Water Cooler Discussion

APA Citation of the source: LaBarre, P. (2001). MARCUS BUCKINGHAM THINKS YOUR BOSS HAS AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM. Fast Company, (49), 88-98.

Part 1 A: Synopsis of the Article

This article discusses the teachings of Marcus Buckingham, an author and leadership strategist. While working at Gallup, Buckingham has worked with Best Buy, Disney, Fidelity Investments, Toyota, Wells Fargo and other large organizations to improve performance and change the behaviors of the company’s leadership. His approach focuses on people’s strengths, versus targeting to improve their weaknesses.

Buckingham identified managers as the most important people in the company. He gives credit to the CEO, but states, “when it comes to getting the most productivity out of everyone in the company, they're not the most important people. Our research tells us that the single most important determinant of individual performance is a person's relationship with his or her immediate manager” (Buckingham, 2001). This article provided 5 essential attitude adjustments for managers who lead people and introduced the 12 questions that matter.

Part 2: An Analysis based on the course topic of Leading People:

This article relates to the course content because it provides a new leadership framework for improving the performance of teams. In one example, Buckingham described Larry, a senior marketing manager at his company. Larry had no empathy and was not a good people manager. He had qualities of a strong individual contributor, but was not good at coaching and leading teams. In this course, we are learning about the qualities and traits of a leader. While some people may be similar to Larry and not be interested or good at leading teams, it is still important to learn about the qualities of a good leader and how to focus on your key strengths. This article discusses Buckingham's approach, which focuses on improving people's key strengths, as opposed to trying to improve on a weakness.

There will be many...