Reading Time: < 1 min In his book “Ego Is the Enemy“, author Ryan Holiday spends a good deal of time essentially breaking down the Dunning-Krueger Effect and how overconfidence can be a bad thing. Confidence, in and of itself, is valuable to have. When you become overconfident and your ego creeps in, it can often inhibit your growth. If […]
Leadership
Fix your weaknesses or enhance your superpowers?
Reading Time: 2 min When you decide that there is something you’d like to better at doing, there are two possible reasons: It’s a weakness of yours that you want to improve. It’s already a strength of yours, but now you want to take it further. Finding the balance can be tricky. If you’re a baseball player who is […]
Kindness is about the recipient
Reading Time: < 1 min For years, I thought that a key to being a good leader was to treat your staff with kindness. That’s not wrong, but research into various personality profiles (such as enneagram and DISC) have shown me that “kind” is different depending on who you’re talking to. An old business coach of ours laid it out […]
Being kind doesn’t mean you’re a pushover
Reading Time: < 1 min We could all stand to see a bit more kindness in the world but I think it’s often seen as the opposite of “toughness”, even though the two can go hand-in-hand. You can be strong and relentless in all you do, while still being kind while you do it. If you think you need to […]
Clear is kind
Reading Time: < 1 min If you follow Gary Vaynerchuk very much, you’ve probably noticed that his big push lately is for “kind candor“. In his earlier years he did well with the “kind” part, but hid from the “candor”, which was a big disservice to those on his team. You don’t need to hide from the truth, but don’t […]
Reliability makes work easier
Reading Time: < 1 min I’ve long said that the level of trust that I have in my team helps make my life much easier. Among other things, I know that if I send an email to one of them to get something taken care of, I don’t need to remind myself to follow-up — it gets done. However, a […]
Calm is contagious
Reading Time: < 1 min If you’re in a suddenly stressful situation, freaking out is likely to make things worse. It can be hard to control, but staying calm, particularly if you’re in a position of leadership during the event, can make a huge difference. From Ryan Holiday’s excellent book “The Daily Stoic“, he shares: There is a maxim that […]
Is reading work?
Reading Time: 2 min In episode 179 of The Long and The Short Of It podcast, hosts Pete and Jen argue that reading for knowledge should be considered “work”, and therefore it’s acceptable to do during the workday. I don’t disagree, but it’s tricky. I read quite a lot, and most of it is for the benefit of our […]
Leadership means you do more
Reading Time: < 1 min As people grow in their roles, the thought is often that they’ve earned the right to do less work, and perhaps that’s valid. However, simply having the ability to work less generally isn’t the right thing to do if you’ve moved into a leadership role. While your work may largely shift from manual tasks to […]
Being the best talker doesn’t mean you have the best ideas
Reading Time: < 1 min This is something a lot of organizations struggle with – the loudest and/or best talker in the room often gains the approval of those around them, based solely on their manner. They may happen to have the best ideas, but those two things don’t necessarily go together. In her book “Quiet“, author Susan Cain sums […]