Category Archives: Leadership

Never too early—rarely too often

We’ve got a rather large project going on at the moment and a shrinking window to get it done. The deeper we dig into this mound of work, the more and varied things we pull out. What started as a… (read more)

Posted in Leadership | Tagged | Comments Off on Never too early—rarely too often

Know when to STOP

After a frustrating day at work dealing with a repeat of a problem from this past spring, I related some of the situation to my crew of hecklers advisers at the dinner table: A software package common to all our… (read more)

Posted in Leadership, System Administration | Comments Off on Know when to STOP

Sharing the vision

We spent a good part of a day at the GCC National Youth Leadership Training course last week talking about “Sharing the Vision”. There was so much presented throughout the week that I doubt many of the 48 participants got more… (read more)

Posted in Leadership | Tagged | Comments Off on Sharing the vision

Classical or Jazz?

I have long wanted to write a post on leadership using elements from Chain of Command, a pair of episodes from the Star Trek: The Next Generation series, but have struggled on where to start1—there’s just so much material to choose… (read more)

Posted in Leadership | Comments Off on Classical or Jazz?

On Walking as a Leadership Trait

One of my favorite leaders during my time at KeyCorp was a walker. He’d catch us early in the morning as he walked around the 6th floor. There were certainly faster or shorter ways to get to his office, but… (read more)

Posted in Leadership, Other Thoughts, System Administration | Comments Off on On Walking as a Leadership Trait

Be Curious

Unless it’s incessantly coming from the mouth of a two year-old, “why?” is one of my favorite questions. And “how?” is right up there with “why?”—they’re practically cousins. Why? How? Why was it set up this way? How does this work? Why… (read more)

Posted in Leadership, Other Thoughts | Comments Off on Be Curious

Three top Leadership skills

There are dozens of skills that every leader should develop and each assumes a different importance in a different situation. So picking three top ones is a risky task but one I was asked to perform recently. Here’s an expanded… (read more)

Posted in Leadership | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Three top Leadership skills

Acting on a good idea

Earlier I mused on suits, haircuts and good ideas and opted to support “what’s between the ears”, those brains, smarts and ability to execute. A day or so later my family were eating Chinese takeout when we got to the… (read more)

Posted in Leadership, Other Thoughts | Tagged | Comments Off on Acting on a good idea

Virtual Lunches?

Joel Spolsky takes on an important topic in his post today on lunches and I share with him a firm belief in the value of intentionally sharing a meal. It can be an important tool in your work-life balancing act. It can… (read more)

Posted in Leadership | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Virtual Lunches?

Connect in some way

I’d already been heavily involved in Unix/Linux for nearly twenty years by the time I found myself assigned as the leader/manager of the Windows Engineering team. Even some of my closest colleagues scoffed when they heard the news. How could… (read more)

Posted in Leadership, Management | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments