we did it ourselves

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

Lao Tzu

"50 Inspiring Quotes on Leadership for Everyone" Time. July 1, 2015

CEO disease

[Psychologist Tasha] Eurich uses the term "CEO disease" to describe the phenomenon in which the higher you ascend on the corporate ladder, the less self-aware you become. Eurich recommends that all leaders encourage their staff to share honest feedback with them, even pinpointing a single person who can do that really well.

Shana Lebowitz 

"Jamie Dimon says bureaucracy is 'a disease' — and JPMorgan takes 5 steps to combat it" Business Insider. Apr. 5, 2018

a giant waste of time and money

[Internal meetings] can be a "giant waste of time and money," [JPMorgan CEO Jamie] Dimon wrote. If a meeting is absolutely necessary, the organizer needs to prepare a focused agenda and send around materials in advance; and the meeting participants have to reach clear decisions.

Sound familiar? Other business leaders have expressed the same squeamishness around unnecessary meetings.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, for example, often starts meetings with a period of silence so that everyone can read over the materials and think about what they want to say. That way, the rest of the meeting is more productive.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk reportedly tells people who stay quiet in meetings: "You haven't said anything. Why are you here?"

Shana Lebowitz 

"Jamie Dimon says bureaucracy is 'a disease' — and JPMorgan takes 5 steps to combat it" Business Insider. Apr. 5, 2018

what has changed with leadership in the past 50 years?

Very Little.

Tom Peters is a business and leadership legend widely known for his historical bestseller, In Search of Excellence, which has been called "the greatest business book of all time" by Bloomsbury Publishing.... 

In an interview with Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, Peters didn't mince words on the current state of leadership, saying that "nothing has changed in 50 years, including the maddening fact that all too often a business strategy is inspiring, but the execution mania is largely AWOL."

In his latest work, The Excellence Dividend, Peters collects everything he's learned in his 35-plus years of writing and speaking on the best practices for businesses and their leaders. He also puts the finger on the most common offenses people in management roles have made--and keep making. 

1. Inability to execute well.
2. Seeing 'excellence' strictly as long-term strategy.
3. Failure to develop a thriving culture.
4. Failure to put employees first.
5. Failure to listen.
6. Ignoring women as potential leaders and consumers

"Poor cross-functional coordination and communication is the principal element in the delay of everything," Peters says. If your organization's health is suffering due to internal conflict and too many obstacles in the way of progress, leaders aren't actively working together in a coordinated way to effectively execute.

How do you interpret excellence in leadership or business? Most leaders think "strategy," "planning" and "vision" are pathways to achieve excellence "out there." But Peters says managers fail to capitalize on immediate excellence--how we connect, listen, inspire, and admit mistakes on a human level to employees or customers. "Excellence is conventionally seen as a long-term aspiration. I disagree. Excellence is the next five minutes," says Peters.

"CEO job No. 1 is setting -- and micro-nourishing one day, one hour, one minute at a time -- an effective people-truly-first, innovate-or-die, excellence-or-bust corporate culture," Peters says. 

Peters says excellent customer experiences rely entirely on excellent employee experiences because it's the employee who makes or breaks the customer connection. This means leaders must see extreme value in them and pour into their career growth and development. "Training is any firm's single most important capital investment," adds Peters.

I've often written that effective communication isn't just about talking; it is also the ability to listen and understand what's happening on the other side of the fence. That's what great leaders do. "I always write 'LISTEN' on the back of my hand before a meeting," Peters says. 

On a more strategy level, Peters says "women buy everything" and make up a majority of consumer and business purchasing decisions, yet are largely underserved. But his conclusion hints at the underrepresentation of women in the C-suite: "One indicator of readiness to embrace this colossal women's market opportunity comes from conducting what I call a 'squint test.' One, look at a photograph of your exec team. Two, squint. Three: Does the composition of the team look more or less like the composition of the market you aim to serve?" Now there's a reality check.

Marcel Schwantes

"6 Things The Smartest Managers Already Know But Keep Getting Wrong" Inc.com. Oct. 8, 2018

listening creates spaciousness

Listening creates spaciousness, which we need to do good work. And the converse is also true: I listen more when I create space in my day. When I have back-to-back meetings, my goal is to get through them with just enough time to run to the other building for my next meeting. When I strategically create space on my calendar to reflect on a conversation and prepare for the next one, I can be more present for others.

Melissa Daimler

"Listening Is an Overlooked Leadership Tool" Harvard Business Review. May 25, 2016