MOR Insight

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 with Heifetz.  In the conversations, Heifetz offered ideas, advice, and techniques for leaders of the future.  The conversations are structured around four topics:

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 concern about how our "always on" culture may be having negative impacts on our work as well as the other facets of our life.

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 2008 issue of the Wharton Leadership Digest.  

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 people want to work with you?

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 

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.

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 they received no praise or recognition in the workplace.  

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 the Executive Insight Development Group, has some good words of advice.

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.

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 s