de-centralized empowerment

Oftentimes leaders believe they want to create a flexible and high-performing team, however balk at the realities of doing so. You are, quite literally, trying to work your way out of your job by creating a team that doesn’t need you in the way that you are used to. This is an uncomfortable journey, and before you embark on it be sure you are ready for the outcome. It helps to be clear on your objectives for this shift. Most leaders will want their team to be moving faster, making better decisions, and doing so more independently. But why? Is it to give you bandwidth to focus on more strategic aims? To enable them to better serve clients and customers? To help them grow and be prepared for the next step in their careers (enabling you to take the next step on yours)? Your reasons may be a combination of the above, but keep in mind that you are starting a journey to unleash your team’s capability to accomplish this objective. It’ll be hard, but it’s time to get out of their way.

Chris Fussell

"Eyes On, Hands Off: How to empower your team and get out of their way" Medium. March 15, 2017.

his well-trained fleet

While Admiral Lord Nelson may be one of the western world’s most famous military leaders, how many of us know that for much of the battle of Trafalgar, he was incapacitated?

Yes, shot by a sniper at the outset of the battle, Nelson died three hours later as his well-trained fleet went on to defeat the Franco-Spanish armada. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned — and losing their commander in the opening minutes of the fight — Nelson’s fleet won the day without losing a single ship.

Every leader should strive to create this level of independence and self-sufficiency in their organization, as it is the key differentiator of a truly effective and high-performing team.

Chris Fussell

"Eyes On, Hands Off: How to empower your team and get out of their way" Medium. March 15, 2017.

a hero

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.


Christopher Reeve
Still Me. Ballantine Books, 1999

to leave unsaid

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Benjamin Franklin

The Art of Virtue: Ben Franklin's Formula for Successful Living. Skyhorse Publishing. 2012. 

a wide spectrum of intelligences

Gardner’s influential 1983 book Frames of Mind was a manifesto refuting the IQ view; it proposed that there was not just one, monolithic kind of intelligence that was crucial for life success, but rather a wide spectrum of intelligences, with seven key varieties. His list includes the two standard academic kinds, verbal and mathematical-logical alacrity, but it goes on to include the spatial capacity seen in, say, an outstanding artist or architect; the kinesthetic genius displayed in the physical fluidity and grace of a Martha Graham or Magic Johnson; and the musical gifts of a Mozart of YoYo Ma. Rounding out the list are two faces of what Gardner calls “the personal intelligences”; interpersonal skills, like those of a great therapist such as Carl Rogers or a world-class leader such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and the “intrapsychic” capacity that could emerge, on the one hand, in the brilliant insights of Sigmund Freud, or, with less fanfare, in the inner contentment that arises from attuning one’s life to be in keeping with one’s true feelings.

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Random House LLC, 2006. 358 pages, p.38