Who are your spiders?

I've been running regularly over a year now, often in the dark hours before sunrise.  As the weather turns cooler, I can think of only one thing I won't miss about the warmer months:  spider webs.

Christmas tree leadership (Tannenbaum/Schmidt Continuum)

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are thy branches!

For some reason, this little portion of the third stanza is all I seem to remember of the song, despite hearing it repeatedly from late October through mid-January for decades.  It's an ode to the beautiful Christmas tree, and has been recorded with many different lyrics over the past 50 years.

Wondering what it has to do with leadership?

Leadership without leverage

In his book "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership," John C. Maxwell shares that influence is the key to great leadership.

Followership

"I can't wait until I'm the boss and don't have to answer to anyone."

We've all heard something similar, either in business, in the community, children, or perhaps in our own voices.  It's a consistent refrain echoing across all ages, from the very young to the very old:  one day I'll be in charge.  For all of us, that day never comes - no matter our upward trajectory in an organization.

Too much of the wrong thing

As individuals matriculate through careers, it is quite common for blind spots to develop.  Some common blind spots have to do with interpersonal relations, focus and direction, and delivering on hard-to-quantify soft skills for the good of the organization.

Decathletes (Jump the Curve)

In his book Jump the Curve, visionary Jack Uldrich shares his "50 essential strategies to help your company stay ahead of emerging technologies." His focus is on what he calls the exponential executive, the successful forward-thinking leaders in the future.

Little Book of Leadership

Enjoy The Little Book of Leadership.  After reading about leadership in this presentation, slide 43 is my favorite:Best,Bryan

GE: serious about leadership

In most large organizations, leadership is affirmed as a key contributor to organizational success.  Typically there is some form of leadership model, special programs for high potentials, and perhaps rotational programs to move high performing or high potential leaders through the experiences needed to lead and perform at the next level.

Leadership models come in all shapes and sizes, and most are helpful in keeping leaders (and aspiring leaders) focused and developing.  NASA offers an excellent graphical representation of leadership behaviors arranged on a disc, moving from large dimensions in the middle to more granular areas towards the outside.  The MIT Leadership Center promotes FCF (Four Capabilities Leadership Framework), which points to four critical components of leadership:  sensemaking, relating, visioning, and inventing.  Leadership powerhouse Lominger (part of Korn/Ferry International) has developed 67 leadership competencies and publishes a book called FYI:  For Your Improvement that’s now in its 5^th edition.And then there’s GE.

Marathon Leadership

Just back from an excellent OD on the Edge event in Charlotte, NC.

David Knapp of Marathon Leadership (creator of The 21^st Century Leader curriculum) shared his 26.2 Tips for Modern Leaders.  He connected leadership success to distance running success, showing that both required similar traits that can be taught.  David is an avid marathoner, and ran 40 marathons the year following his 40^th birthday to celebrate the milestone.

He was joined by Molly Barker founder of Girls on the Run, author of two books, and an accomplished distance runner as well.  Girls on the Run is tasked with educating and empowering girls at an early age in order to prevent the display of at-risk activities in the future.

I also came home with a copy of The Situational Leader, by Paul Hersey – and a strong desire to start running again. :)All that to simply say this:  there are opportunities to learn, grow, and give back all around you.

Best,

Bryan

Actualized Leadership

Here's an interview of Will Sparks, talking about actualized leadership.  Exciting work, and can't wait for his book, Actualized Leadership, to come out soon.

• Part I
• Part II

Enjoy!

Case study: the annual review

Kaitlyn is a process engineer. She has worked for Jeremiah for quite some time, and feels like he understands her contributions to the team.

Several days ago, she had been looking forward to her annual performance review. She had saved the company $4 million in March of this past year, and remembered the praise Jeremiah had heaped on her in front of the company president. Shortly after this big win, the president asked Jeremiah to broaden her responsibilities. Kaitlyn expected a glowing review and a nice bonus check to cap off a stellar 2010.

Sun Tzu for Execution: How to Use the Art of War to Get Results

When I'm reading, I like to highlight passages and important nuggets of information that might be interesting or helpful to read again in the future. It directs the eyes and helps me maximize my reading based on my learning style.

At the end of Sun Tzu for Execution: How to use The Art of War to Get Results, by Steven W. Michaelson, I noticed that a great deal of the text had been underlined, something on just about every page.

Sun Tzu: The Art of War

If you haven't read Sun Tzu's The Art of War, you're missing a treat. When I was in college, one of my fraternity brothers had a habit of pulling out a Sun Tzu quote every time we had a speaking event (that's you if you're out there, Dan!).

Walk the Walk, by Alan Deutschman

I just finished Walk the Walk, by Alan Deutschman. It's a short read, and could be finished in a night (I dragged it out over two myself).  The book came out in 2009, with great promotional fanfare. The blog was maintained throughout 2009 – looks like the final post was in January of 2010. Deutschman's theme is all in the full title: "Walk the Walk: the #1 Rule for Real Leaders."

Better Speakers, Better Leaders, Better Communicators

I've just completed a term as president of my local Toastmasters club, Gateway to Speaking Excellence. During my year in office, the theme of the club was the same as the title of this blog post. When asked to describe Toastmasters, I say something like this:  “Toastmasters is a safe-to-succeed, safe-to-fail environment in which we practice becoming better speakers, better leaders, and better communicators every single day.”

Wondering about the cheesy name?

Insubordination and followership

Browsing Bloomberg the other day I found Rosabeth Moss Kanter's review of Obama's firing of General McChrystal from a management and leadership perspective.  It was a reprint from a Harvard Business Review blog.  HBR has a couple of other posts around the firing that might be interesting, including this one and this one.

Span of Control

Recently we tackled an organizational design project. This particular project, like most, included determining the appropriate organizational shape.

Organizational shape is exactly what it sounds like – if you're looking at an org chart. People talk about flat organizations, tall organizations, etc. A flat organization is one that has a lot of direct reports for every manager, and a tall one has fewer. If you're staring at an org chart, you can see the difference in the “shape” of the chart, a rough triangle with the head of the organization at the top.

The number of direct reports a manager has is that manager's span of control.

Division of labor

If you've worked with a performance improvement consultant (nod to Geary Rummler, founder of the Performance Design Lab, may he rest in peace) or anyone in the organizational design field, you've probably taken a very close look at how work gets done in the organization.  Here's a term you might come across in one of those conversations:  division of labor.

Talent Assessments

Walking down the sidewalk this afternoon in a bustling city, I overheard a group of professionals having an interesting conversation. A woman in the group was talking about a personality assessment she was being required to take by her manager. She was appalled.

“Why do I have to take a personality assessment? It's the work that I do that's important, not how I do it!” She went on to share her concerns that this was probably the first step towards her termination, and that she's been a top performer relative to her peers. There was a lot of nodding & sympathy all around.

Instructional Design

Great and enduring leaders are also great and enduring teachers. In organizations, the function is usually called learning, training, development, or some combination of the three. In short, the idea is to equip the team with the knowledge to make both the team and the individual successful.

Delivering quality training is more than simply telling the team to “do what I do and you'll pick it up.” It requires a thoughtful design process that develops the content necessary to make the team successful.