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Showing posts from August, 2014

A Review of Leadership Models

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Leadership is well defined - that's not the problem - the problem is it has many, many various definitions. Leadership definitions change throughout time. Your grandfather's definition of leadership may vary quite drastically from your's - ask him if you have the opportunity.

A modern classic definition:
Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. -- Peter Northouse
Series Outline:

A brief history of Leadership
   A working definition of leadership
   Is leadership a process
   May leadership emerge from a group
   Is leadership more than a form of coercion and power
Various Leadership Approaches
   Situational, Skills, Style, Trait
Leadership Theories
   Contingency Theory
   Path-Goal Theory
   Leader-Member Exchange Theory
   Transformational Leadership Model
Servant Leadership Model
   Authentic Leadership Model
   Team Leadership Model

Disclaimer: as this blog is a from of note keeping for me - an extensio…
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Servant Leadership Model

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Do a Google search on "servant leadership" and you will get plenty of hits (2.5 million for me just then). So if you don't know what it is cruise on over to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership and check out the 21st century "Cliff's Notes" on the topic.

Disclaimer: as this blog is a from of note keeping for me - an extension of my cognitive model of the universe of knowledge - this article and the series of article may be in great flux until complete (or good enough to quit editing).
Greenleaf's enlightenment of Servant Leadership stems from his reading of  Hermann Hesse's short novel, Journey to the East. "Hesse's story is an account of a mythical journey by a group of people on a spiritual quest where the recognition of the true leader of the group takes place as a result of his acts of service and self-sacrifice for the benefit of the whole group. As Spears tells it, upon reading this story, it seemed suddenly clear to Green…
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Considering Outsourcing Software Development - a model

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What are the considerations when the business wants to reduce the cost of the IT department and they want to outsource some or all of the costly software development group?  Here is a model to help you think through this decision and some additional resources.



Introduction
What decisions must be made to implement an IT Outsourcing program?  Are these decisions similar to the decisions that leaders must make for an Agile program?  How do they differ, how are they similar?  What are the expected outcomes, and the possible outcomes?  Which decisions have high stakes with no-return points along the transition map?  Which decisions are safe-to-fail and possible to repeat and iterate toward success?
Comparing and contrasting basic road maps for the implementation of major process change is fraught with generalizations that may easily be questioned.  The intent of this paper is to objectively represent the set of high level decisions and expected outcomes that lead to a success regardless of wh…
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