Category: IT Leadership

First Who, Then What The chapter “First Who, Then What” from Good to Great focuses on the importance of hiring the right people before developing a business strategy. Jim Collins, the author, argues that companies that prioritize hiring the right people, and then focus on getting them into the right roles, are more likely to […]

Good to Great by Jim Collins is another book that has influenced my approach to leadership. It explores why some companies are able to achieve sustained greatness over time while others fail to do so. The research led to the identification of a set of characteristics and behaviors that distinguish great companies from their good […]

Changing behaviors, such as using different leadership styles or building our emotional intelligence, takes time and effort. The boost we get from attending a leadership class has a short half-life. As we come back to our normal responsibilities, those important lessons fall by the wayside and may never make it into our default behaviors. Research […]

In Primal Leadership, Goleman et. al. describes six leadership styles. I have found this to be a good categorization. You can use others, but there are two important points about using leadership styles that are really helpful. The first point is that you should use the “resonant” leadership styles the most frequently, as they are […]

Another book that I have found incredibly helpful as I have grown as a leader is Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Goyatzis, and Annie McKee. This book gave me a better understanding of emotional intelligence and evaluating how emotionally intelligent candidates are when I am making hiring decisions. The book also explains six basic […]

In this final message on Crucial Conversations, I would first like to emphasize how important I think the ability to have successful crucial conversations is to achieving your goals as well as our goals as an organization. Remember, a crucial conversation involves a difference of opinion, high importance, or emotions running high. When we enter […]

Safe conversations are conversations where the participants seek to understand the truth and work together to find solutions. Emotions are under control and all perspectives are rationally considered. When emotions begin to run high you have to get the conversation back to a safe state in order to make progress because when people feel safe, […]

Continuing my interpretation of the concepts in Crucial Conversations, today I’m focusing on ways to hold a successful crucial conversation. It’s important to have the right conversation. It’s also important to remember what you want the outcome to be. You must understand your motives. Finally, you must keep the conversation safe for all parties involved. […]

Last year I sent my perspectives along with a summary of The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. This is one of a handful of books that really made an impact on me and my leadership approach. I plan to use a similar format for three more books. The first of those is Crucial Conversations: Tools […]

Thanks to all those who have followed my five part series on Patrick Lencioni’s The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. If you’d like to go deeper, I’d suggest you check out Patrick’s youtube channel and a popular talk he gave on the 5 Dysfunctions some time ago. Today marks the fifth and last dysfunction—Inattention to […]