A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.

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.
al-logo-mark-only
The best leaders concede that they don’t have to have their way on many of the decisions critical for executing strategy. They know when to stand their ground over issues, which battles they must win, and when to allow the team to outflank them. Sometimes, winning the argument is how to lose the team. But the vision, mission, and values of the team are never up for grabs. Input is welcome, but influence is unlikely to make for any real change. Good leaders defend the ground of values at all costs.
al-logo-mark-only
It is always a good idea not to let society or media define what we believe or how we should view the world or an issue. Homogenized thinking is always of a lower quality and is often wrongheaded. Good leaders don’t leave the possibility of weak thinking to chance. They shape meaning by emphasizing the qualities underlying success and driving a narrative that people are empowered to define success in more realistic and personal terms. Your success as a leader depends on it.
al-logo-mark-only
The most important ratio for a leader is not debt to equity, supervisor to employee, efficiency to cost, or price to earnings. The ratio that matters most for leadership success is the proportion of praise to criticism. Leadership at its core is about making people and situations better. To help a colleague improve, leaders can emphasize what they believe the team member should amplify or do more of, or what they should do differently. Getting a colleague to do more of what they already do is all about positive reinforcement, such as praise, encouragement, compliment, and applause. To encourage others to do things differently, leaders turn to feedback, criticism, advice, and suggestion.
al-logo-mark-only
When Making Decisions, Acknowledge What You Don’t Know First Brainstorming with colleagues to identify what the decision-makers need to know and what they don’t is a critical first step. This streamlines the information-gathering process and allows the team to create more clarity and certainty as they follow their preferred decision-making scheme. Acknowledging what you don’t know first seems intuitive, but too many decision-makers fail to do it. Instead, they dive right into their process and fail to identify the knowledge they must have to make a great decision. This is an easy fix.

Sign-up Bonus

Enter your email for instant access to our Admired Leadership Field Notes special guide: Fanness™—An Idea That Will Change the Way You Motivate and Inspire Others.

Inspiring others is among the highest callings of great leaders. But could there be anything you don’t know, you haven’t heard, about how to motivate and inspire?

Could there really be a universal principle that the best leaders follow? A framework that you could follow too?

There is.

Everyone who signs up for Admired Leadership Field Notes will get instant access to our special guide that describes a powerful idea we call Fanness™ (including a special 20-minute video that really brings this idea to life).