Seven leadership lessons to learn, today!

The key to personal development is application. Sure, we can all sit through as many hours of lessons and lectures and collect as many certificates as we wish. However, if those lessons aren’t used in our day to day lives and work, then it’s all wasted time. One way of developing your transferable skills is reading. It’s an accessible way of gaining different perspectives, accessing research and gaining insight from people outside of your network. Today, I’m sharing the seven leadership lessons I have learned from the titles I have reviewed through my book club.

 

Work on getting better, not bigger! Company of One by Paul Jarvis

So often our measures of success are driven by the measures of others. What if, whenever an opportunity to grow came up, you questioned it. Would this help you stay connected to the purpose of your work and the life that you want to have? Ask yourself “How do I want to spend my days?” 

 

Communication can make or break a relationship. Trusted by Lyn Bromley & Donna Whitbrook

 To be honest, this should be a mantra for everything. How many times have you read an email or a text and wondered what it meant? Or sat in a meeting and felt like you are “losing the room”? This goes beyond the much-trained technique of building genuine rapport and body language, it covers cultural differences (needed in this global world), networking, and presentation.

 They stress the importance to acknowledge communication differences. Using this awareness to notice and understand areas like the attitude to risk, evaluation of ideas/situations, level of privacy, pace, diplomacy, temperament, and granularity of information can help when you are presenting information and ideas. Not everyone thinks the same!

 

Get very uncomfortable! Messy by Tim Hatford

 It is easy to hand around with the same people, who think the same and don’t challenge YOUR thought processes, as you all agree. Cohesion is a big tick in the tidy-minded world. However, Harford uncovers that you are more likely to end up making poor or limited decisions! Those people that make us feel uncomfortable, by thinking differently from us, actually make us a better version of ourselves, as “…people think harder when they fear their views may be challenged by outsiders” (pg. 53). Help yourself understand a topic better, by engaging with a group of people that think differently from you.

 

The power of acknowledging mistakes. Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed

 The book provides real-life examples of when mistakes are not recognised; so they can’t be learnt from. Whilst in the aviation and medical field these had life-changing effects, the impact of ignoring mistakes or issues shouldn’t be disregarded in our day to day lives. What messages are we sending to our children, our staff, and ourselves with a blame culture? Start trusting yourself to learn from mistakes.

 

Accept you (and others) won’t get “it” all done. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

So many of us battle with the wish to rest and to take every opportunity, often sacrificing health, relationships or our own needs to make sure they happen. The simple message here is simply accepting that you can do everything. That isn’t a personality failure, or an issue of discipline, but human nature. You will have to let things go to live a decent life!

 

Productivity isn’t always activity. Struggle by Grace Marshall

I LOVE this quote from page 108 “productivity is knowing when to work and when to let the work breathe.”  We have all been primed to think we need to be in motion or always produce something tangible. Sometimes our best work or ideas are created when we step away from work and place our attention elsewhere. We have all been there, pushing through low energy, stress, or distraction; sometimes the best way to be productive is to STOP!

 

There is no ideal “personality type” for a role or a team. Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson

We have all been culturally institutionalised to thinking that a particular type of preference is the “best”. How many times have you discussed the need for outgoing, extroverted people, and the assumption that quiet means disinterested? Understanding the needs of each personality type and understanding more about the drivers behind behaviour and words means that you can really get the best out of each other.

 

Whilst each of these books has a range of key points and approaches that can help you create a career you enjoy (and help those in your team), these are the ones that really stood out for me. You may find after reading the books you notice something different; feel free to share your key leadership lessons too within Creating Careers to Enjoy.