MOR Insight

Today’s Tuesday Reading is “What Behaviors Must Leaders Avoid?”.  This essay is by Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins.  It appeared earlier this year in the HBR blogs.  Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins are co-founders and managing partners of Isis Associates, a boutique executive coaching and leadership development firm. They are the authors of “Own the Room:  Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence.”  

Leadership lessons continue to flow from the recent worst-to-first Red Sox season.  Here is a great article from Fast Company on David Ortiz and leadership, "World Series MVP David Ortiz's Big, Bold, On-the-fly Leadership Lessons".

If there are two things we are passionate about here at MOR its Leadership and the Red Sox.  Congratulations to the Red Sox, the Boston area and to all of Red Sox Nation on our World Series victory!

Today’s Tuesday Reading is “Surprises Are the New Normal;  Resilience Is the New Skill,” an essay by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor at the Harvard Business School where she specializes in strategy, innovation, and leadership for change.  The essay appeared in July 2013 in the HBR blog.

Indeed, as Marshall Goldsmith suggests, “What Got You Here Wont Get You There”, but it is still important to understand that what got you here did get you here.  We have become the leaders we are today because of a unique set of varying experiences.  We’ve been taught new things, shown the right ways, seen bad ways, been part of amazing teams, struggled at times, been let go, promoted, challenged, led, followed, etc… These all piece together into our own individual leadership journeys.

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results." 

- Willie Nelson

Many aspire to be a formal leader at some point in their career.  The Tuesday Reading for today has some advice for you:  “Act Like A Leader Before You Are One”.  In her HBR blog, Amy Gallo, contributing editor at the Harvard Business Review, suggests that you begin to act, think, and communicate like a leader long before you have reached that ultimate formal state.  To help you, Gallo has a list of “do’s” and don’t’s“ that you should consider:

"The best leaders convene conversations.  They set the stage that enables others to develop solutions."

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

• How much are you doing because you know how or it seems easier?
• How involved or empowered do others in your unit feel to help with solutions?
• How much brain power and how many ideas are wasted daily because of ill use and timing?
• What can you do to help promote individuals or groups to help tackle tough issues?

If you the Educause 2013 event in Anaheim this week be sure to check out there great presentors/presentations:

Arin Komins - University of Chicago

The Goldilocks Principle and the Project Manager: Right-Sizing Project Management Methodology

8am on Thurs.

David Burns – University of Texas Austin

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a guest reading from the pen of Greg Busby, Director, Planning and Program Management, Office of the CIO, Cornell University.  It first appeared as a Reflection to the ITLP 2013 cohort.  

Let’s face it – we live in a Push world. Things to do arrive on our desk all the time, pushed there via email, meetings, texts, phone calls. And all of these are SOMEONE ELSE’S PRIORITY.