Servant Leadership Article on CIO.com
I hope this message finds you and your loved ones enjoying the best of the holiday season. As a colleague and friend in the IT industry, I wanted to share an article I recently wrote on CIO.com with you and ask for your feedback. The article is entitled “Servant-Leadership for the IT executive” (http://advice.cio.com/benjamin_lichtenwalner/servant_leadership_for_the_it_executive) and focuses on introducing the concept of Servant-Leadership to fellow IT executives.You see, I have already had the chance to view and participate in many different leadership styles over the course of my career to date. This experience included one organization that promoted servant-leadership, one that was relatively indifferent and one that strongly opposed the concept. While each organization produced good results, I found that servant-leadership produced the greatest, long-term and sustainable results for the IT organization. As a result, given the limited number of individuals in IT familiar with the concept, I’ve taken it as a bit of a mission to spread the awareness of this leadership style. I hope you will help by providing comments on the CIO.com article or feedback directly, via email.
Thank you, in advance, for any feedback you may offer. If you are interested in more information on servant-leadership, you can also check out the following resources:
http://www.lichtenwalner.net/servantleader.html
http://www.greenleaf.org/
http://www.spearscenter.org/
http://servantleadership.ning.com/
Labels: Fundamentals, Management, Servant-Leadership, Strategy, Team Building, Wisdom
Where Have All The Leaders Gone?
The following is reproduced, with permission, from Russ M. Miller, LLIF Chairman and CEO of the Performance Institute (www.performanceinstitute.us):"The Power of Leadership"
Where have all the leaders gone? We used to have larger-than-life leaders. Public figures such as Franklin Roosevelt, Golda Meir, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer and Martin Luther King who inspired millions with their visions. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan were equally influential in the business arena.
Those leaders and others like them are gone. Today we have fame without accomplishment, form without substance. We elevate people to leadership status not for what they did but because of the way they did it.
We need leaders today more than ever before. People spend millions of dollars attending weekend leadership seminars that promise instant leadership: Follow directions, insert anybody, and out pops a leader.
These "one shot" instant leadership seminars probably produce fewer leaders than those made by accident, circumstance, or self-invention combined. These programs may reveal skills and theorize about leadership evolution, but they cannot teach the character and vision that are the raw materials of leadership.
Your character is a key element in your self-image. Your self-image determines to a large extent the level of success you achieve as a leader. The level of success you achieve as a leader, of course, helps determine the level of success your organization will achieve.
Developing leadership is hard work. It requires time and commitment to form the core habits that make up the foundation of leadership behavior. Top athletes know that it takes time and personal commitment to develop their skills into championship form. The same holds true for top leaders. They also know that it takes time and personal commitment to develop their skills into top leadership form.
Labels: Inspiration, Management, Servant-Leadership, Wisdom
Thanksgiving at the Office
Thanksgiving is over. The turkey became Turkey sandwiches, the stuffing will remain for weeks and you're likely to run out of ice cream long before the leftover pie. So what do you have to be thankful for, besides lots of great leftovers? Like most people, you undoubtedly gave thanks for your family and friends, health and countless other personal blessings. But, did you give thanks for your professional interests as well? What about your team, customers, business partners and boss?Did you give thanks for your team? What about that night when they stayed later than normal and cranked out the project just in time to meet the deadline that you committed them to? Did you thank them then? Did you thank them this weekend?
Did you give thanks for your customers? Remember the customer that signed a big deal just in time for you to meet your quarterly numbers? How did you show them your appreciation?
What about your business partners? Remember that Value-Added Reseller that warned you about the product's limitations before you wasted money on the wrong version? When did you thank them?
Finally, but certainly not least, did you thank your boss? Remember when she pushed you to meet that tight deadline that she committed you to? You worked hard, but met the deadline and the organization celebrated as a result. You got that award for going above and beyond. Your performance review looked great as a result. Maybe even that boss you did not like, the one that did not support your idea and created a real roadblock? You still succeeded though, in part because you were stronger for their resistance. Did you thank them at all?
When giving thanks, remember, time is more precious than money. "Thanks giving" does not require purchasing food or gifts. It does not mean you must sign a bonus check or necessarily commit to a raise (though it certainly helps). No, time is more precious than money. Stop by your team member's office, visit your business partner for lunch or take that time to email your old boss and let them know how they helped your career.
Yes, even this holiday season, regardless of our economic struggles, we have plenty for which we are thankful. Certainly family, friends, health and other blessings in our personal lives are reason for gratitude. Just do not forget to show your gratitude to those in your professional life as well. Even those that challenged you. Especially those that challenged you.
"Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune."On a personal Post Note. I want to thank that amazing team that knocked out a huge project, just in time for the Thanksgiving break. Now we all have reasons to give thanks for the incredible business results you delivered. Thank you all.
- Sam Walton
Labels: Friends, Management, Servant-Leadership, Wisdom
Achieving Your Dreams and Lessons for Life
Can you ask for more in a presentation? 1 hour and 16 minutes of life lessons, wisdom on achieving your dreams and much, much more. Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007. Included within is a great deal of humor, optimism and lessons for everyone. There is also a real servant-leadership undertone. By the time he finishes, you feel as though you've gained a mentor. As a bonus, Randy is a professor in virtual reality - so most of us "techies" will find a lot of the references particularly familiar:Labels: Inspiration, Servant-Leadership, Wisdom
