It's easy to assume that leaders derail due to obvious flaws—poor judgment, unchecked ego, toxic behavior. But most leaders don't derail because of recklessness. They derail because they lean too hard on the very strengths that got them there. Like a rope fraying one thread at a time, this| Leading Sapiens
"Radical transparency" is often touted as a leadership virtue. So why do leaders still struggle with openness? Using the Johari Window's Quadrant 1 (Open/Arena), this article examines the complexities of leadership transparency and presents a nuanced approach to mastering openness in leadership. Through the lens of Quadrant 1 (Open/| 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
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
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
Project Aristotle was a multi-year research initiative by Google to understand what made teams effective. Some of its findings, psychological safety in particular, were counterintuitive. It changed how companies viewed teams and performance. Yet, a decade later, implementation remains challenging. I examine common challenges leaders face in applying psychological safety| Leading Sapiens
Traditional authority—titles, commands, and rewards—has lost its edge in the modern workplace. What compels people is trust, respect, and admiration. This is the essence of referent power—a subtle but effective form of power that inspires loyalty and performance without coercion. It is effective but rare. In this| Leading Sapiens
Understanding different types of power is crucial for effective leadership. Coercive power is a controversial yet sometimes necessary and effective tool. I delve into the nuances of coercive power, its applications, why leaders shouldn’t avoid it, and Elon Musk as an example of coercive leadership. What is Coercive Power| 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
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
The framework of ethos, pathos, and logos was developed in the 4th century BC by Aristotle. It’s a simple but also robust model for effective persuasion and communication that has withstood the test of time. And yet most leaders are either unaware or it, or don’t really know| 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
Leadership reflection is a critical mechanism to accelerate self-development of effective leaders.But it gets ignored due to stereotypes.| Leading Sapiens
How do you view your role of leader or manager? Is it as a chess master or a gardener? The lure of control Often unknowingly, leaders and managers suffer from the myopia of control. The underlying ethos is of knowing everything, solving problems directly and having everything under control. It's| 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
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
The art of observing the observer| thelsweekly.substack.com
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
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
How can you run more effective meetings? One way is to study folks who are masters at running effective meetings, and get paid for it — professional facilitators. Roger Schwarz is one of the world’s leading experts on facilitation. He has a set of what he calls ground rules for| Leading Sapiens
A deep dive into Amazon's leadership principles, complete with videos and reading recommendations.| Leading Sapiens
