Dare to lead
Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work. But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
4mentions
4people
2018–2023years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- You seem to be off to a good start; being open and willing to learn is an important trait of great leaders.
Have you reflected on what do you feel is challenging wrt to leading and motivate people? It could be psych safety on the team, your communication style, unclear mission, lack of purpose, high turnover, newly formed team, etc, etc.
It's easier when you have 1-2 areas that you know you need to get better at, and then intentionally invest time and energy. It also helps to make your team aware that you're trying to improve on those areas, so a) you demonstrate vulnerability and effort to improve your own areas for development, and b) you need their help to give you candid feedback, so you can improve more quickly.
Leading teams is probably one of the hardest professional challenges I've ever faced, but it can be incredibly fulfilling as well. I hope you end up enjoying it.
Here's my recommended reading for new-ish managers. These are the books I wish I had read when I first started managing people:
1) Radical Candor, by Kim Scott - https://www.radicalcandor.com/
2) Resilient Management, by Lara Hogan - https://resilient-management.com/
3) Dare to Lead, by Brené Brown (or any of her other books; they all revolve around the importance of vulnerability, of being in the field, being authentic, etc) - https://brenebrown.com/hubs/dare-to-lead/
4) The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni
For experienced managers of managers / Directors, I recommend:
1) What got you here won't get you there, Marshall Goldsmith
2) Team of Teams, Gen. Stanley McChrystal
3) Trillion Dollar Coach
4) How women rise, by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith
5) and get an executive coach ASAP
If you have any specific questions / challenges you're facing, feel free to reach out; email in my profile.
- Brene Brown 'Dare to Lead' is excellent
- You have already received couple of strong suggestions, excellent advise there you should try to incorporate.However, both of them are extrinsic rewards focused. When faced with external challenges (things outside of your mind or physiology) changing your outlook, circumstances or expectations in order to adapt to your situation is certainly a good way to handle it. I would only offer one suggestion - if this is an internal struggle by any chance. That would be to find your core empathy for yourself and your colleague, which means be compassionate to yourself and understand why is it bothering you so much. And be compassionate to the other person and try to determine what is driving their behavior. These are both hard things to do. I can't tell you how exactly to do that - but try reading a few books like "Dare to Lead" by Brene Brown or "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey. Good luck!
- Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology (great!)
Dare to Lead (interesting and Powerful)
Rising Strong (Sensible)
What the most successful people do before breakfast (helpful in thinking about opportunity costs)
Why we sleep (interesting read)
Exponential organisations (Re-read after 2 years, worth it)
Prisoners of Geography (very interesting view of geopolitics, Putin, et al)
Continuous Delivery (great!)
Clean Code (must read for any serious programmer)
Built to last (picked it back after 1-2 years, cool book)
Site Reliability Engineering (didn't quite finish, but good book)
Building Microservices (fantastic book which puts everything I've done in the past year into so much more perspective)
