I’ve curated this section as both a free resource and to provide insight into my approach and ethos surrounding this work.

Shows

‘Ted Lasso’ is a masterclass in executive leadership. Sure, it might be billed as a comedy but the underlying message throughout the series is one of positive, compassionate, empathetic, empowering leadership. An easy, and fun, way to consume a heartwarming lesson on how to lead others with love. 

Books

Give and Take by Adam Grant, seeks to showcase what makes Takers harmful, Givers self destructive, and that the best path forward is a little bit of the former and plenty of the latter. While we probably all know takers in our lives, he spells out ways of identifying these sorts of folks and navigating them. He also details the self-destructive qualities of altruistic givers and that those that find ways to take in the process of giving are able to do the most good for the most people and themselves.    

“Leadership is not a matter of what to do, but rather how to be” 

Frances Hesselbein - Girl Scouts of America Executive Director 

Trillion Dollar Coach, while not as cute, comedic, or heartwarming as Ted Lasso, showcases what such leadership skills look like in real world practice. Following the career of Coach Bill Campbel from Columbia Football to Kodak, to Apple, to Intuit, and beyond, it lays out how approaching leadership from a coaching perspective and less a management standpoint helps build stronger individuals and organizations. This is tangentially backed up by Google’s internal findings that more than anything people want in their manager, is a good coach.  

“If you create an environment where your people truly participate, you don't need control. They know what needs to be done and they do it [for you].”

Herb Kelleher - Southwest Airlines Founder

Range by David Epstein was born out of a desire to understand what formulates success. Throughout it he details wicked vs kind problems (a concept coined by Robin Hogarth), early success being a drag on later progress, unpacks “frogs vs birds” (specialists vs generalists), and emphasizes that one of the greatest teachers is sampling – trying out lots of different things that you might like to do. You can’t have grit until you have fit. While much of the book discusses individual conditions, towards the end it begins to detail the implications these lessons have on organizations and organizational culture. What is the best way to create a robust, healthy, and safe place to disagree and debate a decision? How you evaluate, tackle, and solve a problem and whether or not you have success in doing so is tied to the range you bring into that challenge. 

We normalize calling in sick, also normalize calling in sad. This builds the reputation that you care more about your people than the work they do” 

Adam Grant - Organizational Psychologist, Wharton School 

The Mind of the Leader (Hougaard, Carter) kicks off with the scathing data point that 38% of employees would rather see their managers fired than receive a raise. Why is the current management mold so broken? Because we’ve forgotten that to be a leader is to be a human first and to care for our team members first as humans, and second as employees. In a world of Taylorists, be a humanist and help your people soar.

“I cannot teach you, only help you to explore yourself”

Bruce Lee (don’t laugh, he has some excellent thoughts on self awareness)

The Myth of Experience (Soyer, Hogarth) cuts at our desire to see our expertise rooted in what we’ve done. It takes a similar position as Range does, cautioning against falsely equating what we’ve done and directly attributing that to our success. So much of our technology, healthcare, and financial sectors are filled with wicked problems but we approach them as though they were kind problems, congratulating ourselves on how we solved them when in fact each occurrence is too multifactorial to create programmatic responses to future issues. Instead, it encourages us to approach each issue holistically and to caution against applying heuristics to something that might look and smell like that which we’ve seen before. In order to truly find a successful solution, it requires addressing it as if it were brand new. 

“Your people always come first, and if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. ALWAYS put your people first”

Herb Kelleher - University of Texas Business School Commencement


Originals by Adam Grant explores the traits and behaviors that distinguish innovative thinkers from the rest. Drawing on extensive research, Grant challenges common assumptions about creativity and provides insights into how individuals can cultivate originality. The book offers practical advice on navigating challenges, embracing unconventional ideas, and creating a culture that fosters creativity and innovation.

Podcasts

Brene Brown: Dare to Lead 

Adam Grant: ReThinking & Work Life

Simon Sinek: A Bit of Optimism

Far too many gems in all of these to detail out but a guaranteed good listen is when they visit each others’ shows. Hilarity and learning are sure to happen.

Freakonomics on how our current IC to management pipeline isn’t the way to build better bosses

Newsletters

Two solid newsletters to subscribe to are those of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Harvard Business Review. Each is dropping the latest science on best practice management strategies and many of the below articles come from these journals. 

Research & Articles

Leading with Questions — “As a leader, you don’t have the answers; your workforce [does], your people [do],” Jane Fraser, Citi’s CEO, told Fortune magazine. “That’s completely changed how you have to lead an organization. You have to unleash the creativity….The innovation isn’t happening because there’s a genius at the top of the company that’s coming up with the answers for everything.”

Collaboration overload is killing us — Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) - figure out how your people work best and set up an environment that helps them do their best work. STOP the “always on” culture. Let your people walk away from the work. DEFEND TO THE DEATH blocks of time that allow people to do DEEP WORK. Create slack black out times and do not violate them!

Tell Stories and inspire a shared vision. Stories make the unseen future feel vivid and real, inspiring a shared vision that listeners will commit to and make progress toward. 

Build a culture where people can speak up — creating a space where knowledge, all knowledge, can circulate builds a stronger organization. 

Noble Purpose Leader  >>greater than>>  Servant Leader — The former is focused on impact, the latter tends to be reactive trying to care for everyone in their org

Don’t give presentations, TELL STORIES!

Presenters show text, storytellers show pictures 

Presenters dump data, storytellers humanize data

Presenters are predictable, storytellers surprise and delight 

Creative Problem Solving Framework. 1) Turn the problem into a series of questions. 2) Get crazy with ideating solutions. 3) Then filter #2 on constraints and converge on how to proceed 

Even the (now former) United States Surgeon General is weighing in on toxic work environments - build wholesome places for people to work and grow and your talent pipeline will, in time, get stronger

Care about your people — Numerous studies show that when leaders are primarily focused on the well-being of their employees, this is a strong predictor of employee job satisfaction, perceived organizational support, loyalty and trust in the organization, and retention. It also has been linked with improved employee job performance (by boosting employee motivation), and better team performance.

Coach. Don’t tell — A second leadership technique is based on the Socratic-method of teaching: Team leaders use questions, not answers, to invite and shape how team members understand situations and solve problems. It takes restraint and practice to learn how to formulate questions that prompt insights and shift thinking, but when leaders have mastered this skill, it can become a powerful management technique.

Venn diagram of how you want to hire and how you should hire — The more bullets you put on a resume the more circles there are on a Venn diagram chart.  What we know about the science of hiring is the more items listed will result in a whiter, more male applicant class than if you were to write a job description rooted in the generalities of the work that would be done. 

Successful Leaders Are Great Coaches — C.O.A.C.H. : Care, Organize, Align, Challenge, Help

Contractual relationships are dead, you have to care for your people — “You need to fill people’s intrinsic motivational needs, as opposed to making it simply contractual.” Treat them as people, not as inputs in your widget producing machine. 

Best Buy CEO, Hubert Joly on human capital — Profit as an outcome, not a goal. 

Stop managing your employees, start coaching your humans — “Very simply put, management is about managing others, about exercising executive control over people. Leadership, on the other hand, is about seeing and hearing others, setting a direction, and then letting go of controlling what happens next.”

“If you start to think about what our role is as leaders, it’s actually quite simple,” Chris Toth, CEO of the medical device company Varian, told us. “Our role is not to be the ones who make the decision or to be the smartest person in the room. In fact, it can be exceptionally dangerous if the decision-making always goes to the leader. Instead, you must create a culture of compassion and empowerment that is accepting of diverse perspectives. This unlocks people’s creativity, productivity and happiness.”

Culture eats strategy — Strategy only accomplishes goals, while culture creates unity. 

Team Success Starts with the Individual—and with Love — Even with teams, your focus needs to be on the individual and get them to believe in themselves, foster a community (team culture) of openness, inclusivity, and accepted-ness. 

Using Feedback to Foster Meaning in Work

For middle managers, be less an army commander, and more a basketball coach.

Steve Magness on building a space for love between leaders and team

How to build an environment to get better feedback

Pete Carroll: Building a Winning Organization through Purpose, Caring, and Inclusion

Resilient Organizations Make Psychological Safety a Strategic Priority