Monday, February 17, 2014

Empathy, Execution and Discretionary Time


An odd collection of topics for sure. A recent conversation with the Dean of the Business school, where I teach and do project work, led to the strangest of leadership conversations.

It started with a discussion of leadership traits that lead to success. Empathy was the winner. Most would offer other options, but think about it, empathetic leaders almost always succeed. And the dean is an empathetic leader, who listens first and feels the pain of his team.

Execution was where our conversation led as bottom line results are ultimately the result of great and even flawless execution. We debated the need for many to have elaborate process or in some cases none at all. Little mattered (unless you do something illicit or unethical) except for executing a plan and reaching desired results.

The third and last part of the conversation was on discretionary time. Not what you do with it personally, but how you get others to provide it to meet your goals…Of course we talked about respect and likeability…If you had 15 minutes free who would you help if they asked…

That’s a topic I have covered several times in my old blog posts…we seemed to be on the same page…

Oddly, I have been thinking about discretionary time as the new currency for the gen Y worker….I am sure I will cover that in a future post…

Sometimes disparate topics collide…especially when you talk to smart people without an agenda!

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