What matters is the nuance, because the three affect dynamics at different levels of organization: management affects individual dynamics, leadership affects team dynamics, and authorship affects ecosystem dynamics.
All in Management and Leadership
Making organizations better is hard, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.
A good way to assess an organization is by examining the types of problems the majority of their time on.
At work, we shouldn’t depend on our companies to find purpose and meaning for us. We have the capability to find it for ourselves.
Can you imagine what organizations would be like if there was so much human energy created that it was “too cheap to meter”? None of the world’s problems would be out of reach. Not one.
Taking responsibility and doing the right thing to help others is what defines a leader, celebrity doesn’t.
Even the best teams and organizations I’ve been part of underperform their potential. We can and should learn from failures. But we can learn just as much from successes with the right questions and approach.
If we explore as artists do and introspect as artists do, we can practice leadership as artistry.
The same forces that disrupted the macroeconomy - like the internet and globalization - are making a similar disruption to the management of firms.
Harnessing this disruption is critical - to ensure the growth individual companies, but also for the continued progress of society at large.
Lots of topics related to “leadership” are made out to be complicated, but they’re actually simple.
Culture change is an example of this phenomenon, it’s mostly just role modeling.
If I choose to shirk responsibility, what am I?
We need to take the time to understand our superpowers, as individuals or as an organization, so we have the best chance to create surplus.
The biggest error of coaching - not being intentional about it - can be avoided by dedicating real time to it.
This is an OKR-based model to define what a good manager actually produces. It’s hard to be good at something without beginning with the end in mind, after all.
To scale impact, every team leader has to build their team. Building a team is hard, but it’s not complicated.
To set us up for success, they key thing to do is get specific about the role, and the top 2-3 things we can’t compromise on in a candidate.
Learning how to win ugly is an essential skill. And yet, I feel like the world has conspired to keep me from learning it.
If we’re lucky, the Great Resignation may only be the beginning.
Hot take: the shift to remote work will finally expose bad managers, and help good managers to thrive.
In hindsight, approaching organizational life - whether it’s in our family, marriage, our work, or our community groups - with the expectation that we’ll have conflict is so obviously a good idea. If we’re intentional, we can design conflict resolution into our routines and make our relationships and teams stronger because of it.
I was listening to a terrific podcast where Ezra Klein interviewed Tyler Cowen. And Tyler alluded to how weird ideas float around more freely these days - presumably because of diversity, the internet, social media, etc.
I think there’s a lot of implication for people who choose to lead teams and enterprises. How they manage and navigate teams with radically more diversity seems to be a central question of leadership today.
If you have any insights on how to operate in radically diverse environments, I’m all ears. Truly.
Organizations fail when they don’t adhere to high standards. Creating that kind of culture that starts with us as individuals.