Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Leadership (non)Lessons I have a new team-building tip from my favorite "pointy-haired boss" clone. I just post these as a place to keep them until I can compile into a longer piece on leadership. Remember, the "leader" in question made a specific point early on about the value of team work and how saying anything critical (even as a suggestion in a team meeting) was an example of not being a team player. The point had also been made that there were people in the office who would report on everyone else. So, in this case the leader approached someone with documentation that she had been overheard saying something critical of the leader and was thus written up in her personnel profile (can you really do that?). This was after she heard about a position reassignment via an email broadcast to the 20-some members of the team. I can't believe someone like this exists in the 21st century. Sounds like Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia where kids were encouraged to report on their parents. No one can trust anyone. How in the world can you build a team without trust? How can you build a world-class team without a free flow of ideas? Or, am I wrong? Are there others who face such tyrants? Better not comment publicly, but it would be interesting to know. 6:22:35 AM    comment []