Last week, I talked about one of the worst type of management scenarios to work under – the micromanager. Now, let’s take that conversation from the “Dark Side” into the light to talk about great leaders. To say that Dr. William Cohen knows a few things about leadership is approximately the same as saying that Moby Dick was a fish. Not only was Cohen a former Air Force major general, university president, and business leader, but he has many degrees (including a PhD) and even holds several engineering patents. One of the many books authored by Dr. Cohen is the 1998 Best Business Book of … [Read more...]
Plays Well With Others – Eight Behaviors of Excellent Leaders
Filed Under: Ethics, Governance, Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development, WorldView
Plays Well With Others – Dealing with Micromanagement
Imagine you’re working on a new project. It’s an important project and its success will be a big win for the organization. You were chosen for the job because of your competency, skill, and effectiveness. You get things like this done all the time and have a track record for pulling it off. Now that the project is underway, you’re finding that trust and support you need from management is absent. Instead, you’ve got a micromanaging boss, who’s put so many additional requirements on your for reporting, meetings, and whatever their favorite nit-picking happens to be that management is … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development, SQLMag
And the Winners are…
The winners were named last week in our contest for bloggers on SQLServerPedia. Lots of great bloggers and great articles for you to read. A complete list of the winners is here: Thanks to the thousands who participated! Follow me on Twitter! … [Read more...]
Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: DBA, Developer, DMV, Internals, Professional Development, Quest Software, Tools & Scripts
Plays Well With Others – More Thoughts on the Job Search
While searching for a job, the interview is your opportunity to showcase your talents and the strengths that you bring to an organization. But I have a few more random thoughts about conducting your job search that I thought were worth mentioning. The Personal Touch The first thought is a quick one. In our high-speed technology driven world, a personal touch still makes a difference. So be sure to send a thank you e-mail after concluding an interview, assuming you liked the company and the opportunity. There was a time when a hand-written thank you note was the appropriate response. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, Professional Development
Plays Well With Others – Influence versus Authority
You’ve probably found that the prefix “lead” is a fairly common occurrence in the technology world. We have “lead developers”, “lead DBAs”, “lead architects”, and “lead consultants”. Yet, we don’t have “lead managers”, “lead directors”, or “lead VPs”. Why is that? Well, there are probably a number of different reasons for having “lead” technologist titles depending on who you ask. For example, the HR department might say that adding “lead” to a technologist’s title justifies the better salary that the company had to pay to acquire that specific talent. The IT department chiefs might … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, Management, Plays Well With Others, Professional Development
Plays Well With Others – Metrics to the Max!
November 2009 would have been the 100th birthday of famed management guru, Peter Drucker, were he alive today. Now for those of you who don’t know the name, Peter Drucker was no mere guru or simple pundit. He was in fact the father of management and universally acclaimed as the world’s greatest management thinker. Anyone who’s taken a business class, studied for an MBA, or had to deal with an IT project to build a management dashboard has been touched by Peter Drucker. If you have a spare moment, add Drucker’s Concept of the Corporation to your library. Drucker came upon the scene at a … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Challenges, Governance, On-Line Resources, Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies Tagged With: Best Practices, Career, Management, Professional Development
Pirates of PASS: Curse of the Elections Process
Cross posted from Jorge Segarra's blog The last few weeks we’ve watched the drama unfold in regards to the PASS BOD elections. We’ve seen people attack criticize the NomCom, the board, PASS itself, the process and the decision of feeding of Gremlins after midnight. Thankfully the fireworks have died down and we can take a look at everything that has happened and make strides to move forward in a positive (and more importantly) constructive manner. Given that, I’ve been asked by my good friend Kevin Kline (Blog | Twitter) to respond to the following: Many in the community seem to think … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Ethics, Governance, Opinion, PASS Tagged With: Guest Post, Professional Development, SQLPASS
Carol McGury Speaks Out on Not-For-Profit Governance
I'd asked my friend and a form ED of PASS to add her thoughts about the governance process for not-for-profit organizations. Carol is one of the industry's top professionals, serving as the chief operating officer for many years at some of the largest IT and non-IT professional associations. I always look forward to her insight. She writes... As an Executive Director for another user group community, I can offer up a few thoughts as it relates to Nominating Committee best practices. I’ve been working with technology and various vendors for over 20 years, and I’ve seen the community … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Governance, Opinion, PASS, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Professional Development, SQLPASS
SQLRally Precon Voting
I have submitted a pre-conference session to present at the PASS SQLRally, May 11, 2011 in Orlando, FL. My session is entitled Leadership and Team Management Skills for the Database Professional. If you've ever attended my 1-hr professional development session at the PASS Summit, which has scored highest in the professional development track, then you've seen a preview of what we'll be covering over the course of the full day. During the session I will discuss how most IT leaders earned their promotions based on technical competency, not on leadership or managerial skills. Technical … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Opinion, Presentations, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Career, Management, Professional Development, Training
Vote Now for the 2010 SQLServerPedia Awards!
As a way of recognizing and thanking it's contributors, SQLServerPedia is holding annual awards for the best blog posts syndicated on the site from November 2009 – October 2010. Editors Iain Kick (blog | twitter), Jeremiah Peschka (blog | twitter), and myself have scoured SQLServerPedia.com to find the most informative and useful posts across a wide range of categories that were posted over the last year. Please click below to cast your vote.: http://sqlserverpedia.com/awards/ Get your friends/kids/colleagues to vote too! Voting opens today (November 1st) and closes November 8th. … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, On-Line Resources, PASS, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: Events, Professional Development, Quest Software, SQLPASS, Writing
