As we approach year-end, we’ve been reflecting on the changes, challenges, and opportunities the last year has provided to the leaders and teams we support.
We’ve noticed a range of leadership behaviors emerging in the leaders we’ve worked with in this complicated time, from empathy to objectivity, from empowerment to being directive, and from cautiousness to being bold. More than ever before, we see that really effective leaders have a lot of range. They are aware of their context, how the people they lead are being impacted, and how they themselves are feeling, and then they open their vast toolkit of leadership mindsets and skills and select those that best fit their operating environment.
While this may sound easy, it’s a tall order in the midst of the intense and ever-changing landscape we’ve all been experiencing.
To help you think about your own navigation during this period of change and challenge, we’d like to offer you a few resources.
- In “The Work of Leadership”, Ron Heifetz and Donald Laurie suggest that the best leaders “knock people out of their comfort zones” and then help them manage the fallout.
- In her book, Creative Acts for Curious People: How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways, Sarah Stein Greenberg takes a very different approach, using Stanford’s d.school philosophy to leverage play and other design principles for effective leadership problem solving.
- Speaking of unconventional ideas, in her piece in The Boston Globe, Maggie Jackson shares research indicating that uncertainly and ambiguity—which we have certainly had plenty of—help us think more effectively.
- And finally, for a success story, SoulCycle and Flywheel cofounder, Ruth Zukerman, talks in this podcast about how her grit and perseverance helped her weather and thrive in very difficult times.
We hope you enjoy these and all the resources we share across the year, and we wish you and those you love a happy, healthy new year ahead.
The Boda team