I Trust You (Seth Godin)
Manager as Leader (Slacker Manager)
Delegation Is One of the Most Important Skills a Leader Fails to Learn (Milo Riano)
You need this book… (Leadership Blog)

Diversity is a serious issue for a lot of people more than we know; which could range from as simple as difference in employment status (regular, contractual) to as complex as having a different religion and beliefs.

A while back I attended training on diversity and was surprised together with a lot of people how diversity exists in the workplace. Stories were told about conflicts arising from contractual employees, school background, difference in food preferences, rituals, celebration beliefs, etc.

One important lesson I got is that diversity always exist in the workplace and a leader should always understand and respect every team member’s belief. If the team needs to lay down a mat, pause and pray every three in the afternoon then help him reserve a room and avoid scheduling meetings during that time. If the person is vegetarian then make sure there’s always vegetable in the menu during team building dining to avoid alienating the person.

Respect diversity and treat is as part of the things you need to work out with people.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.. — Theodore Roosevelt

Leadership thought for the day idea is taken from Leadership Turn author MJ.

I know of someone who has serious a problem on his confidence and he specifically said he needs a pat on the back often to assure that he’s doing the right thing.

Do you need to give the person a pat on the back more than he deserves to boost his confidence? No, a pat on the back is only given if the person has done more of what is expected or have gone through a difficult situation and succeeded and not just for the sake of building his confidence level. Most likely he isn’t the only member of the team and special treatment is not necessary. The person has to know this but if he has abnormal level of insecurities I suggest you refer him to a counselor more qualified to tackle this issue.

How can a person become a leader if he doesn’t have a team? Aside from leading himself, he needs a team to work with. I previously talked about delegation and how leaders fail to delegate for lack of confidence and trust on the person. The leader thinks he has to do things to have the task done right.

This kind of mentality only show a leaders’ failure on mentoring his people on how to do things right. A leader needs a team and if there is a skill gap involved it is his responsibility to come up with resolutions or plans on how to close the skill gap so he’s team could perform as expected.

“Don’t tell me it can’t be done. It can be done and do it!” How many of you worked with superiors who has this mentality? How many of you are like this? It’s funny how a lot of managers and leaders ask tasks to be accomplished without having a basis for their demand. They know it’s theoretically possible and don’t care much about other factors that help determine a project’s timeline.

Before demanding for deliverables make sure you have created a list of tasks, complexity and resources and have plotted the correct amount of time for each of them before making decisions. You have to realize that some tasks takes shorter for you to accomplish compared to a subordinate who hasn’t have any experience on it before. It’s important you know their skill set level and make the proper resource pooling to meet deadlines.

Before you demand for something, know what you’re demanding and to whom you’re asking it from.

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. — Peter Drucker

Leadership thought for the day idea is taken from Leadership Turn author MJ.

The standard of leadership depends not only on the qualities and beliefs of our leaders, but also on the expectations we have of them.

I do not own a Crackberry, er, I mean Blackberry.  I confess – at times I’d like to.  I’d like to know what it feels like whip off a text message, looking all-important.  To be self absorbed in my refusal to turn it off on an airplane.  To be so involved in sending a text, that I nearly run over a pedestrian in a cross walk.

Okay, I really don’t want to do or be any of those things.  But we all know someone whom that descriptions fits to a tee!  And so does author Lucy Kellaway in Who Moved My Blackberry?

As reviewed at Amazon:

We have all – well most of us – known a Martin Lukes in our own offices as well. Obsessed with himself to the exclusion of all others, he blunders ahead with the finesse of a bull, frequently stumbling into a mess, yet somehow managing to extricate himself unbowed, if a little bloodied. Lucy Kellaway also has Lukes fall for every new corporate fad or trend, be it serious or merely the flavor of the month. Thus Lukes acquires a life coach (complete with the latest jargon), is caught up in corporate re-branding, dabbles with his version of corporate social responsibility and even dips a toe into outsourcing business processes to India. In the process Kellaway has great fun in parodying some of the wilder excesses of these corporate herd movements.

Written entirely in text messages, this book is high satire, while being a very easy, and funny read.  A perfect airplane travel book – that is, if you can put down your Blackberry.

(And yes, all kidding aside, there is a part of me that really does want a Blackberry.)

A professional is a person who can do his best at a time when he doesn’t particularly feel like it.

— Alistair Cooke