So, you think you want to be in charge. Be the bossman. Everyone comes to you to ask for permission to start new projects, buy new laptops, whatever. It comes through you. You are The Man. Or The Woman. Whichever.
Congratulations, you aren’t qualified to have the job.
If you are leading—not managing, herding, or driving—your team […]

Ok, so we’ve talked about why you should recruit mentors as you develop your own ability to get your job done better/faster/stronger. That’s pretty safe stuff.
But here’s something you don’t hear nearly as often: you should be a mentor, starting now.
Start at the beginning
Most of us think as mentoring as an activity that benefits the […]

We’ve talked a bit on this web site about having a balanced life and the role that plays in keeping you creative and in preparing you for challenges and failure.
Reader Karen M. sent me a note pointing to a batch of new supporting scientific evidence in favor of balance. One form of it anyway: taking […]

My organization, like lots of large companies and government agencies, has a required regimen of courses and training that I am required to complete as the career clock ticks. To say that these are usually unremarkable is being pretty generous, but hey, spring is in the air.
But I got lucky and did an exercise in […]

Ok, so let’s say you are already a team leader, or even a senior level manager in an HPC company or center somewhere. You’re interested in this leadership thing, but you recognize that you’re going to have to do a lot of culture changing to enable leadership to grow at all levels of your organization. […]

How do you know if you are speaking effectively, whether to 1 or 1,000?
As with writing, this is theoretcially easy: you’ve been speaking effectively when your audience understands your message and is moved to act to support your goals.
But there is a long way from theory to practice. What specific steps can you take […]

Since leadership and career management are my thing these days I like to keep up with what the Joneses are saying. I talk to folks, read blogs, check out online magazines, and even read an old-fashioned book every now and then.
There’s a certain type of leadership/career pundit that insists on referring to all this […]

I read an article recently arguing that leaders are born, not made. I disagree.

I view leadership as a continuum, probably because of my other view that there is only one trait of a leader: followers.
The consumer
If the only trait of leadership that matters is that other people are motivated by what you say and do […]

When it comes to careers a lot of us spend way too much time on autopilot, letting someone else decide what promotions we should be interested in and what career paths we should take.
I think some people handle their careers this way because they are pleasers at heart, and when they are asked to take […]

I have fun doing a regular weekly article at HPCWire that covers some of the same topics we cover here, only with more of an emphasis on supercomputing. I usually don’t publish items that are substantially the same here and there. Today’s topic is important enough, however, that I think it’s worth making an exception […]