The Elite Leadership Insights newsletter publishes Weekend Reads each Friday with resources from some of the top academic and business leadership minds. It is a resource for you to utilize as you continue your leadership journey and packaged so you can casually read them over the weekend. Continuous learning is a critical part of leadership improvement. In each Weekend Reads you will find links to articles, videos, podcasts and other resources, as well as some recommended leadership books.
We curate resources from Harvard Business Review, McKinsey & Company, PwC strategy+business, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Kellogg Insight, Fortune, Knowledge at Wharton, MIT Sloan Management Review, Chief Executive Group, Korn Ferry and many others.
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Find bonus articles at the bottom of this post!
Here are this week’s Weekend Reads. Enjoy and feel free to share this with your colleagues.
The Myth Of Workplace Family And What Leadership Can Do To Cultivate Authentic Engagement, Forbes, August 28, 2023. Workplace culture is of paramount concern for attracting and retaining talent. Organizations strive to model positive and collaborative environments, but corporate leaders fall short by relying on the myth of the “the workplace family.” To cultivate authentic engagement, corporate leadership must recognize first how workplaces are not families, and second, must understand the harmful implications underlying the workplace family myth.
What Separates Winning Leaders From Wannabe Leaders Comes Down to 1 Work Habit, Inc. Magazine, August 23, 2023. People often ask about the top characteristic that separates good leaders (the winners) from the “wannabes.” That’s not exactly an easy question to answer, as there are many strong attributes that float to the top. However, what is evident and backed by the literature is one strong prerequisite of most winning leaders that makes them stand out from the wannabes.
Easy to Say, Harder to Do: Putting Psychological Safety Into Practice, Chief Executive Group, August 24, 2023. Psychological safety is having a moment, and with good reason. In spite of the fact that the ideas behind psychological safety have been over a century in the making, it wasn’t until 2012 findings from Google’s Project Aristotle on high-performing teams, combined with Harvard professor Amy Edmondson’s pioneering research in 2017, that companies began to appreciate the deep impact psychological safety has on team performance, enterprise growth, innovation, and more.
Fear(less) Leadership: How to Recalibrate Your Stress Response, SmartBrief, August, 29, 2023. In a world plagued by stress, anxiety and fear lurking in our news feeds and infiltrating our thoughts, how does one break away to become a fear(less) leader? Before answering that, we must understand the difference between being fearless and fear(less). It seems subtle on the page but not in practice.
Why Compartmentalization is the key to Effective Leadership, According to Adam Bryant, Fast Company, August 26, 2023. As much as it’s your role to set the pace for the team, that can be harder to do for yourself. It is very easy to feel overwhelmed in leadership roles because of the demanding deadlines, the people problems that fill up your day, the second-guessing and criticism, the pressures to do more with less, and dealing with the crisis of the moment. Work can become a three-shift day the morning emails, taking care of problems at work all day, and then the night shift to catch up on reading and writing and responding to more emails. Time to think? That’s rarely in the mix.
THIS WEEK’S BONUS ARTICLES
The Secret to Effective Leadership Team-Building, Inc. Magazine, August 24, 2023. In your business journey, there comes a point when managing everything on your to-do list while meeting essential needs becomes impossible. As a business coach for more than 25 years, one of the first things I teach small-business owners to do is start prioritizing time and scheduling focused blocks to work on the highest-value tasks in their business. However, once you master this skill, you will quickly find that your business is once again growing at a rate that makes it difficult to keep up. The true secret to unhindered business scalability lies in cultivating a strong leadership team.
4 Ways to Excel at Networking—Even if it Doesn’t Come Naturally to You, Fast Company, August 29, 2023. Networking holds the key to job-search success. Whether you’re applying for a promotion internally or seeking a job elsewhere, the way you approach contacts will make a huge difference to your success. There is an art to reaching out to the right person with the right message and the right pitch. This article provides an overview of the four ways to make successful networking happen.
Move Beyond Communication, Persuasion, and Manipulation to Influence Positively, CEOWorld Magazine, August 28, 2023. There is a Chinese saying: “To get the tiger’s cubs, you need to go into the tiger’s den.” The modern-day equivalent is: “To have a positive influence on others, you must put yourself at risk.” But today’s risk isn’t about the potential to lose life or limb. Instead, it includes acknowledging our vulnerabilities, making sacrifices, asking tougher questions — even when self-interest needs to be tempered so others would do likewise for the collective good.
Can AI Enhance Leadership?, SmartBrief, August 30, 2023. Do you remember your introduction to smartphones? Ryan, our techy son-in-law, was the first person I knew with an iPhone. Usually understated, Ryan declared that the iPhone was the first technology he’d seen that would change how he lived his life in small and significant everyday moments. We shook our heads in disbelief — a new version of a phone would change your life? We’re at the same place in history with artificial intelligence (AI). This time, I won’t be on the sidelines waiting to see if it’s legitimate.
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