Class of 2019 is most diverse ever; University Times, 9/17/15

University Times; Class of 2019 is most diverse ever:

"The University welcomed 4,872 new undergraduates to the Pittsburgh campus this fall: 4,054 freshmen and 818 external transfer students.

This fall’s freshman class is not only larger than expected, it’s more diverse than ever, with the class of 2019 hailing from 44 states and 1,312 high schools, plus 17 other countries. The proportion of nonwhite freshmen — 26.2 percent — is a record for Pitt, with 1,061 minority students among the class, said Marc Harding, chief enrollment officer.

The average SAT score for freshmen held steady from last year at 1297.

Sixty-four percent of freshmen come from within Pennsylvania, while 36 percent are from out of state. Of the in-state freshmen, 13 percent are from Allegheny County; 51 percent come from elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

Most out-of-state freshmen — 83 percent — were drawn from 10 states: New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, North Carolina and Connecticut."

Upcoming survey will examine diversity in Pittsburgh workforce; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/18/15

Ed Blazina, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Upcoming survey will examine diversity in Pittsburgh workforce:

"Pittsburgh Today and Vibrant Pittsburgh want to hear opinions from CEOs, supervisors and low-level employees about diversity in the local workforce and their experiences with diverse colleagues.

The two groups, part of a team of agencies and organizations working to improve workplace diversity, are conducting an on-line survey as the second step in a process to address the situation. A study by the group released earlier this year showed the Pittsburgh area’s workforce ranked the lowest among 15 comparable regions with blacks, Hispanics and Asians and others making up less than 11 percent of the workforce...

“This is really an opportunity for everyone to share their voice,” said Melanie Harrington, president and CEO of Vibrant Pittsburgh. “We want to hear from CEOs and the people who do the hiring to find out the problems they face and the diverse people in the workforce to find out what their experience has been.”...

Pittsburgh’s challenge is that because its diversity level is so low, “We have a bigger hole to dig out of,” Ms. Harrington said. And the region has an aging workforce that is expected to need another 140,000 workers in the next few years to replace those who are between 55 and 65 years old."

We’re All Artists Now; New York Times, 9/4/15

Laura M. Holson, New York Times; We’re All Artists Now:

"Choosing to be more creatively focused, though, can be disturbing at first. Ms. Cameron argues in “The Artist’s Way” that it can upend the delicate balance of relationships. “Many of us find that we have squandered our own creative energies by investing disproportionately in the lives, hopes, dreams and plans of others,” she writes. Others perceive a creative life as a quit-your-job-or-nothing proposition. They “like to think they are looking at changing their whole lives in one fell swoop,” Ms. Cameron writes, adding that, in “fantasizing about pursuing our art full time, we fail to pursue it part time — or at all.”

Indeed, many people aren’t interested in a wholesale career switch. Instead they are simply seeking a respite from a harried work and home life...

Beyond grown-up coloring books, the possibility for creative self-exploration is everywhere — especially in our phones. It is easy now to record and edit images, audio and video on our cellphones, making the commoditization of creativity even more pronounced. “We’ve become fascinated with innovation as a culture,” said Aaron Rasmussen, a founder of MasterClass, a new online education company that features writers, actors and sports figures teaching classes about the creative process. “People used to look at a movie and say, ‘I could do better than that,’ but they had no vehicle.”"

60 Real Women Front The Limited's 'New Look Of Leadership' Campaign; HuffingtonPost.com, 9/4/15

Jamie Feldman, HuffingtonPost.com; 60 Real Women Front The Limited's 'New Look Of Leadership' Campaign:

"The brand called upon 60 diverse female leaders in business, education, government, healthcare, technology and entertainment to star in its "The New Look Of Leadership" campaign.

In an effort to redefine what it means to be a leader today, Diane Ellis, chief executive officer of The Limited, said the idea sparked from conversations with clients...

Gabrielle Bernstein, a New York Times best-selling author and one of the 60 powerful women included in the spread, explained to The Huffington Post why being included was so meaningful to her. "I am deeply passionate about inspiring women to own their leadership power and rise up. I'm grateful that The Limited is bringing the empowering message of women and leadership to the forefront. Fashion and leadership go hand-in-hand when it comes to making an impact, leading with confidence and owning your power," she said."

Friends at Work? Not So Much; New York Times, 9/4/15

Adam Grant, New York Times; Friends at Work? Not So Much:

"In a study led by the social psychologist Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Anglo-American, Mexican and Mexican-American participants watched a four-minute video of two people working together. Shortly after, the Americans generally remembered just as much as the Mexicans and Mexican-Americans about the task, but much less about the social interaction. Anglo-Americans struggled to remember the socioemotional aspects, such as smiling, handshaking and discussions about movies and weekend plans. In other studies, Americans were less likely to notice subtleties in communication when a message was described as having been sent from a manager at a large company than when the same message was supposedly sent from a friend. There was no such discrepancy between the professional and personal among people from China or South Korea.

Why are Americans so determined to get down to business?

The economic explanation is that long-term employment has essentially vanished: Instead of spending our careers at one organization, we expect to jump ship every few years. Since we don’t plan to stick around, we don’t invest in the same way. We view co-workers as transitory ties, greeting them with arms-length civility while reserving real camaraderie for outside work...

Whether we bond at work is a personal decision, but it may involve less effort and vulnerability than we realize. Jane E. Dutton, a professor at the University of Michigan, finds that a high-quality connection doesn’t require “a deep or intimate relationship.” A single interaction marked by respect, trust and mutual engagement is enough to generate energy for both parties. However small they appear, those moments of connection can transform a transaction into a relationship."

At West Point, Annual Pillow Fight Becomes Weaponized; New York Times, 9/4/15

Dave Philipps, New York Times; At West Point, Annual Pillow Fight Becomes Weaponized:

"Upperclassmen overseeing freshmen “allowed the spirit activity to occur out of the desire to enhance the spirit of the class,” Colonel Kasker said, adding that those upperclassmen took “mitigating measures” to prevent injury, including requiring cadets to wear helmets.

But video shows that many of the cadets did not wear helmets. Cadets said that in at least a few cases helmets became weapons stuffed into pillowcases.

“West Point applauds the cadets’ desire to build esprit and regrets the injuries to our cadets,” Colonel Kasker said. “We are conducting appropriate investigations into the causes of the injuries.”

So far no cadets have been punished, and the academy has no plans to end the annual tradition. Colonel Kasker said commanders were not available for comment on Friday."

Why Is Science So Straight?; New York Times, 9/4/15

Manil Suri, New York Times; Why Is Science So Straight? :

"Underrepresentation is just one factor that reduces visibility. Unlike women and minorities, whose status is usually obvious, sexual orientation is a hidden characteristic. The fact that a sizable proportion of the L.G.B.T. STEM work force is closeted (43 percent, according to a 2015 estimate) further deepens this effect.

There is a another, more insidious factor at work. STEM culture is very problem-focused. Conversations, even over lunch, typically remain restricted to work matters (which is very different from what I’ve noticed in arts and humanities settings)...

In another interview, a chemical engineer working for a multinational oil company describes the atmosphere as “almost militaristic in terms of how they manage people” and said that they don’t even think diversity is an issue. To cope, many gays and lesbians must learn to suppress crucial aspects of their personalities and compartmentalize their lives...

Although there has been a concerted effort to make STEM fields more diverse in terms of gender and race, L.G.B.T. participation has received comparatively scant attention or resources. An exception is a recent grant by the National Science Foundation to address prejudice against sexual minorities in academic engineering departments. Grass-roots organizations like Out in STEM and the National Organization for Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals are taking the lead to provide mentoring and networking — activities that have proved indispensable in the retention of women and minorities.

An essential step is to break self-perpetuating patterns of concealment. Teachers must come out not just to colleagues, but to students — some of whom will need role models, and all of whom must get used to visible L.G.B.T. professionals to prepare for future workplace settings.

More critically, STEM culture must rein in the pressure to separate professional and personal identities. It should view its workers more holistically, welcoming their interests and differences as sources of enhanced resourcefulness."

The New Romantics in the Computer Age; New York Times, 9/4/15

David Brooks, New York Times; The New Romantics in the Computer Age:

"Empathy becomes a more important workplace skill, the ability to sense what another human being is feeling or thinking. Diabetes patients of doctors who scored high on empathy tests do better than patients with low-empathy doctors.

The ability to function in a group also becomes more important — to know how to tell stories that convey the important points, how to mix people together.

Secure workers will combine technical knowledge with social awareness — the sort of thing you get from your genes, from growing up in a certain sort of family and by widening your repertoire of emotions through reflection, literature and a capacity for intimacy...

There is the hero of serious thought. “Even early on,” Edmundson says, “as they enter the first phase of their lives as thinkers, they’ll have one of the greatest satisfactions a human being can have: They won’t lie. They’ll follow Socrates, and they’ll look out at the world, and with whatever mix of irony and sweetness and exasperation, they will describe it as it is to them. When others trim and sidestep, they will have the satisfaction of voicing honest perceptions.”"

Report on Pitt-CMU libraries delayed; University Times, 9/3/15

Marty Levine, University Times; Report on Pitt-CMU libraries delayed:

"Pitt and Carnegie Mellon still are exploring potential collaborations between their library systems, although a final report, originally due in June, has been delayed until this fall. (See University Times, Dec. 4, 2014.)

According to Dean Ronald Larsen of the School of Information Sciences, who chairs the review committee with CMU Dean of University Libraries Keith Webster, the group has been meeting through the spring and summer “to identify opportunities of mutual benefit to enhance collections and services to our students, faculty and staff.”

Larsen said in the spring Pitt and CMU librarians held an interactive idea workshop led by Sheila Corrall, an iSchool faculty member, and surveyed faculty on both campuses."

Avoid Worrying About a Future That May Never Happen; New York Times, 8/24/15

Carl Richards, New York Times; Avoid Worrying About a Future That May Never Happen:

"I know it’s clichéd to say that the best way to accomplish a major goal is one step at a time. But the adage acknowledges something vital. We can control the next step, but we can’t always control what comes after the next step. So why get worked up about what’s way out on the horizon?...

I find it fascinating how we get distracted by things that might happen, often to the point that we overlook what’s right in front of us. We do this a lot with money. We focus on big financial goals, like buying a home, paying for college, or retiring — and they seem so big we convince ourselves they’re impossible to reach. Then, because we feel overwhelmed, we stop trying to reach them.

Look, it’s important to know where we want to go and to set goals to get there, but we can’t let that big thing way off in the future intimidate us. We could lie in bed every night worrying about how we’ll get there, or we could follow my son’s approach: Keep our heads down and focus on the next step and then the step after that one."

Greg Schott of MuleSoft: Beware the Threats to a Positive Workplace; New York Times, 8/29/15

Adam Bryant, New York Times; Greg Schott of MuleSoft: Beware the Threats to a Positive Workplace:

"You worked at a number of tech companies before becoming C.E.O. of MuleSoft. What lessons did you learn about culture along the way?

I learned that it can take years to build a great culture and you can tear it down in very short order. It’s like a building — you can spend years building a beautiful building and then it can just collapse.

The problems I’ve seen have been lack of communication, which can lead to a lack of trust. If people don’t feel connected to the leadership and they don’t feel like they understand where the company is headed, people will fill in the blanks, and often not with positive things. It’s just human nature.

Another one is when you get leadership that looks like they’re out for themselves. People pick up on that when decisions are made that are not necessarily with everybody’s best interest at heart. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but it’s an attitude.

Factions are also a problem, and I’ve seen this in the tech world as companies grow quickly. There tends to be an old-timer group — the ones who have been around forever, which in technology is three to five years — and the new people who were brought on board later.

If there’s any kind of different treatment, like the folks who have been there since the beginning are treated as if they’re the only ones that can really figure things out, or if the new ones are considered the saviors of the company, that sends a terrible signal. We’re all here together to make it work."

Architect Sought for Obama’s Presidential Library Complex; New York Times, 8/26/15

Julie Hirschfeld Davis, New York Times; Architect Sought for Obama’s Presidential Library Complex:

"The foundation overseeing the development of Barack Obama’s presidential library began a global competition on Wednesday to select the architect who will design the elaborate Chicago complex.

The start of the selection process is the latest step in Mr. Obama’s quiet but painstaking planning for his post-presidential initiatives, which his advisers say could cost as much as $1 billion.

The library, to be located on the South Side of Chicago, where the president had his political start as a community organizer, will be the crown jewel of the effort, a high-technology take on the traditional archival presidential library that will include space for innovation labs, a community garden and sports...

“We think there’s a real value to having a diverse group of participants in every element of this process,” Mr. Nesbitt said in a conference call Wednesday. “We feel really good about the group that has been invited to respond.”

The firms have until Sept. 16 to submit statements of interest in the project, including company profiles, résumés of their staff members, photographs and drawings of past projects, and examples of their diversity efforts."

Sara Baron on librarianship, universities and being Pittsburgh bound; Duquesne Duke, 8/26/15

Seth Culp-Ressler, Duquesne Duke; Sara Baron on librarianship, universities and being Pittsburgh bound:

"On Sept. 1 Sara Baron will begin her new position at Duquesne as head librarian for Gumberg Library. Baron comes to the Bluff with a wealth of librarianship experience, most recently as the dean of the university library at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Consider this her formal introduction to campus, as well as an invitation for all faculty and staff to welcome her with a good old Duquesne greeting when she arrives...

Q: It may be a bit early for this, but do you have any plans in mind for Gumberg Library?

A: Naturally I’m going to have to get there and really talk to people and meet people and really have some conversations before I can come up with a specific plan. But I can tell you that I think the Gumberg Library team already works with excellence. I think they’re already doing a lot for students and for the local campus community. So for me I just want to help them do that even more. I think there probably needs to be some space enhancements. I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like, but I do think there’s always opportunities to make library spaces more conducive for students, for student work, for group work, for collaborative work. Those are some initial thoughts, but of course I can’t say anything specifically until I get there and actually talk to people and get a real sense of what the needs are. Ultimately, though, students come first. So the library has to meet all the needs of the students and really things they aren’t even expecting. I like to surprise students, so when they walk in they say ‘Wow, this is a great place, this is somewhere I want to be.’"

The Closing of the Canadian Mind; New York Times, 8/14/15

Stephen Marche, New York Times; The Closing of the Canadian Mind:

"THE prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has called an election for Oct. 19, but he doesn’t want anyone to talk about it.

He has chosen not to participate in the traditional series of debates on national television, confronting his opponents in quieter, less public venues, like the scholarly Munk Debates and CPAC, Canada’s equivalent of CSPAN. His own campaign events were subject to gag orders until a public outcry forced him to rescind the forced silence of his supporters.

Mr. Harper’s campaign for re-election has so far been utterly consistent with the personality trait that has defined his tenure as prime minister: his peculiar hatred for sharing information.

Americans have traditionally looked to Canada as a liberal haven, with gun control, universal health care and good public education.

But the nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slow-motion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. His stance has been a know-nothing conservatism, applied broadly and effectively. He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance."

How libraries became the front line of America’s homelessness crisis; Washington Post, 8/19/15

Richard Gunderman and David C. Stevens, Washington Post; How libraries became the front line of America’s homelessness crisis:

"Helping homeless and mentally ill clients is a challenge that libraries all over the country are grappling with, but library science curricula don’t seem to have caught up.

According to one newly minted librarian who received her master’s degree in library science a few years ago, contemporary library education typically includes no coursework in mental illness. It focuses on the techniques and technology of library services, especially meeting the needs of patrons for access to information.

Learning strategies to assist mentally ill and homeless patrons might not be on library curricula, but the American Library Association has long had policies in place emphasizing equal access to library services for the poor, and in 1996 formed the Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty Task Force.

Across the country, libraries have developed helpful strategies for serving homeless and mentally ill patrons. One, at least for large libraries with sufficient numbers of personnel, is to designate a member of the staff as a specialist in these matters, who serves as a resource person for other employees.

At the metropolitan library we visited, one of the more civically oriented librarians acts as a liaison between various local mental health agencies and homeless shelters. She has cultivated a relationship with a mental health crisis clinician at the county hospital, who has organized workshops to educate the library staff about mental health and substance abuse."

Is Donald Trump an American Putin?; Washington Post, 8/18/15

David Ignatius, Washington Post; Is Donald Trump an American Putin? :

"Putin, like Trump, seems to understand that power and showmanship are inseparable, especially for a nation that is traumatized by military and economic losses. It’s a confidence game. “Within the system, Mr. Putin has developed his own idealized view of himself as CEO of ‘Russia, Inc.’ In reality, his leadership style is more like that of a mafia family Don,” write Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy in their book, “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin."...

What’s surprising about Trump is that he has attracted such a wide following. He’s Reagan without Reaganism, running a campaign nearly devoid of ideas. Americans have had flirtations with demagogues, from Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. But the bullying authoritarian personality — the Putin style — usually doesn’t work here. This summer has been an exception, but history suggests that it won’t last."

Data-Crunching Is Coming to Help Your Boss Manage Your Time; New York Times, 8/17/15

David Streitfeld, New York Times; Data-Crunching Is Coming to Help Your Boss Manage Your Time:

"A new generation of workplace technology is allowing white-collar jobs to be tracked, tweaked and managed in ways that were difficult even a few years ago. Employers of all types — old-line manufacturers, nonprofits, universities, digital start-ups and retailers — are using an increasingly wide range of tools to monitor workers’ efforts, help them focus, cheer them on and just make sure they show up on time.

The programs foster connections and sometimes increase productivity among employees who are geographically dispersed and often working from home. But as work force management becomes a factor in offices everywhere, questions are piling up. How much can bosses increase intensity? How does data, which bestows new powers of vision and understanding, redefine who is valuable? And with half of salaried workers saying they work 50 or more hours a week, when does working very hard become working way too much?"

Depiction of Amazon Stirs a Debate About Work Culture; New York Times, 8/18/15

New York Times; Depiction of Amazon Stirs a Debate About Work Culture:

"Amazon recently surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the country. It is ceaselessly inventive, unafraid to try something and fail. Its ambitious goal: sell everything to everyone everywhere. It is also figuring out how to extract the most from its employees, whose dedication and obsession is the real engine behind the company’s success.

A recent article in The New York Times —“Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace” — offered a glimpse into what could be described as a workplace that is both bruising and thrilling. It gave accounts of workers who suffered from cancer, miscarriages and other personal crises who said they had been evaluated unfairly or edged out rather than given time to recover in Amazon’s intense and fast-paced workplace.

The reaction to the story was voluminous and spirited. On websites like Reddit and Hacker News, tech workers, Amazon employees and friends and relatives offered thoughtful and detailed reflections of their experiences at the company. Jeff Bezos, its chief executive, also weighed in."

Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace; New York Times, 8/15/15

Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld, New York Times; Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace:

"But just as Jeff Bezos was able to see the future of e-commerce before anyone else, she added, he was able to envision a new kind of workplace: fluid but tough, with employees staying only a short time and employers demanding the maximum.

“Amazon is driven by data,” said Ms. Pearce, who now runs her own Seattle software company, which is well stocked with ex-Amazonians. “It will only change if the data says it must — when the entire way of hiring and working and firing stops making economic sense.”

The retailer is already showing some strain from its rapid growth. Even for entry-level jobs, it is hiring on the East Coast, and many employees are required to hand over all their contacts to company recruiters at “LinkedIn” parties. In Seattle alone, more than 4,500 jobs are open, including one for an analyst specializing in “high-volume hiring.”

Some companies, faced with such an overwhelming need for new bodies, might scale back their ambitions or soften their message.

Not Amazon. In a recent recruiting video, one young woman warns: “You either fit here or you don’t. You love it or you don’t. There is no middle ground.”"

Great Leaders Don't Have Followers: They Collaborate; Huffington Post, 8/10/15

Don Tapscott, Huffington Post; Great Leaders Don't Have Followers: They Collaborate:

"I was asked recently about my leadership style and what makes a great leader. As Peter Drucker said years ago, stable times require excellence and good management. As we transition to a new age, our organizations need more; they need leadership. So managers shouldn't just manage. Today they need to lead and think of themselves primarily as leaders rather than just managers.

In the past, tinkering could do the trick. These times require deep innovation and transformation, though, and that means leadership. However, leadership is changing too.

The type of leadership I embrace mirrors the digital revolution I've spent my life studying. The old model of technology was based on the mainframe; all intelligence was in the host computer, and mainframes communicated with peripherals down the hierarchical network.

Similarly, the old model of leadership was focused in a single, powerful individual. Great leaders were often those with the biggest brain or brain/mouth combination. They created a vision and sold it down to others.

Command-and-control leadership worked well with command-and-control computing and command-and-control business. That's not how technology is modeled anymore, and increasingly not how business is done. Why should we keep the old ideas about leadership?

My approach to leadership is collaborative. This approach is the antithesis of the old-style, brilliant visionary, take-charge, rally-the-troops type. In the past, Winston Churchill, Thomas Watson, and Lee Iacocca embodied the single dominant leader. Today, the leader is a collective, networked, virtual force and no longer necessarily embodied in a single individual."

Frances Oldham Kelsey, F.D.A. Stickler Who Saved U.S. Babies From Thalidomide, Dies at 101; New York Times, 8/7/15

Robert D. McFadden, New York Times; Frances Oldham Kelsey, F.D.A. Stickler Who Saved U.S. Babies From Thalidomide, Dies at 101:

"The sedative was Kevadon, and the application to market it in America reached the new medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration in September 1960. The drug had already been sold to pregnant women in Europe for morning sickness, and the application seemed routine, ready for the rubber stamp.

But some data on the drug’s safety troubled Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, a former family doctor and teacher in South Dakota who had just taken the F.D.A. job in Washington, reviewing requests to license new drugs. She asked the manufacturer, the William S. Merrell Company of Cincinnati, for more information.

Thus began a fateful test of wills. Merrell responded. Dr. Kelsey wanted more. Merrell complained to Dr. Kelsey’s bosses, calling her a petty bureaucrat. She persisted. On it went. But by late 1961, the terrible evidence was pouring in. The drug — better known by its generic name, thalidomide — was causing thousands of babies in Europe, Britain, Canada and the Middle East to be born with flipperlike arms and legs and other defects.

Dr. Kelsey, who died on Friday at the age of 101, became a 20th-century American heroine for her role in the thalidomide case, celebrated not only for her vigilance, which spared the United States from widespread birth deformities, but also for giving rise to modern laws regulating pharmaceuticals.

She was hailed by citizens’ groups and awarded honorary degrees. Congress bestowed on her a medal for service to humanity and passed legislation requiring drug makers to prove that new products were safe and effective before marketing them. President John F. Kennedy signed the landmark law that she had inspired, and presented her with the nation’s highest federal civilian service award."

How Emotional Intelligence Became a Key Leadership Skill; Harvard Business Review, 4/28/15

Andrew Ovans, Harvard Business Review; How Emotional Intelligence Became a Key Leadership Skill:

"Anyone trying to come up to speed on emotional intelligence would have a pretty easy time of it since the concept is remarkably recent, and its application to business newer still. The term was coined in 1990 in a research paper by two psychology professors, John D. Mayer of UNH and Peter Salovey of Yale. Some years later, Mayer defined it in HBR this way:

From a scientific (rather than a popular) standpoint, emotional intelligence is the ability to accurately perceive your own and others’ emotions; to understand the signals that emotions send about relationships; and to manage your own and others’ emotions. It doesn’t necessarily include the qualities (like optimism, initiative, and self-confidence) that some popular definitions ascribe to it.

It took almost a decade after the term was coined for Rutgers psychologist Daniel Goleman to establish the importance of emotional intelligence to business leadership. In 1998, in what has become one of HBR’s most enduring articles, “What Makes a Leader,” he states unequivocally:

The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but…they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions. My research, along with other recent studies, clearly shows that emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Without it, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader."

What a Leader Looks Like; Huffington Post, 7/30/15

Fidji Simo, Huffington Post,; What a Leader Looks Like:

"I confided to one of my coworkers that I was worried about people keeping this "weak" image of me in mind even after I returned to full health after seeing me so many times on VC calls lying in bed. I told him how I would try to hide my emergency trips to the hospital, so people didn't think I was unreliable. But to my surprise, he told me that most people in the office were impressed by how strong they thought I was throughout all this  --  both for continuing to care about my team and their efforts, and for my outlook and positivity. It was the last sentiment I would have imagined.

Although I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone, I am grateful for what it's teaching me about myself. While I would still much rather be on my high heels, and in my familiar armor, I've come to appreciate that vulnerability doesn't have to be a weakness. While I focused on my external image of power, I realize now that I wasn't focused enough on my inner strength. An inner strength that, now that I am aware of it, will help me lead in many different ways through life's many different messy situations. An inner strength that is not measured by outward poise, or my appearance. I look forward to the day that can I wear my heels and my make up again, but only because I truly love them, and no longer because I think I need them in order to feel powerful. Leadership is not an image, it's a quality. I hope one day to teach my daughter that lesson."

Leaders and Their Library Message | Leading From the Library; Library Journal, 7/30/15

Steven Bell, Library Journal; Leaders and Their Library Message | Leading From the Library:

"Every leader will face situations when they need to be their most articulate and “leaderly” in delivering a response. Having a well-thought out library message and the ability to quickly and confidently get and stay on message will make the difference. That’s not to say that leaders are know-it-alls who must always have the answer to every question. Good leaders know that on occasion the best answer will come from someone on the library team, perhaps the collection or budget expert. Savvy leaders also know that sometimes the best strategy is to acknowledge the complexity of a question and use it as an opportunity to engage community members in a conversation about a controversial or difficult issue. What matters is thinking ahead about communication situations, having the library message ready, and taking time to practice the delivery. Communication is among the most essential skills that library leaders need for success, whether it’s communicating with staff, community members, or other leaders. Look for every opportunity to learn to get better."

What Pinterest is learning from the Pittsburgh Steelers about diversity; Forbes, 7/30/15

Laura Lorenzetti, Forbes; What Pinterest is learning from the Pittsburgh Steelers about diversity:

"“We think one reason it’s been so hard to get numbers to change is that companies haven’t stated specific goals,” wrote co-founder Evan Sharp in a blog post.

Pinterest laid out its diversity goals for 2016, including boosting hiring rates for full-time engineering roles to 30% women and 8% underrepresented ethnic backgrounds.

Also in the list of goals is implementing a standard that’s similar to something known as the Rooney Rule, named after Dan Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and chairman of the National Football League’s diversity committee. The Rooney Rule requires all NFL teams to interview minority candidates as part of the hiring process for head coaches and senior football operation jobs.

The rule was implemented in 2003 following the firings of head coaches Tony Dungy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dennis Green of the Minnesota Vikings, despite both coaches having impressive winning records. Around that same time, a study came out that revealed that black head coaches, despite winning a higher percentage of games, were less likely to be hired (and more likely fired) than their white counterparts. Only three years after its implementation, the share of black head coaches had grown to 22% from 6% prior to the rule."