Successful Leaders: Accountable and Compassionate

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Greetings -  

I hope you, your family and friends are all well!

New news on our end: we have decided to accelerate the sale of our lovely little home here in Alameda. Our house will go on the market in early May. In the immediate term, we will be nomads for a bit, traveling between our new destination in the Healdsburg, CA area and Alameda. We plan to alternate staying in short-term rentals and with my in-laws. We have no immediate plans to purchase a new home in Healdsburg, though we have started looking at neighborhoods. We will miss the East Bay, Alameda in particular, and we are very excited for this next chapter! More to come.

Accountability and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

Successful leaders hold their teams accountable, while fostering a culture of compassion and grace. The pursuit of excellence, quality and meaningful contributions in our work is possible without losing sight of our need to support both individual and collective needs. Creatively managing this tension has the power to transform our workplace experiences, attract and retain exceptional colleagues and walk our talk with respect to organizational values. 

How? This edition's featured article, Leading with Compassion Has Research-Backed Benefits, provides an evidence-based perspective and proposes that we:

"Start small.
Be thankful.
Be purposeful.
Find common ground.
See it.
Elevate.
Know your power."

"...Managers should recognize that compassion is not merely a 'nice to have.' Rather, it’s an evidence-based skill that is integral to leading effectively and holding teams together."

I am also including an array of other reading and listening. Diverse in content and sourcing, these pieces offer a variety of perspectives that piqued my curiosity and desire to learn more. 

As always, happy reading and listening!

Be well, take good care of your families and community.
-kj

Articles 

Chief: In 2023, Gender Parity 'Feels' Close — But Chief's Research Shows We Are Farther Than Ever Before. "Enduring biases and corporate complacency threaten the future of women’s professional advancement, according to Chief’s latest report with the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) on the Women in Leadership: Why Perception Outpaces the Pipeline — and What to Do About It. Based on a global survey of more than 2,500 organizations, deep-dive interviews, and qualitative insights from Chief Members, the report shows that while gender parity 'feels' close, it’s actually getting farther away."

Harvard Business Review: How Successful Women Sustain Career Momentum. "...Though the women we spoke with had varied backgrounds, interests, personalities, and careers, they employed...[at least two of] three behaviors that helped [them] sustain momentum during pivotal moments: a focused drive, an incessant desire to learn, and an agile mindset."

Harvard Business Review: Women Get 'Nicer' Feedback — and It Holds Them Back. "...it’s clear that kindness and candor alike are necessary components of effective feedback. It’s up to managers to make sure they’re taking an equitable approach to distributing both."

August: Looking at Psychological Safety Through an Equity Lens. "As organizations strive to create psychological safety for everyone, team members experience different levels of psychological safety for different reasons. Companies that want to create equal access to psychological safety must address different needs for different people." 

Chicago Booth Review: The Company Does Not Care about You. "Why indifference is key to building a corporate hierarchy."

Korn Ferry: Leading After Layoffs. "Thirty million managers aren’t old enough to have gone through restructuring waves. Now they’re being asked to pick up the pieces."

The New York Times: Is the Entire Economy Gentrifying? "Companies are trying to maintain fat profits as the economy changes, making 'premiumization' their new favorite buzzword."

Blog Posts & Opinions

The Daily Stoic: How To Find Treasure. "...We are not in control. We must have faith and patience. We must not want anything in particular but be open–indeed love–to whatever washes up on the shore for us. This is how we’ll find treasure…and happiness."

Adam Grant: MBTI, If You Want Me Back, You Need to Change Too. "I wrote this breakup letter to the MBTI [Myers-Briggs Type Indicator] a decade ago, hoping it would change. It hasn't."

Podcasts 

The Reboot Podcast: Prep for Career Shifts and Job Changes with Keith McAllister & Ali Schultz. "Whether we decide to leave our job, make a career move, or unexpectedly find ourselves without a job, the space between secure positions elicits a lot of things--unprocessed fresh feelings, needs, anxieties, and wondering about next steps. Often, that 'next steps' part can feel like an overwhelming mountain."

The Ezra Klein Show: A Top Mental Health Expert on Where America Went Wrong. "...We discuss why our current medical system is so inadequate at helping people with mental illnesses of all stripes, why psychiatric research and patient outcomes are so wildly out of step, the story of how the U.S. government systematically divested from mental health care in the 1980s, and the fragmented system of care that those decisions created. We also touch on...why mental health is not just a medical problem, but also an economic and social one; what public policy can, and importantly can’t, do to solve our mental health crisis; the relationship between loneliness and mental illness; how the loosening of family and social ties is impacting our collective mental health and more."

Arts, Music, Culture, Literature & Humor Corner

The Hollywood Reporter: ‘The Big Lebowski’ Turns 25: “People Didn’t Get It,” Jeff Bridges Recalls. "The Dude looks back — and shares his behind-the-scenes photos — from the Coen brothers’ beloved take on L.A. noir. The film has inspired legions of fans, an annual festival and even a religion, but it wasn’t an instant hit in 1998."

Rolling Stone: U2 at the Crossroads: Inside the Band’s Ambitious Reinvention for 2023. "The Edge discusses their new album of reimagined classics, their Las Vegas show, the guitar-based album they're working on next, and Larry Mullen Jr.'s temporary replacement drummer."

The New Yorker: Fiction. Skyscrapers. “Although I might prefer to somehow avoid acknowledging it, this is, above all and in every sense, a love story.”

Vox: The incredible shrinking future of college. "The population of college-age Americans is about to crash. It will change higher education forever."

McSweeney's: Daily Humor. "Gonna Pop These Overripe Bananas in the Freezer Until I'm Ready To Take Them Out and Throw Them in the Garbage."

Reflections

"We are where we are at the only time we have. Perhaps it's where we're meant to be." - Shashi Tharoor

"You are perfectly cast in your life. I can’t imagine anyone but you in the role. Go play." - Lin-Manuel Miranda

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach–waiting for a gift from the sea.” - Anne Morrow Lindberg