I’m not talking about hustle culture. (Eww) I’m not advocating 80-hour workweeks. (Ugh) Not at all. But there are two things, above and beyond the job description of any leader, that are important – and not paying attention to those things is what I call “being a lazy leader.” Know yourself Real leadership – the kind I hope all my …
Can “trust” be defined?
Over the years, I’ve read – and thought – a lot about trust. More recently, I’ve been collecting quotes about trust, in preparation for writing this article. (Side note: for me, a good quote is a distillation of a concept – a concentrated concept, so to speak – and as such is useful for fine-tuning understanding.) It’s easy to agree …
Leaders are Teachers
Very simply: if you’re a leader, you should also be a teacher. Actually, I’ll revise that. If you’re a leader, you already are a teacher. Whether you realize it or not. The key is to be self-aware enough to teach the right things to the right people at the right time. This requires understanding your people – their skill level, …
Hacks, Habits, and Practices (oh my!)
A thoughtful reader wrote to me after last week’s article “Un-Hack your life“. (Thanks, Mark!) He was wondering about, as he put it, where to draw the line between “hack” and “advice.” Was it about the amount of effort needed, or was there something else? I replied, saying that I thought we were basically in agreement about the sorts of …
The courage to lead
Leading takes courage. (I’m about to get political, just for one paragraph – it’s way past the point where I can take refuge in “professionalism” to avoid speaking out.) Look at the Republicans in Congress right now. The majority, if not all, are failing to lead, in my opinion mostly because they’re afraid. And yes, you can say the same …
Are you empowered?
Are you empowered? Do you even know what that means? Do you empower your team? Do you even know what that means? Yes, this is another of my rants about buzzwords. Because, as the third of those three linked articles says, buzzwords are once-meaningful words that have, through overuse and over-hype, become functionally meaningless. Of course, I’m not sure “empowered” ever …
The Disappearing Leader
A disappearing leader is a bad thing, right? Well … maybe. And maybe not. There are two basic principles involved. First, leaders should, obviously, be available for their people. They should listen to what their people are saying, what they need, what’s working, what’s not. Second, when a leader delegates and doesn’t disappear, that’s a problem. That’s micromanagement. Obviously, there’s …
How to lead through uncertainty
What a great click-bait title for today’s environment, right? The fact is, when the uncertainty is this extreme, and even CEOs aren’t sure what to expect or what to do, well, what are the options? There are four basic trauma reactions: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. We’re seeing all of these. Multiple BigLaw firms have chosen fawn, volunteering to donate tens …
The need for variability
Last week, I wrote that leadership isn’t math – that “leader plus situation” does not always equal a specific action. Two plus two will always equal four, but leadership is, as I said in that article, a big fuzzy gray area. An astute reader, who occasionally sends me thoughtful and articulate responses to my articles (thank you, Mark!), did exactly that, …
Leadership isn’t math
Two plus two is four. Every time. Leader plus team … doesn’t add up the same every time. Leader plus employee – likewise. As much as we love to think we can teach people to be leaders by teaching them leadership styles, leadership models, leadership rules – we can’t. Leadership doesn’t add up the same every time; it’s situational, a …