Leadership/Management thoughts

Work priorities in last couple of weeks kept me away from writing here – my feedreader however kept receiving interesting insights on management, leadership and quality from across the blogosphere. Here are a few interesting posts/links/excerpts randomly picked from what I read in past two weeks and my thoughts therein.

• Business acumen is so very important for people who manage a piece of business, be it an independent department, a critical project or a client account. Over my career, I have seen so many managers who are technically sound and good at people management but lack business acumen. Lisa Haneberg at Management Craft defines “Acumen” and states “Business acumen is not an option – it is the core. Managing a piece of the business requires it.” People should be promoted to management positions only if they exhibit a sound business acument. Companies that promote (read push) people in management purely based on seniority or technical skills loose business over a longer run. That is what my experience suggests. My $0.2
• Here is a great (and simplest) definition of leadership from Lao Tzu (hat tip to post Leadership : Nature or Nurture at Leadership Turn blog.)
  • As for the best leaders,
    the people do not notice their existence.
    The next best,
    the people honor and praise.
    The next, the people fear;
    and the next, the people hate…
    When the best leader’s work is done,
    the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
    To lead the people, walk behind them.
    – Lao Tzu
• Having gratitude and showing it all along the way is very important. You can either keep fretting on things that don’t work or have gratitude towards things that are working. Robin Sharma in his post “Gratitude for the Good” writes:

We all have a lot more blessings in our life than we know. It’s human nature to focus on what’s not working rather than to embrace all that is. No matter how good – or bad – your life looks at this very moment, there really is so much (and so many people) you can be thankful for. And gratitude begets gratitude.

These were some of the random picks – more thoughts to come soon. Have a great week ahead!!