Strategy is a Contact Sport

February 16, 2008

Emerging Leaders Series

Filed under: Recruit, Retain & Empower IT Talent — rontevans @ 5:08 pm

Several people have asked me to lead a series at work on how I analyze and look at technical and business problems from a leadership perspective. I shyed away from it because I thought it was the hight of hubris to think that I have corned the market on what it takes to be a good or great leader.

But when I thought about a couple of emerging managers/leaders in my department, I decided that it would be helpful to write down some thoughts that I could share with them. This is by no means an exhaustive formula for how to lead people but it will hopefully be food for thought for people who want to eventually take leadership roles. It will hopefully also explain to some managers what the difference is between managing and leading.
Here’s the outline so far. I have not ordered the topics yet. That will come next week:

  1. Moral Compass: There’s no such thing as situational ethics.
  2. Trust and Alignment. You’re not a leader if nobody is following you! (Source: Steven Covey’s principal centered leadership)
  3. Good to Great: Getting the right people on the bus. (Source: Jim Collins)
  4. Good to Great: Confronting the brutal truth. (Source: Jim Collins)
  5. Jon Luc Picard on Leadership: Decisiveness in times of crisis (Source: Star Trek, The Next Generation)
  6. The game of Risk or how to clean your own house before you go into someone else’s.
  7. Ducks and Bunnies: Know your audience before you start speaking.
  8. Bears and Sharks: Understand your opponents strengths and weaknesses before you go into battle.
  9. WIIFM: Selling your ideas means understanding what other people need to be successful.
  10. Play your position. Know your team and your strengths.
  11. Situational Leadership: What motives you may not motivate me.(Source: Jim Blanchard)
  12. Problem identification and definition: Can you express it mathematically? (Source: Six Sigma)
  13. Developing a wholestic strategy through the Balanced Scorecard. (Source: Kaplan/Norton)
  14. Fancy titles and $3 buys a latte at Starbucks.
  15. The three IT levers you can pull to solve business problems. (Source: UVA MSMIT)
  16. Creating a climate of change through GAP analysis (Source: UVA Darden School of Business)

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