Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’
Leadership Qualities: innovation and technology alchemy
We recently talked in class about the qualities that make a great leader: vision, determination, insight, creativity, etc. Throughout this election week, I’ve been wondering what Barack Obama’s most significant leadership qualities are. In previous elections, I cannot remember so many people around the world who were inspired and enthusiastic about our choice of a presidential candidate. The fact that Obama’s campaign has not only ignited our country — but those around the world — is an indicator of great leadership.
One of the things that I admire about good leaders is their ability to invent. And, as a technologist, I am even more impressed by leaders who recognize the power of technology and leverage it for their success. Chris Dannen wrote an interesting article about how the Obama campaign not only recognized how technology could be an effective tool for the campaign, but made a commitment to exploit technology in a way that will likely reshape political campaigns going forward.
Obama the Technologist from www.tuzworld.com
Loyola’s Strategic Plan
The President just announced Loyola’s new strategic plan which is based around one goal:
Loyola will be the leading comprehensive Catholic university in the nation.
This semester, we have talked a lot about vision and how strategy and organizational alignment can help to deliver on a vision. What strikes me most about Loyola’s new plan is that it is built around a very compelling goal…the kind of goal that makes you gulp and makes the hair on the back of your neck stick up with excitement. “Loyola will be the leading comprehensive Catholic university in the nation.” certainly sounds like a rally cry to me.
I’m in!…now what?
Of course, an aspect of goal setting that comes up frequently in our classes has to do with connecting everyone at the orgnization to the goal and building the right systems to support the vision. As a current student (and future alum), I’m very excited by this new plan. And I hope that the college is able to succeed where many organizations seem to fail — getting buy-in from everyone and helping to connect day-to-day operations to the long term vision.
