William Pounds, the former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management who was “famous for being willing to approach and talk to anybody,” has died at age 95. “As an administrator, he wanted to guide business school graduates to become able leaders of corporations like the ones where he had worked," writes Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe.
Writing for Forbes, senior lecturer Bill Fischer highlights lessons from the late pianist Ahmad Jamal on leadership and communication. “As a result, there are leadership lessons to be learned from the great jazz-masters, and in the case of delivering a message, or sharing ideas, Ahmad Jamal’s lessons are well-worth paying attention to,” writes Fischer.
Milford High School student Elsie Sutherland created “Community Connector,” as her final project for MIT’s Leadership Training Institute, reports Lisa Hughes for CBS. The website “connects people who want to volunteer with organizations that need help,” explains Hughes. “Each listing includes a description of the non-profit, its event, the nature of the service project and a sign-up.”
President Sally Kornbluth, Provost Cynthia Barnhart, and Chancellor Melissa Nobles speak with Radio Boston host Tiziana Dearing about the importance of representation for women and underrepresented groups in STEM. “One of the most important pieces of having women in leadership is not just bringing a diverse perspective, but honestly being role models so that girls see that there is a possibility for them to be doing the kind of high-tech, heavy research that MIT does,” says Kornbluth.
MSNBC reporter Selena Rezvani spotlights a study by Prof. Danielle Li and her colleagues, which found that women aren’t seen as having as much leadership potential as men despite having higher and more consistent performance ratings. Li and her colleagues found “women are 14 percent less likely to be promoted year after year, compared to men,” writes Rezvani.
McGonigal’s Chronicles, a new podcast celebrating extraordinary people with Montana connections, recently launched with an appearance by Professor Dava Newman. In conversation with the host, Tim McGonigal of Montana Television Network, Newman discusses growing up in Big Sky Country, her excitement about becoming director of the MIT Media Lab, and the importance of role models. “All little folks have a great dream, and I think it’s all of our responsibility then to help empower them, help their dreams come true,” says Newman.
Prof. Nergis Mavalvala has been named the new Dean of MIT’s School of Science, reports Zara Khan for Mashable. Khan notes that Mavalvala “is known for her pioneering work in gravitational wave detection,” and will be the first woman to serve as Dean of the School of Science.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, senior lecturer Hal Gregersen examines how managers can ask questions that can help prompt creative thinking. “Bosses should reconceive what their primary job is,” writes Gregersen. “They aren’t there to come up with today’s best answers, or even just to get their teams to come up with them. Their job is to build their organization’s capacity for constant innovation.”
Katie Johnston writes for The Boston Globe about a series of workshops at Sloan that are intended to teach business leaders how to identify, confront, and address sexual harassment in the workplace. “People are waking up in business schools and realizing we’ve had a blind spot,” said senior lecturer Daena Giardella. “We can’t have leadership without this being taught.”
Reflecting on President’s Day, Prof. William Aulet speaks with Radio Boston’s Deborah Becker about what makes an effective leader. “The job of a leader is to produce results,” Aulet says. “Leadership is about creating passion, dealing with change.”
Prof. Deborah Ancona and Senior Lecturer Hal Gregersen write for the Financial Times about the importance of collaborative leadership, highlighting how the development of the memorial to honor Officer Sean Collier was a collective effort. “To ‘step up’ and to ‘step aside’ — as needed — is the new way to lead in a world of distributed information and talent,” they note.
Senior Lecturer Bill Aulet writes for The Boston Globe about whether Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker can “pull off something rarely seen in business and even less often in politics — to be both a great manager and a great leader.”
Hal Gregersen, a senior lecturer at MIT and executive director of the MIT Leadership Center, writes for Fortune about the importance of asking questions. “Questioning is not a means to an end, but the creative intersection where a whole new solution – an innovative moment of truth – can catch fire,” Gregersen writes.
Molly Reynolds writes for The Huffington Post about an MIT study that found the most successful teams contain a higher percentage of women. “Extremely interesting was the successful teams' ability to detect the emotion of their teammates' written words when they worked online.”
David Slocum of Forbes lists “The Second Machine Age” by Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and Dr. Andrew McAfee as one of the best creative leadership books of the year. Brynjolfsson and McAfee, “explore the forces reinventing fields as diverse as medicine, retail, and transportation and having far-ranging implications for creative collaboration, business leadership and policy-making alike.”