Summer Shorts for June 25, 2010 from Management Excellence
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Crisis Leadership, Leadership
With a father and sons weekend in the offing, I’ll keep the shorts short (bad combination of words!) and offer you encouragement to get out and enjoy the all too fast-moving weekends of summer. Here in the Midwest, we feel good about cracking 2-digits on the number of weekends that make up our available summer, so, there is no time to waste.
Some quick-thoughts and fast links:
-The Rolling Stone and a Presidential Leadership Dilemma
It seems as if I may be the only person in America that thought that General McChrystal should not have been fired for some ill-advised name calling. I had the good fortune to poll Veterans old and new as well as anyone else that would opine. The Veterans in particular were unanimous in support of the decision. While some agonized over the loss of a good man and the destruction of a career, all that I spoke with agreed the line had been crossed.
As an aside, I never tire of listening to those that have served. They offer inspiration and education in every conversation.
Leadership Tip of the Day and The “I Want to Lead” Series of posts at Building Better Leaders
When Rich and I wrote Practical Lessons in Leadership, one of my early chapters included a segment on “The 7 Questions for Ambitious, Aspiring Leaders.” This was intended to prompt some appropriate investigation on the part of aspiring leaders and offer experienced managers a tool to leverage when responding to the “Hey, I think I’m ready to lead,” pronouncements of their team members.
I am running a blog series featuring each question and some supporting suggestions as part of my Leadership Tip of the Day program at Building Better Leaders. This week, I wrote on the first two questions:
#2 “Do you understand the true role of a leader?”
Along with:
And
“7 Signs Your Leadership Approach is Working“
–
Enjoy your weekends! I’ll be back Monday with a fresh cup of Iced Leadership Caffeine!
Summer Shorts for June 18 from Management Excellence
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Professional Growth, Strategy, Values
Resources, great reads and sound bites for your summer weekends
Blink and the week is gone. I’m still not clear how Friday happened so quickly again, but here we are, and here I am with a few suggestions for your weekend professional development time.
Values: These Posts go Great Together (If I do say so myself.)
I truly enjoyed reading Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s “Ten Essentials for Getting Value from Values.” If Ms. Kanter’s article is the main course, try my own recent, “Leading to the Values” as the appetizer. There’s never been a better time to work on making values and value-based leadership relevant in our organizations.
Leadership Fatigue and A Summer of Ideas:
OK, there’s a catch on these articles. The latest edition of the Management Excellence Newsletter was published earlier this week, and the only way to get , “Coping with Leadership Fatigue” and “A Summer of Ideas,” is to subscribe (sign-up form at Management Excellence or Building Better Leaders, far right column). I’ll be happy to monitor any new subscriptions and forward a copy. The newsletter is purely opt-in and all e-mail addresses are protected with my life! Expect a new issue of subscriber only content every 20 days.
My Can’t Wait to Read List:
My stack of great content that I cannot wait to read is growing, and it’s time to get on with it. The current list includes:
Inner Excellence-Achieve Extraordinary Business Success Through Mental Toughness, by Jim Murphy.
Strategic Speed-Mobilize People, Accelerate Execution by Jocelyn Davis, Henry Frechette and Edwin Boswell.
And
12 Steps to Power Presence: How to Exert Your Authority to Lead, by John Baldoni
What’s on your “Can’t wait to read list?”
Speaking of Reading, My Favorite Book Reviewer is Wally Bock
With the disclosure that I consider Wally a friend and valued colleague (a wonderful connection developed through social media), this polished and smart professional is the best book reviewer out there. He spends a disproportionate amount of my book budget with his compelling reviews. Check out the reviews and stay for the great blog.
This Week’s Daily Leadership Tips at Building Better Leaders:
–
Enjoy your weekends. Back Monday with a fresh cup of Leadership Caffeine!
Friday Shorts from Management Excellence
Filed under: "To Do" List, Decision-Making, Leadership, Performance, Professional Growth
Resources, Great Reads and Sound Bites for Your Summer Weekends
Decisions, Decisions
In spite of the unfortunate example/timing of BP as an effective decision-making company, the article, “The Decision Driven Organization,” by Marcia Blenko, Michael Mankins and Paul Rogers, offers up some meaty content on why top leaders should focus more on the issues and processes of decision-making and leave their reorg plans at home.
The article includes reference to a Bain study citing a high correlation between decision-making effectiveness and financial results, and the content and survey tools on decision effectiveness are worth the price of this issue of Harvard Business Review.
The authors help you focus on the issues surrounding decision quality, speed of decisions, yield and effort, and you will quickly find yourself wanting to gauge your own firm’s/team’s decision-making culture.
While positioned as a cautionary tale against reorganizing without considering the impact on decision-making, there is value in this article for everyone as they strive to improve their decision-making effectiveness.
–
A Blogger and a Blog Post Worth Reading
Great, thoughtful blogger that’s become a “must read” for me. Enjoy Tanveer Naseer’s excellent post “What Twitter Can Teach Leaders About Effective Communication.”
–
Leadership Tips (Tip of the Day) from Building Better Leaders
In case you missed them!
The Words and Decisions of Questionable Leaders
Hug an Internal Customer Today
Help Your Team Pass the Walk in the Door Test
Develop Your Talent Scouting Skills
–
Enjoy your weekends! Back Monday with a fresh cup of Leadership Caffeine!
Celebrating a Leadership Milestone at the Three Star Leadership Blog
Filed under: "To Do" List, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Professional Growth
I will return next Monday with my Leadership Caffeine for the New Week series. Today is an opportunity to celebrate post number 1,000 by Wally Bock at the Three Star Leadership blog.
Many of you are readers and subscribers of Three Star Leadership, but on the off chance that you have not benefited from Wally’s consistently outstanding and practical content for this profession, his blog is a must on your professional development to-do list.
Reaching the 1,000 post level is a milestone for any blogger, but reaching that lofty number with 1,000 high quality posts, book reviews and resource references is truly remarkable. Great job Wally, and thanks so much for inviting me to participate with my own two-cents worth in your 1,000th post. Can’t wait for the next thousand!
So instead of my usual jolt of Leadership Caffeine, click over to Three Star Leadership and take a look at what some fellow friends and bloggers have to offer you in the form of Tips and Resources on this great occasion. Oh, and don’t blame me if you end up digging into Wally’s other 999 great posts. It will be time well spent!
-Art
-
Chosen by Guy Kawasaki's Alltop.com as a top site in the Leadership category.
Podcast
Available Now!
Practical Lessons
e-book
e-book-Leadership and the Project Manager - Developing the Skills that Fuel High Performance
