I'm finishing the school year with this piece from Marshall Manson on leadership, which I present without commentary.
For the next 6 weeks or so I'm on holiday so I will keep Baggy Trewsers ticking over with some favourite quotes and stray thoughts, then be back to it in February 2024, inshallah.
Marshall sums up his key principals for leadership and I agree wholeheartedly.
I love how much integrity, people, relationships, collaboration, trust, common sense, and a sense of fun figure in his list.
Here they are:
Most important: Do the right thing for the right reasons. If that goes against someone’s rules, be ready to explain or face the consequences. Be as transparent as possible about your decisions and reasoning with anyone who shows interest.
Care about your people and look after them.
Create an environment where everyone feels comfortable expressing their view.
Be nice. Say yes until you absolutely can’t.
Recognise that real collaboration requires some confrontation and disagreement. Better to disagree openly than to be passive aggressive. Resolve disputes clearly and openly. Seek compromise and build common ground.
Communicate frequently and openly. Doing so builds trust and earns the benefit of the doubt when things get tricky.
Relentlessly apply common sense. Be pragmatic, even at the expense of perfect outcomes. A fast, good result is better than a slow, perfect one.
Develop and voice strong opinions, but hold them loosely. Be ready to revise or reverse views in light of better facts, deeper expertise, new circumstances, or a different perspective.
Be decisive and avoid the temptation to relitigate. But be ready to change course if an approach isn’t working.
Be enthusiastic and let others feel that enthusiasm. Getting people excited and believing in something they can do together is a powerful motivating force.
Have fun and create an environment where everyone else can have fun.
Be curious and reward curiosity. Innovation and great ideas are impossible without curiosity.
Teach, but without pomposity. And encourage others to be teachers.
Share everything: Ideas, work, learnings, clients, food, chocolate, and especially credit. Encourage others to do the same and reward them for doing so.
Recognition is a powerful motivator, often far more powerful than money.
Keep the spotlight where it belongs: on the people doing the work. Show appreciation early and often.
Avoid jargon. Making an organisation accessible makes it possible for more people to offer views.
Follow the rules studiously about 95% of the time, especially on the non-negotiable stuff, in order to earn latitude to bend or break them in the handful of cases where doing so would make a big difference.
Measure a few key things that matter rather than trying to measure everything. Spreadsheets are time consuming and soul destroying. Key numbers and measurable underlying forces must command focus, but exponential growth of spreadsheets comes at the expense of exponential growth for the business itself.
This is the way.
