Being a Better Leader - KeynesYouDigIt/Knowledge GitHub Wiki

Good Leadership

Don't measure the count of heads, but the weight of brains

Work should be fun, and funny. Adapt the ideas of others, don't adopt them.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

In Pursuit of the Dangerously Possible

Finger-folding exercise:

  1. Fold your hands together
  2. Notice which thumb is on top
  3. Fold them the opposite way
  4. Go back and forth and ask:
  • Which is comfortable and which is awkward?
  • Which feels secure?
  • Which one helps you be the most aware of the spaces between your fingers?
  • Which one helps your hands feel most alive?

Leading Toward a New Way to Work

If you expect people to invest in your vision, you should spend some time getting to know who they are and what they want. Work can be exciting and self-actualizing.

The old and honorable idea of 'vocation' is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of work for which we are particularly fitted. Implicit in this idea is the evidently startling possibility that we might work willingly, and there is no necessary contradiction between work and happiness or satisfaction. Only in the absence of any viable idea of vocation, or good work, can one make the distinction implied in such phrases as 'less work, more life', or 'work-life balance,' as if one commutes daily from life here to work there. But aren't we living even when we are most miserably and harmfully at work? Isn't that exactly why we object (when we do object) to bad work?"

  • Wendell Berry

The cure for exhaustion isn't only rest. It's wholeheartedness. It's tiring to spend half of your life one way, half of your life another. Even when work is physically exhausting, it can be spiritually sustaining.

You have talent, are original, and have something important to say. It is good work. Work with love and like it when you do it. It is a privilege to get to do this. Be bold, be free, be truthful.

  • Brenda Ueland

Fixing the Energy Crisis in the American Workplace

Acceptance is the first step to recovery.

Harris poll of US employees:

  • 37% know the company's goal
  • 20% were enthusiastic about them
  • 20% saw how they could support it
  • 15% feel enabled to work toward them
  • 20% trust their company

If this was a football team:

  • 4 people know the goal they're working toward
  • But only 2 care
  • When they break the huddle, only 2 people know where they're supposed to be
  • Only 2 people feel like what they do will make a difference
  • Everyone but 2 will be just as likely to be rooting for the opposite team

Businesses pay people to work at 15-37% of their capacity.

Chaotic businesses may also have fertile soil and good culture. Tidy corporations may look organized, but they're mono cropped in tidy rows. A healthy company looks more like a jungle.

Energy: Are people smiling, laughing, and learning?

People shut down in order to survive. It's initially uncomfortable, but it feels good to turn on your brain and your feelings. People get trained in most jobs to stay safely in their shells, not show emotions, not share insights or ideas, not make suggestions, and act like they like don't care.

Raising the Energy Bar

  • Bad energy is distracting. Good energy is fast-paced, but calm. Choose which energy you're bringing into a situation.
  • Good energy is attracted to good energy, bad to bad. Good energy flees bad energy.
  • Good energy == fun
  • You directly influence the energy of everyone in your team, which affects their efficacy
  • Notice the energy in different businesses you visit. What does it feel like?
  • Having good energy can be learned
  • Raise your energy by knowing what energizes you and make sure you're doing a lot of it. Know when you want to tackle tough stuff: Morning? Lunch? Not late in the day. Minimize your time around people who drain your energy. If they're in your organization, help them fix their energy or find another place to work.
  • Check your energy before you enter the room and make sure it matches what you want to bring.
  • These things drain energy:
    • Looking unhappy
    • Tired body language
    • Bad acting
    • Gossip and being overly sarcastic
  • Don't over celebrate- the energy needs to be based in something real
  • If you can turn a group's negative energy around in a moment, you can generate tremendous productivity

Assess energy

  • Assess your energy at the beginning, middle, and end of an interaction (1-10)
  • Assess your team's energy (1-10) every day and see what patterns you notice. Who sets the pace?
  • Have everyone in a group do a self-assessment and share what they learned.
  • Have everyone in a group assess the group's energy, and write why they think that

Defining Positive Energy

An organization needs to have shared terminology- use the same words the same way. There can be a difference between what someone personally defines something as (eg what food they like) and what the organization defines something as (what high quality food is). Zingerman's defines fun as "positive energy."

Positive energy is:

  • Physical. Marked by pace. Quick and calm, hustle don't hurry.
  • Mental or emotional. When people are feeling grounded, centered, and appreciative. It comes from learning and new experiences. You can be physically exhausted, but emotionally engaged.
  • Vibrational energy. Flow, the zone, vibes. It's not the energy you think you're bringing, it's the energy others experience from you. It can only be assessed by others.

Measure energy from "zero to zen".

4 steps to effective energy management:

  • Read it. Take your emotional pulse.
  • Vision it. At the end of the period, what do you want your energy to be like?
  • Manage it. What do you need to make that happen? A break? A joke?
  • Repeat it. Do this throughout the period to maintain your energy.

What do you have to do to maintain an 8-10 throughout the day?

We're All Leaders

People at the top need all the help and insight they can get, and people at the bottom make or break the success of the organization. Old school leaders pretended this work was brainless, but it usually involves a ton of decision-making.

Leadership is teaching others to be leaders. If you want your customers to buy premium products, you need to help them get like leaders. If they don't feel like leaders, they are unlike to care about niche, premium products. This is also true of your staff. Leadership is part of everyone's work. If a manager would be expected to wash dishes if needed, the dishwasher should be expected to step up if needed too.

A leadership role is given to you by followers.

Don't just "empower" people to give great service. It's part of the responsibilities. Educate people on service. Educate people on finance, and make it everyone's responsibility to pay attention to it.

A goal can only be reached if it is already reflected in the means; if you want others to be great leaders, you need to be one yourself. Then, help people figure out how to achieve greatness in their lives. Model what good followership is like, and give them the opportunity to become leaders.

The same task performed in freedom may be a work of art; under the lash of domination, it is an ignominious burden.

The opposite of leading isn't following; those are mutually supportive activities. The opposite of leadership is victim mentality- that the solution is outside of you. It's comforting because it gives you certainty. The more you embrace the inherent uncertainty of the world, the less you lash out at it and the more you can be effective.

Having everyone in your organization lead also makes the entire thing self-similar enough that you don't have to stress about succession plans or picking the right people for the right roles.

The people above you will be concerned about their status. Good leadership is building leaders though, it's not zero-sum. The people in the frontline may be hesitant as well. They have a lot to gain though that will last them their entire careers.

Pushback

  • If everyone's in charge, who does the work? This question means you're stuck in command/control hierarchy where everyone orders each other around.
  • What if someone doesn't want to be a leader? Don't hire them or help them find a new place to work.
  • What if people don't agree on where we're going. This means your vision lacks clarity.
  • Isn't this anarchy? Anarchy is chaos, anarchism is the free collaboration of good people.
  • What happens if the leaders make bad decisions? What happens if you do? Use values, and principles, and frameworks to help guide everyone's decision-making.
  • What if the boss screws up and sets a bad example? This is one of the reasons you want the whole team to take responsibility for leadership.