Leading Edge Associates presents Edgeline

Tools and tips for managers
July 8, 2008 Volume 2 Issue 8

Personality Assessments Help Managers Learn Innate Leadership Traits

By Analisa Nazareno

What skills are needed to lead during times of disruptive change? Does your personality and management style match up with those skills?

These questions have become increasingly relevant across industry sectors as organizations confront the digital era.

"The same talents and skills that got you over as a leader 10 years ago, those have totally changed. There are new things that you need to be bringing to the table," said Larry Olmstead, president and executive consultant for Leading Edge Associates. "If you're not aware of who you are and what you're bringing, you're going to all of a sudden find yourself saying, 'Hey I was succeeding five years ago and now I'm failing.'" Read more

WHAT'S NEW: LEA SEMINAR

Innovation and Diversity
September 9, 2008
9 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Network Meeting Center at Techmart
Santa Clara, CA
Tuition: $175
Best-practice organizations are increasingly seeing a link between strong diversity practices and maintaining a culture where innovation and creativity flourish. Participants will gain practical insight into how diversity of background and thought can be leveraged to fuel innovation, and how to tap into new resources - internally and externally - to spark new ideas.
LEA Facilitators: Rafael Gonzalez and Larry Olmstead

Shyness May Hinder Career Advacement

By Dinah Eng

Being shy is often seen as a hindrance to career advancement, but if you're managing a shy employee, there are ways to get the most out of the person's performance, while helping more gregarious people to see shyness in a new light. Just as race, gender and age are forms of diversity, a shy personality can also be a difference that can offer contributions to the workplace. Read more

Ask The Expert

Q: How do you use online social networking tools to recruit?

Joe Grimm, recruiter for the Detroit Free Press and Gannett, as well as the writer of the "Ask the Recruiter" feature on Poynter online, describes how he uses Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking tools to recruit digital-media savvy talent. Read more

We want to hear your questions on management, finance and workplace issues! Click here to contact us.

Top Picks: Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young & Old Can Find Common Ground

By Jennifer Deal, Jossey-Bass, 2007

"The generation gap wasn't invented in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s - it has existed as long as there have been people." Those types of common-sense insights form the bedrock of this book, written by Center for Creative Leadership researcher Jennifer Deal and based on a seven-year study. Deal's conclusions - among them, that the different generations largely share the same values, and that conflict among generations in the workplace often revolves around issues of "clout" - are supported by expert use of the data collected from more than 3,000 respondents. Supervisors and human resources staff will especially appreciate the way the book is organized. For each of her 10 principles, Deal offers data, anecdotes, and suggestions on how to apply the learnings in the workplace. Deal thus has created a rarity - a book about a hot management topic that is based on real data and is useful to boot.

- Larry Olmstead

Helpful Links

The ASSESS Systems Wire – Featured on our cover story about personality assessments, ASSESS Systems offers an online newsletter that addresses hiring and development issues. It also raises the ongoing question of whether leaders are born or made, and throws in the updated version - Are leaders born and made?
Free Management Library – This is a rich compendium of links and suggestions for literature on management topics ranging from advertising and promotion to training and development, from project management to product management. Compiled by consultants, who specialize in assisting nonprofit managers with capacity building and business development, the site offers information that is useful to both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
strategy + business resiliency report – This monthly report, published by Booz & Company, discusses business transformation and resiliency, offering articles, research and case studies on how companies worldwide can meet the challenges of the times.
Customer in View –The Newspaper Association of America, in partnership with Leading Edge Associates, explores how newspaper managers can shift toward a more customer-focused product that addresses readers' needs on a daily basis. Using successful customer-focus models from magazines, as well as the retail and technology industries, the NAA discusses how newspapers can develop their own customer-focused models.

UPCOMING LEA EVENTS

Speaking Engagements

Survivor's Guide to Newsroom Politics
Panel at the UNITY: Journalists of Color convention, moderated by Larry Olmstead
McCormick Place West, W193
Chicago, Ill.
July 25, 2008, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Convention registration required

The Path to the Publishers' Office
Panel at the UNITY: Journalists of Color convention, moderated by Larry Olmstead
McCormick Place West, W179
Chicago, Ill.
July 25, 2008, 1:30 - 3 p.m.
Convention registration required

Speaking Engagements

Gatekeeping in the New Media Environment: How to Deal with Bloggers and Other Nontraditional Media
Panel at the annual meeting of the Conference of Court Public Information Officers, moderated by Jerry Ceppos
Denver, Colo.
Aug. 4, 2008, 10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Convention registration required

Seminar

Innovation and Diversity
Network Meeting Center, Techmart, Santa Clara, Calif.
Sept. 9, 2008 9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m
Tuition: $175

Edgeline is published the second Tuesday of each month by Leading Edge Associates, a consulting firm engaged in management training, organizational change, succession planning, executive coaching, diversity and media. Analisa Nazareno, managing editor of Edgeline, can be reached at abnazareno@sbcglobal.net.