_Business_School_s_CIO_Builds_Trust_and_Respect_Among_His_IT_Staff_by_Involving_Them_in_His_Hiring_Process>. Here, Amanda Brady, associate director of executive search firm The Alexander Group, reports on a recent discussion with Stephen Laster, CIO at the […]

Dan and Chip Heath, who wrote “Made to Stick:  Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die,” are two of my favorite authors.  Recently, they wrote a column titled “Make Goals not Resolutions” which appeared in the February 2008 issue of Fast Company. The Heaths note that we often make resolutions;  like New Year’s resolutions, like the […]

Too often, we take people for granted.  In this week’s Tuesday Reading “Staff Retention:  The Power of Appreciation at Work”, Mike Robbins quotes the U.S. Department of Labor as noting that 64% of Americans who leave their jobs say they do so because they don’t feel appreciated.  And, Gallup reports that 70% of people in the U.S. say […]

Have you ever had a manager who was abrasive on your staff?  You know, the person who causes you headaches, who have aggressive management styles that create interpersonal friction, reduce motivation and trust to rubble, and disrupt work well beyond the group they lead.  In “Taming the Abrasive Manager:  Words from the Boss Whisperer”, Laura Crawshaw, president of […]

Here’s the “Tuesday Reading” I sent out today to everyone who has been in the IT Leaders Program over the past several years.  Based upon the discussion Saturday, I’m sending it along to you as well. As society has become more and more connected with technology, we feel compelled to be always on – 24/7/365.  […]

During the course of a Leadership Program many of the participants ask how to conduct effective meetings and even more groan under the impact of the meetings on their calendars.  This weeks reading, Eight Steps to More Effective Meetings which can be found at <http://www.cio.com/article/141300/Eight_Steps_to_More_Effective_Meetings>, provides some concrete data on the negative impact of ineffective meetings […]