Professional Development – 2020 – Week 49

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/54585499@N04/

Business

3 Mistakes That Stymie Corporate Purpose Initiatives (via Harvard Business Review)

  1. A lack of clear metrics
  2. Failure to infuse purpose into the sales function
  3. Missing the opportunity to activate purpose in your employees

Leadership

How to Develop Your Leadership Style (via Harvard Business Review)

This article has a detailed list of two styles of leadership — powerful and attractive — covering status, non-verbal style, and verbal style. What this article provides is a concrete set of attributes (e.g., empathetic responses, serious expressions, relaxed pronunciation) you can recognize and develop, ideally creating a blended style, or one that suits the occasion.

Managing an Underperformer Who Thinks They’re Doing Great (via Harvard Business Review)

  • “Whatever the cause, if leaders fail to address the situation, the lagging employee’s work will not improve, and the organization will lose the value of a team member who could thrive if given the proper support.”
  • Be clear about expectations
  • Provide employees with resources and support
  • Determine whether you’re willing to continue investing in the individual
  • Assess whether they’ll accept help
  • Target praise carefully

Compassionate Leadership Is Necessary — but Not Sufficient (via Harvard Business Review)

This is basically Radical Candor but with different language.

Productivity

The Pandemic Is Widening a Corporate Productivity Gap (via Harvard Business Review)

  • The best companies have minimized wasted time and kept employees focused; the rest have not.
  • The best have capitalized on changing work patterns to access difference-making talent.
  • The best have found ways to engage and inspire their employees.

Software

A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition: Level Up Your Core Programming Skills (Part 4)

This week’s book club meeting discussed the Big O of various types of “everyday” code examples. Then we moved on to the hash table data structure.