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| “It’s the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it” – Aristotle After a one week break the CTO Academy newsletter is back and thinking, about critical thinking.When considering the key attributes of successful tech leaders we interviewed a range of high profile leaders for a series called “Lockdown Learnings” and they consistently talked about soft skills, more specifically …– Authenticity and Empathy – Building the right team and ecosystem – Flexible Communication Skills – Innovation, and – Critical ThinkingSo Bianca decided to cover that final topic in her weekly video AND at the same time, manages to include a cheeky reference to the rarely lamented ex-leader of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu.…………………………………………..Take care of yourselves this weekend and enjoy some quality time away from the keyboard. |
| WHAT KIND OF A LEADER? Peacetime CEO vs. Wartime CEO Bill Taylor is the co-founder of Fast Company and the author of Simply Brilliant: How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways.This week we feature his insightful article: Are You A Peacetime CEO Or A Wartime CEO?“By my reckoning, Ben Horowitz is the most thought-provoking blogger on leadership and strategy today. Ben is also a lot more than a blogger. As one of the two name partners at Andreessen Horowitz, he is one of the most influential venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. As the co-founder and CEO of Opsware, a software company that was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion, he built a track record as a hands-on executive. And as one of the earliest product managers at Netscape.No wonder that when Ben Horowitz writes what he thinks — about leadership, strategy, or innovation — people pay attention. Well, 10 days or so ago, he wrote something that struck me as particularly insightful”.You can read the full article here. |
| NEWS & VIEWS Articles That Caught Our Eye This Week 3 Ways To Create A Work Culture That Brings Out The Best In PeopleIn November 2018 more than 20,000 employees walked out of Google to protest over the handling of sexual harassment claims at the company. Chris White explains that the protest was dramatic, headline-grabbing and done as a clear signal that employees would no longer check their identities and values at the workplace door. It was also the exception rather than the rule.While certainly brave, Google employees felt safe enough to organize without fear of reprisals. Even if they did lose their jobs, they’d still be highly employable somewhere else. Not everyone has that luxury, and not everyone feels OK about speaking up at work.– When we feel psychologically unsafe or unvalued, we protest quietly and often unconsciously.Yet walkouts happen every day in the workplace; they’re just not usually done with our feet. Instead, they’re checkouts — invisible walkouts that happen with our hearts and our hands and our voices.Read: 3 Ways To Create A Work Culture That Brings Out The Best In People __________________________________________________________________________ 4 Ways To Create Tomorrow’s Leaders TodayChances are your company is trying to develop leaders through two main strategies.1st is via executive leadership education; 2nd is through succession management processes.But are you capturing the synergies between the two?Identifying and combining the key elements between leadership and succession management functions is an essential part of nurturing a more robust leadership pipeline. Ric Rio states that holistic planning enables leadership talent to progress more quickly, while new leaders are better prepared and motivated for new challenges. But language matters. Calling it a leadership progression, rather than a succession, gives you more options to discuss development and changes to an individual role. Read: Four Ways To Create Tomorrow’s Leaders Today __________________________________________________________________________ 5 Techniques To Fully Develop Your Team Spirit Daniel Colombo dives into the new types of leadership that are proposed as a paradigm that breaks with the old ways of working in teams and how it teaches us the importance of including different dimensions in the management of each of the members of high-performance teams.These dimensions were not always as important as they are today.Many times because those who lead did not know how to work on these skills that people possess to a greater or lesser extent and that they have a definitive impact on interpersonal relationships within a team.Leading including the emotional dimension of people in project management and the achievement of results within organizations is key if we want to establish teams that function in the long term and feel content.Read: 5 Techniques To Fully Develop Your Team Spirit __________________________________________________________________________ 4 Leadership Rules To Follow If You Want A Successful Hybrid Workplace…The pandemic, paused life the life we once knew. We suddenly and unexpectedly packed up our desks and started working at home, where we met new colleagues through a §screen and were quickly fatigued by virtual meetings.Virtual happy hours and trivia aside, it’s been a challenge to maintain workplace culture during these times. As we transition back to a new “normal,” business leaders must consider how the reimagined workplace will look for employees, including those who haven’t met.For many companies, this strategy includes a hybrid model of working both remotely and in the office. Looking for a fresh executive perspective, Marcel Schwantes connected with Michael Simpson, chairman and CEO of workforce journey company Pairin, to get his outlook on creating a culture that reunifies everyone after the past year-plus of remote work.“Having employees lead the process of formulating the company values ensures they feel heard, appreciated, and considered. Without buy-in from the entire staff, company values are just words on a page,” Simpson offers. Read: 4 Leadership Rules To Follow If You Want A Successful Hybrid Workplace |
| BOOK OF THE WEEK Why We Sleep… Why We Sleep: Unlocking The Power Of Sleep And Dreams explores twenty years of cutting-edge research to solve the mystery of why sleep matters.Looking at creatures from across the animal kingdom as well as major human studies, Why We Sleep delves into everything from what really happens during REM sleep to how caffeine and alcohol affect sleep and why our sleep patterns change across a lifetime, transforming our appreciation of the extraordinary phenomenon that safeguards our existence.“This book is a must-read for anyone involved in medicine, education and ministry. Dr. Walker goes through the various maladies connected to sleep deprivation, backed by scores of scientific studies.Dr. Walker talks about non-medicinal routes to sleeping better; you’ve probably heard that advice before (avoid: caffeine, alcohol, blue LED light; do darken and cool the room, etc.). What’s different is that he lays out the detriments of sleep deprivation in a way that compels you to make changes. [as an aside: he lays out the reasons pills do not actually help one to sleep; they, instead, sedate a person, giving the impression of sleep without the critical attendant benefits]He lays out the connections of sleep deprivation to a whole range of diseases. For example: Alzheimer’s; includes a build-up of beta-amyloid in the frontal lobe, which disrupts NREM sleep, which in turn makes overnight memory consolidation suffer. He offers insights like this for a variety of medical conditions”. |
| VIDEO OF THE WEEK Hamza Khan…Stop Managing, Start Leading |
| CTO ACADEMY EBOOK 90 Things You Need To Know …We have reviewed, refreshed and replenished our magnificent eBook so now you get even more value just from knowing us.If you haven’t already grabbed a copy of the new eBook then what are you waiting for, it’s absolutely packed with our wonderfully subjective insight and is definitely not your standard eBook …Available here: 90 Things You Need To Know, If You Want To Become The CTO |
| CTO GLOBAL COMMUNITY Another good reason to join CTO Academy When you purchase a product or service from CTO Academy, you also receive access to our global community of tech leaders.This has taken on even more value following the launch last week of our exclusive slack community, with tech leaders from 34 countries joining us for debates around leadership, hiring, best books to read and a whole host of other topics to come.If you were on the fence about CTO Academy before … we’ve given you another great reason to get involved: https://cto.academy/  |
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