Most leaders can be better.
Many of them actually want to be better too. But even for those visionary leaders, it’s hard to know where to start. There’s a lot of advice out there and quite a bit of it actually conflicts with each other.
Time magazine put together a list of 7 TED Talks to become a better leader. Each TED Talk brings its own message. Here they are:
- Own Your Title – Drew Dudley: “Our society spends a lot of time idolizing people who achieve what very few can, making leadership feel like some far-off, earth-shattering thing that you’ll someday be worthy of. ‘Who am I to lead?’ Who are you not to lead? Your first act as manager should be casting aside any signs of imposter syndrome.”
- Find Your First Follower – Derek Sivers: “‘The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader.’ It only takes one person to support what you’re doing to bring along more followers, so long as you embrace them as equals and let them be partners in your plan.”
- Don’t Favor the All Stars – Margaret Heffernan: ‘Margaret Heffernan cites evolutionary biology, which shows that extreme Darwinian environments full of only star players and top performers actually create such fierce competition that innovation and collaboration can’t happen.”
- Baby Steps Can Be More Effective Than Big Leaps – Matt Cutts: “Look for small opportunities to optimize and little ways to shift existing processes for the better, and the momentum of those wins can help power the changes needed for your larger vision.”
- Ask People Not to Check Their Passions at the Door – Emilie Wapnick: “If you want an innovative team and happy, fulfilled employees, make room for people to pursue their diverse interests and find ways for those out-of-office passions – whether it’s music, architecture, comedy, knitting, kayaking or psychology – to inspire their work inside the office.”
- Don’t Assume Money is the Best Motivator – Dan Pink: “For purely mechanical tasks, sure, people can be motivated to fold neater or sort faster for a cash bonus. But for anything cognitive – tasks that require mental energy like creativity, problem solving and innovation – cash incentives don’t work. They actually make people perform worse.”
- Say No MAS (Mindless Accept Syndrome) to Excessive Meetings – David Grady: “Embrace the ‘tentative’ button, and ask for details about why meetings are being calls, who really needs to be there, and whether the meeting needs to happen at all. With some critical thinking, your team and your department can start to be more mindful about meetings, leaving more time for team bonding, creativity and productivity.”
Click here to see the full article with video snippets from each of the TED Talks.
How do you feel about this advice? Do you have anything you would add to the list? Or take off? Tell us about it in the comments.
