How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter; Fresh Air, NPR, September 11, 2024

  Fresh Air, NPR; How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter

"After buying Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk instituted sweeping changes. He laid off or fired about 75% of the staff –including about half the data scientists. He also ended rules banning hate speech and misinformation. Authors Kate Conger and Ryan Mac recount the takeover in Character Limit."

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick on Low Morale Among Public Librarians; Library Journal, June 3, 2020

Lisa Peet , Library Journal; Kaetrena Davis Kendrick on Low Morale Among Public Librarians

"You mentioned in a recent webinar that boards, human resources departments, and others with oversight are rarely helpful in these situations. 

Those are enabling systems. It's not just that behaviors are going on—these systems are in play. That's significant for people to know, because people move through these experiences blaming themselves, thinking that they're not doing enough. Really, it's the enabling systems. I use the term enabling for a reason: if you're familiar with substance overuse circles, people who are enabling think they're helping, but they're actually doing things to continue negative behavior. Enabling systems are systems that you would think were designed to help, but they inadvertently prolong or continue the experience of workplace abuse or neglect.

Leadership, overwhelmingly, is cited as an enabling system. You go to your leader and think, if I tell my leader, then they'll do something and stop it. But leaders generally have been shown to be most often the perpetrators of the workplace abuse and neglect. It might be a leadership style, authoritarian or toxic leadership, or even just not leading. I call them laissez-faire leaders. Perhaps you have a leader who's never there, who dismisses your complaints—radio silence."

Hillary Clinton’s Final Exam; New York Times, 9/24/16

David Axelrod, New York Times; Hillary Clinton’s Final Exam:

"Without pretense about the challenges Americans face, she will offer a more optimistic vision of the future than Mr. Trump’s relentlessly dystopian portrait of a country on the brink — the audacity of no hope. She will embrace diversity as a strength, in contrast to his past slights on immigrants, Muslims, women and people with disabilities.

Finally, she will stress the need to work together to solve the nation’s problems and mock Mr. Trump’s oft-stated declaration that he will single-handedly cure America’s ills — on Day 1. Both liberals and conservatives bridle at this autocratic vision.

In the end, presidential debates are less a trial of fact than a televised final exam for the most exacting job on the planet. They offer Americans a window into how each of these candidates would deal with excruciating pressure. They are measured in revealing moments. Will the candidates react with grace, humor and unflappability, or with anger and uncertainty?"

Sanders is making his long goodbye count; Washington Post, 6/29/16

E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post; Sanders is making his long goodbye count:

"Sanders stands in a tradition of leaders and activists on the American left who, since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, have seen the Democratic Party as a vehicle for egalitarian purposes and have sought to build a strong progressive bloc inside the party.

Now that he has lost to Hillary Clinton, Sanders’s task is to maximize his side’s influence down the road. Given the threat posed by Donald Trump to so many of his own values, Sanders also has a moral obligation to help Clinton win this election."

Workzone: Encouraging women in leadership to be themselves; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/26/14

Mark Belko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Workzone: Encouraging women in leadership to be themselves:

"My belief is that you have to be yourself, and you have to really understand the whole organization [you lead],” said Ms. Imhoff, president of the Community College of Allegheny County’s North Side campus.

It’s all well and good to study different leadership styles, to read all the best sellers on effective leadership. But in the end, you have to find the style that matches your personality and strengths.

Otherwise, you might end up with the incongruity “of what you’re trying to say versus who you are, and your staff will know right away,” said Ms. Imhoff, who gave a presentation this summer on how talented women thrive.

“I think it’s important to study leadership styles, but what’s most important is to be true to yourself. At the end of the day, you have to go home and look at yourself in the mirror,” she said."

An Interview with Skip Prichard; American Libraries, Sept./Oct. 2013

American Libraries; An Interview with Skip Prichard: David “Skip” Prichard became president and CEO of OCLC on July 1, succeeding Jay Jordan, who retired after 15 years at the helm of the nonprofit library consortium. He had most recently served as president and CEO of Ingram Content Group in Nashville, and before that was president and CEO of ProQuest Information and Learning. "What’s the biggest challenge facing OCLC this year? The challenges facing OCLC are many of the same challenges facing libraries. Information technology continues to move at an extraordinarily rapid pace, and we have to make sure we are providing the services to help libraries make the most of those technologies and, at the same time, reduce costs. As library users’ expectations continue to grow, we have to make sure we meet and exceed those expectations, whether the user is in the library, at home or in the office, or tapping into library resources using a mobile device. There are lots of leadership styles. What’s yours and how will it help OCLC? I am passionate about my work, and inclusive in my approach to guiding an organization. Leadership is about leveraging strengths and creating new opportunities. I enjoy and look forward to doing both."

Cuomo’s Presidential Moment Forms Contrast With Obama; New York Times, 6/25/11

Nate Silver, New York Times; Cuomo’s Presidential Moment Forms Contrast With Obama:

"I’m generally of the view that individual politicians receive both more credit and more blame than they deserve, with legislative and electoral outcomes usually determined by broad cultural, economic and political undercurrents. But the type of leadership that Mr. Cuomo exercised — setting a lofty goal, refusing to take no for an answer and using every tool at his disposal to achieve it — is reminiscent of the stories sometimes told about with President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had perhaps the most impressive record of legislative accomplishment of any recent president."