FieldNotes
Our daily Field Notes email is just the kind of jumpstart you need. A fast read. Maybe less than a minute. Because sometimes it just takes one insight to change the trajectory of the day.
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Jump the Leadership Learning Curve
The best leaders evolve to recognize a simple but important truth: We have influence with others proportional to the influence they have with us. When others feel they can influence you, they become much more open to your influence. When a leader finally understands this working principle, how they interact and engage with others begins
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Saying ‘No’ Requires a Strong ‘Yes’
Of the many abilities required to excel at leadership, perhaps none is more important than the ability to say, “No.” Our human desire to be liked and accepted often stunts our learning about this essential skill. Saying “no” requires us to become focused on what really matters. We should refuse to accept tasks from others
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Building Emotional Strength
Building strength in any area works in the same way. Consider muscular strength. Ask a bodybuilder and they will tell you it is after the exercise routine that they build new muscle. New muscle is created when the muscle fiber ruptures and the nerve fibers begin to register pain. Pushing yourself at that precise point
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The Problem of Solomon’s Paradox
King Solomon, as the story goes, offered wisdom and counsel so highly valued that leaders across the world would travel for days to hear his advice. His sage judgment was both profound and clairvoyant. However, as wise as he was with other people’s problems, he was equally unwise with his own. His personal life was
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Remember ‘Rule Number 6’
Famed conductor Benjamin Zander likes to tell audiences this story: Two prime ministers are discussing the affairs of state when, suddenly, a man bursts into the room, huffing, and shouting. The hosting prime minister says to the man, “Peter, kindly remember Rule Number 6.” Peter immediately becomes calm, apologizes, and exits the room. About 15
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Defeated By a Winning Strategy
When conditions change, the smart ones among us adjust their strategies to compensate. Not doing so would obviously be foolish. Yet, we too often fall in love with our strategies. We presume what has worked so marvelously in the recent past won’t let us down regardless of external changes. So, we stay with our winning
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Wise Exercise of Decision Rights
By the simple virtue of occupying a leadership role, leaders have decision rights. That is to say, at the end of the day, the leader can make the call without consulting others and without agreement by anyone not in the mirror. But the best leaders know that exercising decision rights is a surefire way of
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How to Undermine Your Credibility
Leaders like to think in terms of effectiveness, credibility, influence, and prowess. They focus on how to attain those qualities. Charting a pathway forward toward desired outcomes is logical and smart; however, it behooves us to remember what it might take to create the opposite of our desired result. Toward that end, here’s a shortlist
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The Leader Who Is Late
Perhaps nothing is more annoying than a leader who does not respect others’ time. They show up late, start and end meetings without regard to the established times, expect people to wait for them, and ask others to spend the extra time that they themselves do not have. Leaders like this send a clear and
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Choose the Opposite of Fear
Fear undermines performance by creating self-doubt, anxiety, and nervous tension. Even the best leaders can, at times, become fearful of evaluation, expectation, miscalculation, and embarrassment. As we feel fearful in a given moment, pressure mounts, and our actions and thoughts become heavy and mechanical. Performance suffers, sometimes destroying the results we have worked so hard