Month: January 2026

Once upon a time, community was defined by where you lived, worshipped and worked. Then over the years, as social scientist Robert Putman documented in his seminal book, Bowling Alone, the sense of community eroded. The bonds of work slowly eroded, too. People found themselves isolated and lonely. 

In 2014 Christine Porath and Tony Schwartz conducted a research study into work-life issues published in the Harvard Business Review. Their findings showed that two-thirds of employees feel no sense of community at work. 

The loss of community has stuck with Porath and she explores how we can rebuild it newest book, Mastering Community: The Surprising Ways That Coming Together Moves Us from Surviving to Thriving.

Porath, a professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, sees firsthand how the need for community has grown. She notes that when she first began teaching a couple of decades ago, the need for civility (a topic of her earlier book) was not a priority. However, she told me in an interview that some students feared that exerting civility would make them appear less leader-like, that is soft and not tough enough to lead in business.

Enter vulnerability, partly a result of the pandemic, has challenged us to look more deeply into how we relate to one another, especially to our leaders. And with a heightened awareness of connection, the need for community grows.

The dividend

There is a business equation to fostering a stronger sense of community. When people feel connected to their workplace, there is less turnover. That fact alone could make management sit up and take notice of people’s need to be connected. In her book, Porath tells the story of a woman who ran a call center at Dell. This manager noted that people were gaining weight, so she took it upon herself to provide exercise for her employees, including hiring a personal trainer who would conduct exercise sessions at lunchtime.

What the manager did, Porath says, “drove a sense of not only connect people lost a lot of weight. They were far healthier performance went up like 25%.” Porath stresses that this manager was not a senior executive; she acted on her own to foster better conditions for employees.

Nurturing community

Intrinsically at work, the need for community is powerful. Leaders nurture this connection by showing respect for employees, valuing them as contributors, and being candid with them about their performance. Bottomline says Porath, “You are making people feel like they belong. I think that that’s crucial. I think the idea of making people feel valued. One of the things that always surprises me, particularly when I get into research, is that people don’t receive thanks.” Showing gratitude says Porath is free and “can be done easily.”

With a sense of community, “people feel this greater sense of thriving. They tend to perform better objectively as rated by bosses. They’re far healthier. They have much less burnout. I think that there are a lot of potential outcomes [for the community] that speak to a much happier, more productive workforce. That’s much more likely to stay” with their employer.

What community enables

Work takes up a considerable amount of time. Rather than viewing it as something I go to, research by Porath and others shows that it can be something I “belong to.” The sense of belonging heightens our ability to cooperate with others and collaborate in ways that enable individuals and teams more than they had expected. Community nurtures the bonds that bind us in ways that employees find more fulfilling and employers can find more rewarding.

First posted on Forbes.com 00.00.2022

When Patrick Stewart was completing his two-year acting course at the Bristol Old Vic, the director of the Theatre School admonished the young actor. “Patrick, you will never achieve success by insuring against failure.”

Decades later, as Stewart (now Sir Patrick) revealed to Sam Briger on NPR’s Fresh Air, “I’m braver than I was when I was 35. I am not averse to risk-taking. And I don’t judge myself. I used to do that so much. Ah, Patrick, that’s not good enough. That’s not good enough. You could’ve done that differently. You could’ve done it better. That gets in the way of spontaneity and real feeling coming into something. So I’m braver now than I was when I was much younger.”

In this quote, Stewart reveals how bravery enables individuals to take risks and overcome self-doubts.

Brave choice

Discussion of bravery among actors may strike some as silly. After all, they are hired to play characters, fictional or real. What’s so tricky about that? As every actor knows, there are many ways to play a role. The best actors look deep into themselves to find some connection and then utilize their technique to evoke the part – either once for a film or TV show or months in a stage production.

Bravery involves the choices an actor makes. And indeed, there is something leaders can learn from such choices. Leadership, at its core, is an act. It is not dissembling; it is getting to the truth of the matter through words and actions. Leaders, like actors, achieve little by themselves; they need the company of others to achieve great results. [Even solo performances require a team of others to produce.]

Giving life to choices

When it comes to making big choices, leaders must assert bravery in the face of self-doubt. Second-guessing oneself, as Stewart revealed in the above quote, erodes self-confidence. 

What needs to be done? Leaders read the situation. What must be done forms the basis of strategy regarding what an organization must do to serve its stakeholders? What a company does is in response to the needs of others.

How is it to be done? Wise leaders step back from execution on one way. They delegate the how to the people who are doing the work. Failure to do so is micro-management. 

What do we do next? The combination of what has been done and how it has been done dictates the next steps. If one or both are failures, then it is time to revisit assumptions and modify execution. However, wise leaders continue to evaluate to ensure continued positive outcomes even in success.

Self-evaluation

It is always essential to examine your decision-making. Doing so with a trusted colleague can be enlightening. Such evaluation, however, cannot drift into “analysis-paralysis.” It is the role of a leader to push one.

Whatever the choices are made, it is up to the leader and others to execute. Time will tell, as it does in acting, whether the choice was the right one or not. But in the moment, it requires the leader to make the best call she can and live with the consequences. Bravery, indeed.

Famed acting teacher Stella Adler once said, “The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.” Revealing the truth often requires bravery. And that’s what leaders must do. Deliver the truth as best they can through their words and their actions.

First posted on Forbes.com 3.00.2022

Writing about lessons learned from sports is something I have been doing for a few decades. The games and the athletes who play them provide insights into preparation, play, and conduct – on and off the field. The coaches who manage the teams best connect individually to players and collectively to the group so that every athlete is focused on what they need to do to win.

Few know the world of sports better than Sally Jenkins, a long-time columnist for the Washington Post and New York Times best-selling author of a dozen books, including her newest, The Right Call: What Sports Teaches Us about Work and Life. And to me, the subtitle sums up the book’s intentions – provide lessons to enable us to achieve our best.

Sports lessons

Jenkins quotes her father, the legendary author and sports journalist Dan Jenkins, saying, “Real sports is not for kids.” By that, her father means their impact on those who play the game. “Who can describe the athletic heart?” Jenkins senior asked. Her new book explores that question in detail. Essential elements of athletic success include conditioning, practice, discipline, candor, culture, and learning from failure. 

In a recent interview, Sally Jenkins told me that athletes are as flawed as human beings as anyone. Citing her father’s insights, Jenkins said athletes show “a deep intelligence at work. It’s not the type that we tend to think of, but there’s a deep, deep, deep intelligence and commitment at work in these athletes that’s, that’s really worth studying closely and drawing the right lessons from them.”

Accountability is critical to team success. Jenkins, who wrote a biography of Pat Summitt, the legendary women’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, says, “Pat told me once that there’s a language that a championship team starts to speak to each other. She said, you can hear it, you can hear it. When a champ, when a team’s getting ready to win something big, you can hear it in the way they talk to each other. And I said, well, what does that sound like? And she said, well, it sounds like I’ve got you, I’ve got your back.”

Leadership lessons

Citing the work of Robert Hogan, social psychologist and founder of the Hogan Assessments firm, Jenkins says that, too often, organizations measure leaders by their results. That overlooks something important: how their people regard them. “Pat Riley, the president of the Miami Heat, has a great description,” says Jenkins. “When people don’t trust the leader and the leader’s decisions, they will start ‘subtly gearing down their efforts.’ [They will] enroll everyone else in their own cycles of disillusionment or disappointment.” This observation explains “why charismatic, aggressive leaders at the top of an organization, but the organization can be so mediocre.”

Leaders who succeed need to set standards. Jenkins recalled Pat Summit telling her, “As a leader, you have to start tough, and then you can get a little nicer. But if you start nice and then try to get tougher, people really don’t trust it, and they won’t go with it, and they won’t understand it. So, you know, you have to establish the standard at the outset, and you really can’t waffle on it.”

“It’s not enough for a leader to have strong intentions,” writes Jenkins in her book. “Others have to perceive you as having good intentions.” Or as Tom Brady, whom she quotes, puts it, “If you don’t care about the people you work with, you’re hosed.” Athletes play an inside game to put themselves into a position to lead by example and service their teammates and the game itself.

Life lessons

Sports are not the same as real life. Sports are about boundaries on the pitch, limitations to time, choice of equipment, and the ever-present eye of referees. Defined outcomes are what sports are about. Seldom is that the case for life itself. Yet we can draw great lessons from the athletes who play the games we love to watch.

“Most people think that dealing with pressure is about actually rising to an extraordinary level, when in fact, the people who really succeed in things, what they’re good at is.. being themselves in the moment. They are doing what is so well-practiced and grooved in them. Their performance is not deteriorating under pressure like other people’s performances.”

This distinction, says Jenkins, is “critical for the rest of us [when] we think we’re supposed to do something extraordinary. No. Do what you’re best practiced at and what is most natural in the moment to you. Be yourself in the moment, and that will be good enough.”

For my full LinkedIn Live interview with Sally Jenkins, click here.

First posted on Forbes.com 6.14.2023

Okay, time to dust off those presentations. The ones you used in 2008 as the Great Recession hit. 

No one is predicting another “great” one, but a recession may be on the horizon. Inflation, rising fuel prices, capital costs, war, and famine will make this recession global. As a result, companies will have to adjust, and for some, that will mean layoffs.

The generation that has joined the workforce since the Great Recession has not experienced a recession. Many younger managers are now in management. They need counsel from more senior leaders who have lived through them. 

On a personal note, I recall a meeting just before the Great Recession where a veteran manager raised his hand to note he had experienced seven recessions in his work life. Managing through recessions are part of leadership, so now is the time to prepare your communications. What you say and how you will say it will make a big difference to your team.

It is essential to deliver a sense of hope. “Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear,” wrote the late Thich Nhat Hanh. “If we believe tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” 

Here are some suggestions.

Play it straight. When you deliver your remarks, do it personally. Either in person or over video. Be direct and to the point. The audience wants you to say no worries, everyone has a job, and all will be well. Giving false hope is deadly; it shows a lack of respect for the employee. 

Provide resources. Affirm the value of the employees. Their contributions have made your company strong. Now is the time to recognize their efforts. Make an effort to provide them with new opportunities within the organization. If not possible, work with an outplacement firm. 

Point to the future. Layoffs are not the end of a business. They may even be opportunities to focus the company on value-added segments rather than value-detracting ones. In addition, opportunities to pursue new lines of business with new products and services may arise.

Avenue of hope

There may be a silver lining in this recession. The war for talent remains fierce. Millions of jobs are going unfilled, so those laid off will find opportunities to find new jobs. And they may not have to relocate. Virtual work teams are a reality. 

Recessions are not to be taken lightly, but they are to be expected and endured. How a company treats its workforce in times of crisis will be how it prepares itself for the future. “Things turn out the best,” wrote legendary basketball coach John Wooden, “for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

First posted on Forbes.com 7.21.2022

What would you say if you had to give a recommendation for an executive being considered for a new leadership role?

A colleague of mine was presented with this challenge and, on the spot, came up with three simple words to describe this individual.

Integrity. Intellect. Inclusion. Call them the three I’s. Let’s take each one at a time.

Integrity. Trust is the watchword of leadership. Integrity comes down to honor, that is, acting honestly because it is the right thing to do, not merely because it makes you look good. Goodness embraces courage, too. Honest leaders live by a moral code; it is their spine, their backbone.

Intellect. You have to have smarts to lead others. Intelligence does not come from having attended the “right schools.” Intellect is the ability to reason, to use logic to cipher the issues dispassionately. Intellect, in a broader sense, is “street smarts,” the ability to know how the world works. It requires an ability to read people, to ascertain what they want and why they want it. Leaders need to be savvy, separate the unimportant from the important, and focus on what matters most to accomplish things.

Inclusion. This word sums up the reality of creating a culture where people feel wanted. Inclusion gives meaning to diversity and impetus to equity. It is one thing to hire women and minorities; it is another thing to provide them with the proverbial seat at the table. Equity emerges when people at the table reflect society at large and have the opportunity to prove themselves. This action is what it means to be inclusive.

The importance of character

These attributes – integrity, intellect, and inclusion – form the foundation of what we want our leaders to demonstrate. Other attributes also come to mind – commitment, courage, and compassion. You can argue that these and others might be found under the umbrella of a single word – character.

“The best index to a person’s character,” said Abigail Van Buren (aka Dear Abby), “is how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and how he treats people who can’t fight back.” This quote by the legendary advice columnist illustrates the true meaning of character. You act for others because it is the right thing to do.

Fleshing this notion can be found in the words of the Roman senator and orator, Cicero. “It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.” This is where intellect enters. Thinking, deliberating, and evaluating all require a degree of intellectual horsepower and a healthy dose of integrity.

“Perfection of character is this,” said Marcus Aurelius. “Live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.” In other words, you need to keep working on it. Therefore, focus on what it means to live with integrity. Keep your intellect sharpened by observing, reading, and reflecting. And practice the principles of inclusion by looking to embrace ideas and support the actions of people different from yourself.

First posted on SmartBrief.com 6.14.2023

“We study Lincoln not because he was perfect,” writes Jon Meacham in the Prologue of And Let There Be Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle. “But because he was a man whose inconsistencies resonate even now.”

Therein lies the equation that those of us who work with and write about leaders. But, of course, none are perfect, and when we put them on pedestals, we do two things: one, diminish the leader’s humanity because we put halos on their reputations; and two, reveal our blind spots. [I have fallen prey to this syndrome myself, having written glowingly of men in power who, upon reflection, proved themselves less than worthy. One of whom was Rudy Giuliani.]

It matters because when we view our leaders as infallible, we give them the benefit of the doubt when it may not be warranted. We view them as above us and, therefore, unworthy of our critiques. In reality, they need us more than ever. A leader who sees no faults in themselves is a leader who can never be trusted. Good leaders I have known are aware of their shortcomings and labor mightily to overcome them. They also welcome open dialogue as a means of finding the essence of an issue but also as a means of testing assumptions.

What we owe the leader

We, followers, can do our leader a service if we do the following.

Challenge assumptions. The person at the top may often be the least informed. One reason is that individuals below hide bad news, so only good news filters up. This practice leads to faulty thinking that can lead to assumptions without basis. Come to the meeting prepared with facts to support your position.

Respect the position. Understand that the person at the top has many responsibilities. View your role as one of support. You want to help the executive succeed so the team can achieve its objectives. One technique for presenting an opposing idea is to ask the executive to weigh in on an idea and explain why. In working through the argument, there is the opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of the issue.

Support the final decision. How often have you seen staffers walk away from a critical decision-making meeting only to tell or text others that they disagree and will not support the conclusion? Right then and there, alignment dissipates, and follow-through on execution becomes more arduous. So differ, yes, but keep the final decision.

What the leader owes us

These steps are only possible if the leader is a boss who is open to others and seeks only his own counsel. You may want to raise issues, but you must be very careful. Distrust bubbles deeply within a boss because they are not the smartest in the room but certainly the most insecure. “To add value to others,” writes John Maxwell, “one must first value others.” Failure to find that value walls the leader off not just from critics but from the contributions of others.

We are all frail creatures, but we are not fragile. On the contrary, we have strengths that can sustain us when it is time to lead and when it is time to speak truth to power.

“Lincoln,” writes Meacham at the end of the prologue, “was not all he might have been – vanishingly few humans are – but he was more than many men who have been… And, as Lincoln himself would readily acknowledge, we can always do better.”

Good advice for anyone who leads and all of us who follow.

First posted on SmartBrief on 5.08.2024

As the Civil War was concluding, Abraham Lincoln met with his top generals and staff aboard the River Queen in Williamsport, Virginia, in late March 1865. Part of this meeting is depicted in the famous painting The Peacemakers. When discussing how to treat the defeated South, Lincoln said that the Union must “let them up easy.” 

“It’s a term from wrestling where the idea is once you’ve got your victory, both sides sort of know who won, who lost, and you stand up and you basically show grace to the defeated person,” historian and Lincoln biographer Michael Vorenberg told me in an interview about his book, Lincoln’s Peace. “You shake hands, you don’t laud your victory, you don’t rub it in.”

This behavior was something Lincoln demonstrated “as a young man on the frontier in Illinois [and how] he won his way into the hearts of the community, especially with the tough guys.” The tall and rangy Lincoln, strengthened by physical labor, was an expert wrestler who was not afraid of bullies. And when he bettered them, he would not “beat them up” but instead “letting them up easy.”

Sadly, Lincoln never saw it through because he was assassinated weeks later. However, the lesson of going easy on your adversary rings true today. When our culture is so riven with division, those who can find the strength to rise about the heat of the moment can do much to ensure future peace, even collaboration. That is, enforce and earn peace through kindness.

Lessons for us

So, taking Lincoln’s words as inspiration for a lesson plan, here are some suggestions for finding ways to act upon “the better angels” of our nature when we find ourselves at odds with those who hold views different from our own.

Get the lay of the land. Determine the issues. Look for the root causes of problems and actions that have worked in the past. 

Ask questions. Understand what people want. Engage them in conversation. Spend more time listening than speaking. 

Listen to what people are not saying. So often, in intramural squabbles, people have their favorites. For this reason, many people will be reluctant to speak out. Therefore, do not expect straight answers. Look inside for how people react in your presence.

Invite everyone to participate. Strive for win-win solutions. Yes, there will be winners, but find ways to make everyone feel welcome and give them a voice in shaping the future.

Making the effort

One of my favorite quotes from Winston Churchill is:

“In War: Resolution.  In Defeat: Defiance,

In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will.”

When we are emotionally invested in our beliefs, it can be difficult to disentangle emotion from reason. It takes practice and discipline to quell how you feel inside and how you project yourself. In short, the struggle may be hard, but when you win, act with the spirit of grace and goodwill.

First posted on Forbes.com 7.02.2024

Who wants to follow?

When we hear that phrase as an exhortation—at rallies or in movies—we see streams of people pressing forward to “follow the leader.” It is a noble moment for a noble cause. Yet when we ask that question at work, there is no mass stampede—sometimes not even a dribble. 

As The Economist’s Bartleby writes, followership is saddled with the loss of autonomy and agency. “Although some people have little desire to be in a position of authority,” writes Bartleby,” very few aspire to follow. The word itself conjures up a self-abnegating passivity, more ovine than human, more bleater than leader.”

Followership in the Shadows

As a result, while much is to be said and written about leadership, there is a paucity of writing – and daresay – thought on the concept of followership. One exception cited by Bartleby is the scholar Robert Kelly “who has usefully identified five styles of followership: sheep, who are wholly passive; yes-people, who enthusiastically do what the boss wants but never think for themselves; alienated followers, who can think for themselves but mainly to explain why the organisation is being stupid; pragmatists, who get on board with things but rarely initiate changes; and stars, who think for themselves and have bags of positivity and energy as well as a willingness to offer constructive criticism.” 

Followership, however, is vital to organizational effectiveness. Some years ago, I wrote about “the myth of the hierarchy,” by which I meant whatever the leaders say gets done. That’s nonsensical, of course! Unless people “in the middle” buy into the initiative, it dies, often a quick death.

Followers are the doers; they carry out the directives set by leadership. In healthy organizations, such followers are not drones. They can be initiators and creators as well as diligent, attentive and careful. “Star followers,” Bartleby writes, “behave like leaders in waiting.” In short, followers make things go.

How Followers Operate

The key to being an effective follower is to check out what needs to be done, often without being asked, adding your brainpower and determination to make it happen. They partner with their bosses to plan, align and execute. They provide continuous feedback loops so that boss and team are on the right page at the right time. Good followers do not wait to be told what to do next. They understand the strategic intention and how to fulfill the mission.

Leaders, too, can make good followers. When they seek out ideas from members of their team and help individuals put them into action, they are in essence becoming followers. They are following the best practice of doing what’s best for the organization.

Bartleby closes with a principle that the British Army promotes: “To follow effectively … is a choice.” Many well-run organizations abide by this same philosophy. Their example is a good reminder that good followership enables even better leadership.

First posted on Forbes.com 6.00.2024