MOR Insight

Everyone who has participated in the ITLP has had the opportunity to look back on their career and note the leadership lessons they have learned.  Today’s Tuesday Reading is a leadership journey in the form of an interview.  Recently, Richard Anderson, chief executive of Delta Airlines, was interviewed for the New York Time’s April 26, 2009 CORNER OFFICE column.

I think that you’ll enjoy and learn from Anderson’s learnings.  Some gems that caught my eye:

- be patient and don’t lose your temper.

Somehow, Tuesday came and I was completely oblivious to my commitment to send out something for everyone to reflect on.  Don't know where my thoughts were that morning!  In spite of my forgetfulness, we do have a very good piece for this week from ITLP IX’s Vision Team – Tom Lewis (University of Washington), Todd Rheinfrank (Carnegie Mellon University), Randy Standridge (University of Texas),  Beth-Anne Sullivan (Northeastern University), Terry Tatum (University of Texas), and Elease Welch (New York University).

This week’s Tuesday Reading is a piece “Anxiety for Fun and Profit” which I found on a recent flight in the April 2009 issue of United’s Hemisphere magazine.

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 people;  take the first step.

Recently, Adam Bryant, writer for the New York Times’ Coner Office column, interviewed John Donahoe, president and chief executive of eBay for the past year.  The condensed interview is today’s Turesday Reading – “There’s No Need to Bat .900”.

Donahoe has a lot of good advice:

•  You can’t change people.  …  Allyou can do is help them help themselves.

Today, we turn to a short paper by William Bridges, “The Three Questions” (the paper will download).  Bridges is a name familiar to many as the author of “Managing Transitions” (2003) and “Transitions” (2004).  

In this short piece, he introduces us to three important questions which he often asks his clients:.

1.  What is changing?

2.  What will actually be different because of the change?

3.  Who’s going to lose what?

Today, we continue our theme of leading in challenging times with Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis.  The piece’s author is Bill George, author of “True North,” and a professor of management practice at the Harvard Business School.  He is also the former CEO of Medtronic.

Today’s Tuesday Reading, “Keeping Pace with Technology” comes from ITLP IX’s Vision Team – Beth-Anne Sullivan (Northeastern University), Terry Tatum (University of Texas), Elease Welch (New York University), Randy Standridge (University of Texas), Todd Rheinfrank (Carnegie Mellon University), and Tom Lewis (University of Washington).  Their graduation was last summer and since then they have continued to write, challenging their colleagues in the next stages of their leadership journey.  

Today’s Tuesday Reading is “Stay Out of the Bunker”from the New York Times Under New Management column.  There Kelly Holland says that even though this may be a very challenging time for managers, employees still need leadership if they are to function effectively.  She suggests seven behaviors for leaders:

Recently, in reading through the goals of participants in the Leaders Program, I noticed a number of goals of the form “reduce my stress,” "learn to control the stress I encounter day after day,“ ”reduce the hours I work to help control my stress,“ etc.  And, then I came across a piece, ”Grownups Need Recess, Too“, in Stew Friedman’s blog which made sense for today’s Tuesday Reading.  Friedman is a professor at the Wharton School and the author of the book ”Total Leadership.“