Have some extra down time for reading?
Here are some of my current favorites:
The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Leadership requires finding the balance between opposing forces: leading and following, focusing and detaching.
My favorite passage:
Even the best team and the best leaders never deliver flawless performances. No one can achieve perfection. What makes the best leaders and best teams great is that when they make mistakes, they acknowledge them, take ownership, and make corrections to upgrade their performance. With each iteration, the team and its leaders enhance their effectiveness. Over time, that team runs circles around its competition, particularly against other teams with a culture of excuses and blame casting, where problems never get solved and thus performance never improves.
The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni
Ideal team players are humble, hungry and smart.
My favorite passage:
A person who is not humble will not be able to be vulnerable and build trust, making them unable to engage in honest conflict and hold others accountable. And they’ll have a hard time committing to decisions that don’t serve their interests. A colleague who lacks hunger will not be willing to engage in uncomfortable conflict, hold peers accountable for their behaviors, or do whatever it takes to achieve results, choosing instead to take an easier path. And a person who is not smart about people will most likely create unnecessary problems in the entire team-building process, especially when it comes to tactfully engaging in productive conflict and holding people accountable for behaviors.
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Brave work. Tough Conversations. Whole hearts.
My favorite passage:
Get clear on whose opinions of you matter. We need to seek feedback from those people. And even if it’s really hard to hear, we must bring it in and hold it until we learn from it. This is what the research taught me:
Don’t grab hurtful comments and pull them close to you by rereading them and ruminating on them. Don’t play with them by rehearsing your badass comeback. And whatever you do, don’t pull hatefulness close to your heart.
Let what’s unproductive and hurtful drop at the feet of your unarmored self. And no matter how much your self-doubt wants to scoop up the criticism and snuggle with the negativity so it can confirm its worst fears, or how eager the shame gremlins are to use the hurt to fortify your armor, take a deep breath and find the strength to leave what’s mean-spirited on the ground. You don’t even need to stomp it or kick it away. Cruelty is cheap, easy and chickenshit. It doesn’t even deserve your energy or engagement. Just step over the comments and keep daring, always remembering that armor is too heavy a price to pay to engage with cheap-seat feedback.
What are some of your favorite reads right now?
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