MOR Insight

Research by Bradley Owens from the University of Buffalo’s School of Management and David Hekman from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee’s Luber School of Business has shown that “Leaders of all ranks view admitting mistakes, spot lighting follower strengths and modeling teachability as being at the core of humble leadership.”  “And, they view these three behaviors as being powerful predictors of their own as well as the organization’s growth.”

Today’s Tuesday Reading is “What to do when you’re stuck” is from Margaret Heffernan’s blog atCBS News.  Heffernan has been CEO of five businesses in the United States and United Kingdom.  A speaker and writer, her most recent book Willful Blindness was shortlisted for the Financial Times Best Business Book 2011.

Today’s reading “This One Leadership Quality Will Make or Break You”is from the pen of Mike Myatt, author (Leadership Matters…The CEO Survival Manuel) and managing director and chief strategy officer at N2growth.  The piece appeared at Forbes.com.

We all need to have a “listening” tune-up from time-to-time.  Today’s reading “How to Really Listen”serves that purpose.  The article is from the Harvard Business Review Blogs and was written by Peter Bergman, author (“Get the Right Things Done”) and strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams.

Listening is hard, one or the hardest of the routine things we have to do each day.

Peter Bergman, author of today’s reading – “What’s Your One Big Theme?” – takes time each year at Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year to identify what he wants to change during the coming year.  Others, write New Year’s resolutions.  And, when you think about it, there’s no magic in any particular day.  So today may be your day to identify your one thing to work on until you’ve nailed it.  And, then as a leader striving to be better, you identify a next one thing.

A few weeks ago, Erik Lundberg, an ITLP alum from the University of Washington, shared with me a short piece from Inc. – “Don’t Be Afraid to Break Stuff” – which is today’s Tuesday Reading.  Chris Mittelstaedt, Founder and CEO of the FruitGuys, a company delivering farm-fresh fruit and vegetables to the American workplace, homes, and schools, is the author.

Today’s reading “Five Questions That Should Shape Any Change Program” comes from Scott Keller and Colin Price, directors at McKinsey & Company and coauthors of the book Beyond Performance.  This article appeared early in December in the HBR blog.

Today’s reading is a short piece “Nix Ambiguity and Focus for Lasting Change” by Dan and Chip Heath, authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, as well as Made to Stick:  Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

In this piece, a true story about eliminating narcotics abuse in a health-care network serving Minnesota and Western Wisconsin, the Heath brothers make two major points:

The Tuesday Reading this week is “Become an Extraordinary Leader” comes from Scott Edinger’s blog at the Harvard Business School.  Edinger is the executive vice president of Zenger Folkman leadership development consultancy.

Your kids bring home their report cards.  Where do you focus – the As or the B– or C?  Of course, on the C.  It is really where improvement is needed.

Today’s reading is a reflection on “Change and the Balcony.”  Drew MacGregor, Coordinator of Educational MDA Technology, College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, sent this reflection to his IT Leaders Program cohort in mid-December 2011.  

Several points caught my eye in Drew’s essay:

•  Real change occurs when we buy into and experience a paradigm change, a major alteration of how we think or act.