Today, I’m attending a panel with people from Columbia University and The New York Times speaking on leadership.

Dr. Michel Alhadeff-Jones
This guy is interesting. Leadership is about power, and leadership appears where there is unpredictability. Because if everyone knew what to do, they wouldn’t need a leader. He thinks leadership books are useful, but not very helpful to learning leadership. He thinks leadership has a lot to do with learning about our relationships with other people, specifically power dynamics. He has his students write personal narratives in order to reveal their relationships with power. He thinks leadership is a construction that helps us understand power relationships.

Dr. Terrance Maltbia
Shared his work around leveraging diversity and strategic learning, discussing the connection between experience, learning, and competence. He’s got 3 C’s to share.

Context: Setting matters. Contextual awareness is important. Where, when, who, matters.
Content: The “what” of leadership. Identity matters, and so does reputation.
Conduct: Actions need to be congruent with what you say you stand for. People believe what they see.

Adam Bryant
Runs the “corner office” section of the New York Times which focuses on leadership and management and explained how he interviews CEOs and leaders by asking open-ended questions, that there is an art to the “good dumb question”. Overall, he finds that leadership is incredibly personal and situational. Mostly, he’s talking about his experience interviewing CEOs and plugging his book.