Happy Sunday Friends!

Welcome back to another Sunday Friends! I’m glad you’re here. Here is your Sunday Musings, dedicated to exploring and sharing thoughts and insights on productivity, technology, and life. If you find it useful, please feel free to forward this along to friends!

Two Rules for Cyber Leaders

1. It’s Not About You

I’ve had the great opportunity to work for and with leaders who believe this, and don’t believe this. I’ve been both.

We can be a good-enough leader by being reliable and consistent. We can, possibly, even inspire confidence in ourselves. We do this by being the subject matter expert in our field, providing the right answers and making good decisions on the problems we are presented. We take the failings of others, and we correct them. We are the go-to for all things. And that’s ok, it works well. But it only works well in either the short term (read burn-out), or in the very small microcosms. I remember doing this in my first few positions as a leader. I was solving all the problems, had all the right answers. And I was internally terrified of the possibility that I might not always have the right answers, afraid to not be perfect.

I was, in fact, so concerned about being perfect early in my life that I made a significant error in judgement to maintain the perception. And, as all things do, it came back to bite me. I forfeited a, then, significant opportunity to take on a higher leadership role and hurt my own reputation in the process.

Why? Hubris, Atelophobia, or the right timing. My current boss was nonreactive to my blunder. He brought me back into the fold, advocated on my behalf to his boss, and walked through my decision processes and identified where I went wrong.

It wasn’t the end of my career, and I came out of the process with more (appropriate) confidence. He helped me obtain another great opportunity that was one of the best (and most challenging) I’ve had in my life. One of those inflection point moments.

Great leaders inspire people to have confidence in themselves. There is no magical formula to build the best teams, Apple, Virgin, Google, Tesla, Space X. It’s trust, and agency.

My realization was that we have to have a culture where people feel that we trust them, and they trust us back. That is our number one job as leaders. Which brings me to the second rule.

2. It’s All About You

“Leadership isn’t about being in charge, it’s about taking care of those in our charge”. Simon Sinek said it better than I think I ever could. Ultimately, we inspire others and create proactive followership when we are taking care of others as part of our authentic selves.

We must look at ourselves and understand that if we want things to be different, if we want things to improve, it starts with us. The environment around a leader reflects of who that leader is, and what he or she has created. As Lao Tzu said, “Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself if true power.”

I had an amazing opportunity when I took on my last position to tell my boss that we needed to make an existential change. One of our projects looked great, briefed great, had lots of funding. And I told him we had to kill it.

We exist to move programs and projects forward, not kill them. Further, it was our problem to bear. It wasn’t our fault as we had both just arrived; but it was still our problem.

We talked at length about it, but it came down to one simple thing. Which decision is best in the long-term. Regardless of the short-term impacts, what is the decision that would inspire confidence and trust in the organization’s character and competence?

Boy did we take a lot of heat for that. But our character and decision making were never in question. That we were unequivocally advocating for the best interests of the customer and the organization was never doubted. Our subordinates knew we trusted them to find problems and tell us the hard truths. Our seniors trusted that we would give them the appropriate information. Our heated conversations turned into only discussions about “How” and never again about fidelity.

Again, leadership can never be about you, but in the end, it is always about you.

What’s Interesting?

The Egg - A Short Story by Andy Wier, Animated by Kurzgesagt

A great exercise in changing one’s mindset and imagining how someone’s perspective would make more sense if one had lived their life and on how all lives may be interconnected.

The Pale Blue Dot - A Speech by Carl Sagan

Some perspective on how vast reality really is and how small the planet is. I find it reinforces my perspective on the importance of taking care of those around us.

Quote I’m Musing

“I don’t like that man, I must get to know him better”
- Abraham Lincoln

Often times we find subordinate leaders whose styles don’t mesh well with ours. If you find yourself disliking a person, grab that feeling and examine it. Why do you dislike that person? Is it because you disagree with an idea or perspective? Do you possibly have the same goal, but differ in how to get there?

Consider taking a view from above to try to understand the individual.

Think about the people around them, the environment they’re in, and how those things form them as people.
Think about what fears, passions, experiences, perceptions, anxieties, insecurities and dreams they might have.
Think about what they do, how they act, what they feel, and the causes for all those things.

Today, more than any other time in our history, we are a species divided. The cognitive dissonance erupting from simultaneously being the most connected and educated we have been in history while also being increasingly cut off and distanced from each other via echo chambers and tribalism is staggering.

Think about the last time you traveled to an event. If you saw someone with the same badge, you made a connection, and you waived hello. You don’t know them anymore than the person you disagree with, but that perceived connection made you like them more.

For almost the entirety of our history, we have survived and thrived through a deep desire to belong. Truth and understanding are immensely important, but so is remaining a part of our tribe.

Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker said, “People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true.”

We don't always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they endear us to those we care about.

This is true not only in ourselves, but also in others. The sense of belonging is vastly important to our nature. In order to do that, many will accept a reality that may vary slightly (or greatly).

From that altered perspective comes altered ideas. As leaders, it is our duty to take care of those in our charge.

So, the next time you decide you dislike someone, give it a good examination. If it is from a disagreement on perspective, remember what Japanese write Haruki Murakimi wrote, “Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.”

I would love your feedback!

Which musing is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.

Have a wonderful week, I’ll see you Sunday.
-e