The Art of Leadership

Small Things

As a Manager:

• Have 1:1s. Learn how to listen for the important signal. (Chapter 1)

• When you sign up for a thing, get it done. Every time. (Chapter 2)

• Take a measured approach to dealing with disaster. (Chapter 3)

• Act last. Read the room. Taste the soup. (Chapter 4)

• Listen for one experience that speaks loudly. (Chapter 5)

• Each month, ask yourself how you are investing in your growth. (Chapter 6)

• Have a monthly conversation with your manager to get feedback on how you are doing. (Chapter 7)

• Invest in saving yourself time. (Chapter 8)

• Let others change your mind, and tell them when they have. Build a diverse team. Delegate. (Chapter 9)

As a Director:

• Be patient when things feel broken. (Chapter 10)

• Delegate until it hurts. (Chapter 11)

• If you’re hiring, spend time on it every day. (Chapter 12)

• Have a staff meeting that has weekly metrics, includes team-sourced topics, and allows the team to gossip. (Chapter 13)

• Well-timed and sincere compliments are free leadership points. (Chapter 14)

• Build a team where folks are willing to tell each other hard things. (Chapter 15)

• If your team is growing, your ways of working will constantly need to evolve. (Chapter 16)

• Draw your org chart for someone else. See if they get it. (Chapter 17)

• Invest in reducing the communication tax for distributed team members. (Chapter 18)

As an Executive:

• Act without asking. (Chapter 19)

• Build a team that understands itself. (Chapter 20)

• Listen to the stories to understand the culture. (Chapter 21)

• Protect your unstructured time. (Chapter 22)

• Make it clear that leadership can come from anywhere in the team. (Chapter 23)

• Find the truth in the rumors. (Chapter 24)

• Don’t yolo the comms. (Chapter 25)

• Find and cultivate high-signal humans. (Chapter 26)

• Work to appear not busy. (Chapter 27)

• Find and cultivate a mentor. (Chapter 28)

• Write down the things you believe as a manager. (Chapter 29)

• Be unfailingly kind. (Chapter 30)