Expert power, one of six key types of power, allows leaders to shape decisions and influence outcomes through specialized knowledge. This makes expert power as influential as formal authority. It's a subtle but potent way to increase your power, regardless of your position on the org chart. In this article,| Leading Sapiens
Leaders today face complex challenges that can't be solved through skill development alone. Jack Mezirow's transformative learning framework, developed through three decades of research, is a useful tool to help leaders shift how they think and make meaning of their roles. In this piece, I explore Mezirow's transformative learning theory| Leading Sapiens
Leadership advice often focuses on communication style: how to be clearer, more persuasive, etc. While valuable, these tactics eventually hit a ceiling. You learn techniques but revert to old patterns under pressure, or the improved "delivery" somehow doesn't create the changes you hoped for. That's because language operates at a| Leading Sapiens
The executive stared out the window, shell-shocked and feeling blindsided. Her boss had just asked for her resignation. How did it come to this? This scene plays out in organizations more often than we think.Leadership derailment — when a once-promising leader stumbles and falls— isn't limited| Leading Sapiens
If you're a leader, you've likely faced a problem that refused to be solved by your usual methods. A problem that made you question everything you knew about leadership. Consider this scenario: You're a senior manager, respected for solving complex business| Leading Sapiens
We think effective leaders are great problem-solvers. That’s only partially true. What they’re really good at is multi-frame thinking. They help solve problems by changing how they are framed, operating one level upstream where the real leverage lies. Multi-frame thinking means deliberately shifting interpretive lenses until| Leading Sapiens
Why do organizations repeat the same leadership mistakes despite research showing they don't work? A key reason is pervasive leadership myths. When Boeing's board asked CEO Dave Calhoun to step down, it followed a familiar script. New leader, fresh start, problems solved. It was supposed to| Leading Sapiens
"I don't want to step on anyone's toes." This is a common and reasonable stance in organizational life. But this mostly logical approach often does more damage than good. If “that’s not my job” tops the| Leading Sapiens
Do you consider yourself an effective leader? What about parenting? When you think of getting better at something, what's your first instinct? Our default approach is to look outside for help. But an equally fruitful and often better approach is to look inside — the natural process of learning from our| Leading Sapiens
Learning to learn is a critical meta-skill. But too often highly educated professionals do the exact opposite often unknowingly.| Leading Sapiens
How do effective leaders maintain their composure when everything seems out of control? They’re adept at discerning what they can control vs what they can’t, and what they can influence. The circle of control, influence, and concerns (acceptance) framework or CIA — is a “leadership triage” tool that helps| Leading Sapiens
For 16+ years, we master the rules of school. Study hard, get good grades, follow the formula and ultimately merit wins. Then we enter the workforce and discover none of it works quite like we thought. This becomes painfully obvious as you rise higher in the org. But even seasoned| Leading Sapiens
It's easy to assume that leaders derail due to obvious flaws like poor judgment, unchecked ego, toxic behavior. But that's not usually the case. Many derail because they lean too hard on the very strengths that got them there. Like a rope fraying one thread at a time, this happens| Leading Sapiens
"I'm just not strategic enough for that role," Joe told me, shaking his head. With fifteen years of stellar technical leadership and a track record of flawless execution, he seemed like an obvious candidate for the open VP position. But he wouldn't even consider applying. He disqualified himself before anyone| Leading Sapiens
“You’ve lost your edge,” the new VP declared. Just eight months ago, the same contrarian thinking had earned my client the company’s innovation award. Same brain, same approach, different verdict. What changed? I’ve been on both ends of the performance/perception spectrum myself. One year I was| Leading Sapiens
Understanding and leveraging language is critical to leadership effectiveness. There are aspects of language that are hidden in plain sight.| Leading Sapiens
In leadership and life, ambitions often outpace our ability to consistently execute on them. A hidden hurdle that trips up many is their level of “frustration tolerance.” This is particularly true in large organizations that are literally designed to frustrate ambitions and agendas. In this piece, I unpack the critical| Leading Sapiens
Confidence is overrated. A more effective, scientifically-grounded approach to improve performance is self-efficacy. We often hear about the importance of confidence. "Believe in yourself," the advice goes. Although intuitive, it's not as helpful. What exactly is confidence? Is it innate? Or can you work at it? Self-efficacy is a more| Leading Sapiens
Why do some people thrive in complexity while others buckle under pressure? A key factor is the level of cognitive flexibility. In this piece, I examine what cognitive flexibility means, why it’s critical to leadership, and strategies for building it. A World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report ranked| Leading Sapiens
Is leadership about substance or perception? The truth is, it's both. You must not only be effective; you must also appear effective. Impression management — first introduced by Erving Goffman — has been widely studied and researched. And it's especially relevant to leadership. In this piece, I dig into Goffman’s framework| Leading Sapiens
Henry Mintzberg was one of the first to identify a comprehensive set of managerial roles that captured the reality of managerial work. Later, he updated this original list into an overall management model. In this piece, I examine the importance of Mintzberg’s managerial roles and management model, and how| Leading Sapiens
In conventional leadership, competence is about maintaining composure, projecting strength, and exuding confidence. However, truly effective leaders do something more surprising: self-disclosure. They share their fallibility as well as strengths. Self-disclosure is a misunderstood skill of effective leadership. How much is too much? And how can you ensure that opening| Leading Sapiens
Humility and inquiry aren’t usually associated with effective leadership. The traditional view is “loud”: vision, setting goals, and driving the team towards success. However, this overlooks a crucial but “quieter” aspect: asking questions and listening. Humble Inquiry, developed by Edgar Schein, challenges the traditional view by emphasizing how humility| Leading Sapiens
Understanding and using power is key to effective leadership. The French-Raven model of power bases is a good primer on the different types of power. This post introduces this foundational framework of power and the 6 types: coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, referent, and information power. In 1959, social psychologists John| Leading Sapiens
Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal’s four frames model of organizations and leadership is a versatile tool for managers. In this article, I delve deeper into the political frame of their 4-frame model — its assumptions, dimensions, examples, tensions, and finally what makes leaders effective in the political aspect. These insights| Leading Sapiens
How can I be more trustworthy? How can I show up more authentically? Leaders at all levels grapple with this fundamental challenge of leadership. The answer lies in Aristotle's 2,000+ year old framework of ethos, logos, and pathos or what Harvard prof Frances Frei and Anne Morris call the| Leading Sapiens
What makes some folks and certain teams more powerful than others in organizations? What is the source of their power? In contrast, why do others despite having competence and positional authority are ineffective? This is one of a series on power in organizations. I focus on Gareth Morgan’s classic| Leading Sapiens
Transitioning into leadership roles can be especially challenging for experts/specialists. The domains of competence framework explains why.| Leading Sapiens
In his classic The Adult Learner, Malcolm Knowles makes the distinction between creative leaders and controlling ones. By understanding teams and organizations as systems, and their energy as a parameter, one approach tries to control energy while the other works on releasing energy in the system. Leadership as controlling vs| Leading Sapiens
Contradictions are rampant in organizations. Understanding the different types can give leaders leverage and prevent frustrations.| Leading Sapiens
Leaders have to master the basics of the human OS. We examine these core attributes that underlie all frameworks of human peak performance.| Leading Sapiens
It's easy for leaders to delve in content and control. But what is more effective is CONTEXT. Why do they keep ignoring context? Why is control easier?| Leading Sapiens
Leaders have to be masters at developing themselves aka self-development. Why is self-development so critical to effective leadership?| Leading Sapiens
Leadership like any skill is something we can learn. Paradoxically though, it cannot necessarily be taught. Coaching can help navigate this conundrum.| Leading Sapiens
The ladder of inference is a powerful tool to make better decisions by uncovering hidden mental models and understanding how we reach conclusions.| Leading Sapiens
We don’t usually think of courage in the context of careers and organizations. But this is a mistake. Courage is more fundamental than we think, and equally relevant. The key is to understand the specific type of courage required, and how it applies to an ordinary work life. Ordinary| Leading Sapiens
Deliberate practice is a proven research-backed framework to improve performance. Here's how you can use it to increase leadership effectiveness.| Leading Sapiens
Small wins and small bets can be an effective strategy instead of going for the big win. But there are several nuances that are misunderstood.| Leading Sapiens
Context is a powerful tool in leadership but goes underutilized and misunderstood - a deep dive into why mastering context is essential to effective leadership.| Leading Sapiens
What makes someone "leadership material"? This often depends on who's making the call and what their Implicit Leadership Theory is - we all have one.| Leading Sapiens
Self-doubt is not an impediment to be eliminated as is commonly thought of. It's a condition of the game and can even be a positive indicator.| Leading Sapiens
Leadership development is usually about positive abilities. Negative Capability is often forgotten but equally critical. What is it and what prevents it?| Leading Sapiens
Most advice on leadership communication focuses on getting better at advocacy – crafting the message, effective delivery, and so on. What leaders forget is to balance their advocacy with equal amounts of inquiry. How are the two different and why does it matter? I take a closer look at the critical| Leading Sapiens
Leadership reflection is a critical mechanism to accelerate self-development of effective leaders.But it gets ignored due to stereotypes.| Leading Sapiens
For leaders and managers, the art and practice of doing regular reflection is essential to functioning at peak levels. The challenge is that the environment surrounding them enables anything but reflection. It's designed to do the exact opposite. Are there basic guidelines that can help to reflect more often and| Leading Sapiens
Identity is often thought as something static from which our actions come. It's more helpful to see it as an effect that follows from our actions.| Leading Sapiens
Paradoxes are built into the nature of management and leadership. Understanding them beforehand can be extremely useful in avoiding frustrations.| Leading Sapiens
Our actions, and by extension performance, stem from thinking that is based on a set of hidden mental models. How do you uncover these mental models and change them? One way is to understand and practice the concepts of single-loop and double-loop learning. Professional sports teams use postgame films and| Leading Sapiens
Excellence is more mundane than we think. Understanding its nuances increases our likelihood of success. Not doing so sets us up for failure.| Leading Sapiens
Most common discourse on mental models takes an additive approach. But this tends to be half-baked, often useless in practice. There is equal value, even more so, in a subtractive approach to mental models. The key is in understanding the difference between hard and soft mental models. How is the| Leading Sapiens
When we communicate, there are several layers of invisible filters that can muddle the message. Knowing the most common communication filters we use can help avoid the traps of miscommunication and make sure our message gets across. Why we use filters One key aspect of leadership is that your words| Leading Sapiens
Naïveté is considered a liability. But is it really? We've been oversold on the merits of sophistication and cleverness, meanwhile missing out on the benefits of a considered approach to naiveness.| Leading Sapiens
Often in coaching engagements, clients are asked to "try on" a new behavior just as they would try on new clothes at the store so they get a "feel" for it. The pushback often comes in the form of "but I don't know how to do that". We've all been| Leading Sapiens
What's the role of confidence in leadership? Is it a requirement for being an effective leader? How confident are you about your confidence? Confidence, on sale Looking at the brochure of one leadership program, it seems confidence is necessary to be an effective leader and that all successful leaders are| Leading Sapiens
The default way of looking at leadership ability is in terms of skill, style, or talent, which in turn drives actions and behaviors. But skills and talents are not sufficient for effective leadership. There’s another simpler but necessary step — the decision to lead. In this view, leadership is a| Leading Sapiens
Locus of control refers to how we view circumstances in terms of the amount of control we have over situations and the experiences that affect us. I look at locus of control specifically in the context of leadership and management: how locus of control impacts leadership performance, and how it| Leading Sapiens
Understanding systems thinking is a must for modern leaders. In Reading the Room, David Kantor outlines a list of leadership capacities based on systems thinking and structural dynamics. They are particularly useful as a reference for developing your own leadership philosophy, practice, and model. Some of the terms Kantor uses| Leading Sapiens
Understanding the different types of goals can dramatically increase how effective we are at goal setting. It's more than the generic SMART goals framework.| Leading Sapiens
Leaders are paid to think clearly. And a big impediment to clear thinking is what CBT/REBT calls Cognitive Distortions: errors in thinking or thinking traps we commonly fall for. Most high-performers are not pathological, but instead fall for them when upset or in high-stress situations. In this post, I| Leading Sapiens
Most managers suck at giving effective, constructive feedback. Equally, most of us are bad at receiving and processing constructive feedback. This is a lost opportunity for everyone. Edgar Schein, professor emeritus at MIT, was one of the foremost experts in organizational behavior and interpersonal interactions. He articulated a set of| Leading Sapiens
Johari Window is a 2x2 matrix that captures how we communicate based on self-knowledge and how others see us. It’s a disclosure-feedback model of awareness based on principles of feedback and learning. It can be used for increasing levels of openness, self-awareness, and self-understanding. This makes the Johari Window a particularly relevant tool for leaders and managers.| Leading Sapiens
In The Fifth Discipline, there's a useful primer on systems thinking that I keep going back to. Senge calls it the laws of the fifth discipline, or in other words, laws of systems thinking. [1] Senge's ground-breaking book was published in the early 90s, and yet in the ensuing decades,| Leading Sapiens
Almost everyone has the term “problem-solving” featured prominently in their resumes. Conversely, barely anyone uses the term “problem-setting”. Except in complex domains like leadership, problem-setting is often more critical than problem-solving. What is problem-setting, how is it different from good old problem-solving, and why is it critical to effective leadership?| Leading Sapiens
