Leadership Themes #2: From Clockwork to Complexity: Recognising Diverse Environments
Part of leadership is correctly recognising the environment in which we are operating. To be able to do that, we need a) to understand what the different types of environment are, and b) understand what their distinctive qualities are. That gives us a theoretical appreciation, but it may also be useful to have an appreciation […]
Leadership Themes #1
[I am trying to pick out some common themes and lessons from these books on leadership and organisations. This is Part 1, a short introduction to a series of 6 or so posts] To lead effectively you need to correctly assess your operating environment. Assess it well, and you are more likely to get good […]
Book List: Leadership and Education
I’m finally beginning to put together some thoughts on the project I first started thinking about here. In terms of projects, I’m curious to see what the common themes are in the various leadership, organisational structure, internal comms books I’ve read are. It’s by no means academically rigorous – more just for me to feel...
Making better use of Kindle Highlights 1
I love how easy it is to store highlights on Kindle. Swipe and that’s it. But I hate how hard it is to then do something meaningful with those highlights. Getting them “out of Amazon” is a pig, and I wonder sometimes if I should just go back to my old ways – dog ear […]
Books on Leadership for Teachers
Leadership is difficult, I think. Part of the problem is that those who believe they are good at it aren’t, and those who are reluctant to be involved are the very ones you want leading. There are a number of teaching-specific leadership books, but I tend to prefer a broader palette. The below are books […]
Trust and Whole Selves
This video is worth a watch, I think. John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods, makes some great points about people in organisations. At its simplest, viewing people as ”Human Resources” gets it wrong because it limits. It ignores the idea that people come to the workplace wanting to bring their whole selves. It ties in […]
Dogears from Semler’s 7 Day Weekend
Notes and quotes from Ricardo Semler’s wonderful Seven-Day Weekend “Rather than constantly talking about passion – serving customers passionately, filling in blue forms passionately – organizations should make it possible for employees to feel exhilaration every once in a while. Let them get involved to the point...
Seldon & Character Building
Anthony Seldon has a curiously off-target piece in the Guardian. Character in public schools is formed far less from breeding and connections than by a whole variety of methods which should become available to all. It is built in ways that some on the left find distasteful, and they’d better get over it. Competitive sport […]