Some of the favorite
business columns floating around our office hallways are the Corner Office pieces from
the New York Times. Without fail, Adam Bryant manages to consolidate a
thought-provoking message about leadership and management.
Below are links to some
of our favorites from the first quarter of 2012, along with a quote from the interview:
“I don’t think that
there is one formula for leadership. There are cheerleaders who are really good
at motivating people. There are innovative leaders who are really good at
conceiving of products or spotting talent and who have a great vision for the
company. There are leaders who are strong on personality, leaders who are
strong on creativity. Some of the most effective leaders don’t fit a mold. The
ones who I think make a real difference tend to be totally different from the
standard definition. I think the strongest criterion is creativity or
innovation.”
“Talk to the customer,
and if you ask them in the right way and you really listen, you will find out
what you need to be successful in your business. They can give you a huge
amount of guidance in pointing you to the right answer, and helping you realize
something you might have been missing.”
February 18th
– Steve Stoute of Translation Ad Agency
Do You Share Our Goals? Sign our Constitution.“You have to set a belief system in your organization. Once you do that, if you have people who have not bought into the philosophy, you need to identify them and move them out quickly. It’s to their benefit and your benefit. If you ask most executives, they know within the first 30 or 60 days if a person is going to work out, but it takes them seven months to a year to get them out of the organization. That’s a waste of time.”
March 10th – Jim
Whitehurst of Red Hat
The Memo List: Where Everyone Has An Opinion
The Memo List: Where Everyone Has An Opinion
“Your most creative ideas are going to come from people on the front lines who see a different way of doing the jobs they do every day. You have to create vehicles for those ideas to be heard.”
March 17th – Tracey
Matura of Smart Car
Can’t Acknowledge Failure? Don’t Apply.
Can’t Acknowledge Failure? Don’t Apply.
“If you’re going to tell me you’ve never failed,” she says of job candidates, “then it makes me wonder if you always hide your failures.”
Possibly the best quote
from this series came from the first article above by Bill Kling:
“A mentor of mine taught
me that every perspective is additive, because every person sitting in a room
is looking at things differently. Each of them has a different perspective.
They come from a different way of thinking and different experiences. And their
collective perspective gives you a better outcome. So you have to value the
perspectives and try to organize those perspectives in some useful way that
lets you go forward. Anybody who tells you that they can do it all themselves
needs an ego adjustment.”
What leadership lessons
do you value the most? Does your leadership team read the Corner Office series?
