Why strategy is a leader’s best friend

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JUST. ARTICULATE. A. STRATEGY!!!!!

If I could name the biggest factor leading to inefficient use of resources, overwork, de-motivation, and burnout that I witnessed and experienced over the course of my own 30-year career, it would be this:

Lack of clearly articulated strategy.

It’s the elephant in the room no one seems to want to acknowledge in the quest for increasing productivity and returns.

I’m all for growth, moving fast, experimentation, trying new ideas, getting creative—at the right point along the journey.

At some point, you need to pick something, stick with it, develop an elegant, integrated strategy to implement it—and then communicate it widely, clearly, and repeatedly, while also devoting resources to it.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve operated without either an articulated strategy or any resources devoted to it—and it’s a constant source of frustration (and conversation) for my clients.

Lack of strategy leads to de-motivation and burnout because without strategy, we don’t know where to place our concerted efforts in order to work towards success.

Without a coherent strategy as our orientation point, we end up expending energy everywhere, which dilutes the impact of our efforts.

Then, because our efforts aren’t focused on a strategy that gets us somewhere, they aren’t rewarded. We’re working hard, but not getting the gratification of seeing a real impact and being rewarded for it.

It’s like trying to sprint a marathon, but no one decided where the end is or what “finishing” looks like—or gave us any water to drink along the way.

Or, maybe there IS a strategy, but no resources devoted to it. So, it becomes another to-do list along with our other million to-do lists, and more often than not, they are all “priorities,” (because how can you prioritize when there’s no strategy?), so it’s impossible to determine where to focus our energies.

So, we overwork to compensate for the lack of resources or strategy, feel overwhelmed because we don’t have adequate resources to do high-level work, and end up doing a whole lot of work we’re not all that proud of because we weren’t set up with the conditions we need to do great work and make an impact.

This is incredibly de-motivating.

The burden of bad strategy flows downstream.

One antidote is to create a good strategy, and stick with it.

Another is to connect the dots—understand how lack of strategy or changing one mid-stream play out across the system. All too often, I see leadership teams change strategy without a real understanding of how this impacts teams at all levels. This is truly unfortunate—and avoidable.

If you are leading a team, please look at your strategies, objectives, goals and tactics—and communicate them clearly. Repeatedly. Look at what resources are devoted to implementing those strategies. If you don’t have resources to devote to a strategy, then I’m sorry to tell you… it isn’t a priority. Don’t pretend it is. That is bad leadership. If you insist it is a priority, then find resources for it; that is good leadership.

If you don’t have time to develop a strategy, then be clear and honest about the fact that that that IS your strategy.

Accept that there will be some wasted work along the way, because how can a team make good choices about where to devote resources and energy without a strategy? They can’t.

If you are being led and don’t understand a strategy, please manage up and ask. If there isn’t one, ask why. If you’re being asked to perform a task that isn’t aligned with a strategy, ask why you should execute it—get curious about the rationale behind to ensure it’s worth the time and effort. At the end of the day, we don’t always get to make that decision—but knowing what we’re working with is paramount if we want to do fulfilling work that actually helps us achieve our mission.

If you are consciously crafting a life you love, please look at your strategies, objectives, goals and tactics for achieving it. Look at what resources you’re devoting to implementing your strategies. If you don’t have resources to devote to a strategy, then I’m sorry to tell you… it isn’t a priority. Or, decide that it is, and reallocate your resources.

What’s true for life is true for work—because we’re humans. We want to do good work, and get the payoff from doing good work. That means making choices, and not others. That means devoting resources to some things, and not others. That means letting go of some things, and not others.

To be a humanful leader requires an understanding and acknowledgement of how strategy and lack of strategy impact our decision-making, autonomy, energy, and performance. Welcome to the paradigm shift.

Make integrity profitable.

Make integrity profitable.

I recently read an MIT Sloan Management Review article that cited a research study examining ten factors that influenced managers’ decisions to promote their employees.

They surveyed nearly 9,000 people in 383 companies. While the article was focused on leadership and goal-setting, I was struck by something else: They developed a list of the top ten factors that influence promotions.

Number one on the list of factors that influence promotion was “Past performance.” Makes sense to me.

Number two: “Political connections.” Hmm.

Number eight out of ten on the list of what factors led to promotion: “Acting with integrity.”

This is bad news.

If integrity is not crucial for promotions, what incentive do leaders and employees have to act with integrity?

There’s personal self-incentive, of course, but not much of a systemic one.

This has ramifications. We are influenced by the systems we operate within.

I focus on the intersection of self-development and systemic evolution, and to me, this is one of those intersections that we need to examine.

Pitting personal integrity against organizational priorities—and earning one’s livelihood—is a slippery slope.

What if integrity were profitable—at every level of one’s career?

What if we were expressly rewarded for it?

It almost seems crude to suggest we reward people for what we should be doing naturally… but then again, it’s mindboggling to me that we tolerate the sweeping breaches of ethics and integrity that are going on in plain sight.

If integrity was groomed throughout one’s career, would we still produce so many leaders who lack it?

To be fair, I have no doubt that the success of many individuals and organizations is due in part to their integrity—it’s good business for people who want to do good business for good humans. And, this research study is just one study. But it just might point to something larger.

We need organizational integrity to be non-negotiable.

This makes it easier—not harder—for individuals working within organizations to prioritize integrity together, creating the best possible dynamic: a symbiotic relationship based on shared integrity.

P.S. While we’re at it, let’s make war unprofitable.

Transform systems by evolving at the individual level.

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Things need to change.

They need to change from the top-down, and the bottom-up.

At the individual level, and at the systems level.

The good news is, everything is reciprocal: so the more you do to heal and evolve, the more the systems around you will be informed by that.

The more the systems you are a part of heal and evolve, the more you will feel the impact of that.

My personal expertise is the intersection of individual self-development and systems evolution. I love diving deep with individuals into what makes them come alive, and I am also a systems-thinker who sees the ripple effects at the collective level.

This is especially true in organizations and institutions—in the workplace.

We can no longer afford to keep self-development sequestered in the realm of individual therapy or coaching.

There is no leadership development without self-development.

Healthy individuals are only as healthy as the systems they are a part of: relationships with themselves, their lovers, their families, their friends, their colleagues, their communities, their organizations, their governing bodies.

And healthy systems are only as healthy as the integrity of the people who work within them.

The best systems will fail us if the people leading them are nincompoops. The best people will fail us if their environment doesn’t allow them to thrive.

If you are a humanful leader, or would like to be, then your own self-development is part of the process. What does that look like?

• Practicing curiosity rather than judgment.

• Learning how to work with your ego and triggers (and others’) without letting those egos and triggers run the show.

• Up-leveling your skills of collaboration.

• Learning how to connect authentically—not from behind a mask.

• Creating a safe, inclusive environment: radical belonging.

• Establishing a culture of giving and receiving feedback fluently, so everyone gets crucial intelligence about course-corrections that need to take place.

• Learning how to create sound strategies—and then sticking to them by creating and measuring objectives and tasks that dovetail with them.

• Defining what good leadership means to you personally.

• Identifying your particular gifts, and how you use them in service of your leadership.

• Understanding that leadership is a service position. If you don’t see it that way, your ego may be running the show. (That’s amendable, if you choose.)

• Respecting your colleagues as whole humans. (If you don’t, then kindly reassess whether you are meant to be a leader. Not everyone is, and that’s okay.)

• Learning how to work with emergence.

• Understanding that leadership is an embodied stance of showing up human—not simply a role or job title.

If you want better systems—more inclusive companies, less exploitation, more collaboration, less domination—then start with yourself.

Build the awareness, skills, and courage to act in integrity with your humanity.

All things change when we do.

If you know your own self-development is connected to the greater good, and if you’re looking for a collaborator to hone your skills and dive deep so you can fly high, let me know. You’re my type.

Untangle your value from your rank + role.

Untangle your value from your rank + role.

Most of us currently operate within cultures that use hierarchy to signal authority, rank, and expertise.

Bosses, C-suite, and experts are seen as more valuable than those who fall lower on the totem pole.

Rank is equated to power, high value, leadership, and dominance.

But we’ve mixed up our PERSONAL value with FUNCTIONAL value of roles and rank within hierarchy.

Someone higher up may (or not) have more functional value than someone else.

But no one is more inherently valuable as a human being than others. Our value has nothing to do with our jobs. To be a humanful leader—one who is collaborative, co-creative, and inclusive—this is crucial to understand.

The function of our role, however, becomes more or less valuable depending on the circumstances. We just don’t have systems that reflect that, by and large—we have fixed systems, not fluid ones.

When hierarchy + identity become entangled, things go wonky.

Hierarchies are useful: triage, emergencies, situations requiring quick, coordinated execution and pre-planned strategies and protocols. In these cases, functions meet context, and a fixed hierarchy is efficient and effective. Makes sense.

But as rigid models used to signal rank + dominance—which in our culture have also come to signal personal value—hierarchies become a tool for disconnection. When every action is ranked, each action becomes a judgment of better than/less than—every action becomes a transaction.

When relationships become transactional, we lose the possibilities that come from collaborating, co-creating, and mutual respect; we end up relying more on people-pleasing or politicking to receive accolades—and our salaries.

We run the risk of losing ourselves, because our identities are not found in rank, roles, or value judgments about them (even if someone tells you they are); identity can only be found within.

This is one reason why many leaders end up feeling “alone at the top,” or disconnected from the reality of their organization. The farther apart the roles in a hierarchy, the more disconnection and distrust exists between them.

Others can feel less-than, like imposters, or needing to pacify those at higher levels.

This inhibits healthy competition, which arises from going all in with others who are willing to do the same. 

It also hinders the institution from operating effectively as an organism. We all saw during COVID that the value of a role is largely contextual: front-line healthcare workers became the most valuable roles on the planet, but their rank within hierarchy didn’t necessarily reflect that.

Creativity, collaboration, and innovation rely on mutual connection, respect, safety. Rank and hierarchy hinder this—unless proactive steps are taken to make sure that they don’t.

This is a loss at a personal level: managing egos is far less interesting than evolving our expertise.

It’s also a systemic loss: rank hinders feedback that flows up, and feedback is intelligence about the organism’s health. Why might feedback be withheld? Because it might be received as an affront to rank by the ego—and if that person is the one who evaluates us, and our evaluations are what ensure we get to pay our bills… well, that’s some dynamic tension right there. Let’s talk about it.

When we untangle personal identity from role/rank within hierarchy—when organizations can focus more on functional aspects of hierarchy and less on egoic—that creates an ecosystem that fosters healthy human collaboration, competition, and creativity.

That is an open, innovative system. That is growth mindset. That is evolution.

What could healing hierarchy look like?

1. Untangle value judgments from roles within hierarchy.

2. View it as a multi-faceted, contextual organism in service of a mission rather than a tool for wielding dominance.

What if we revalued hierarchies?

What if the current way of overvaluing the top and undervaluing the bottom of the triangle is flawed? Not because hierarchies are bad, but because fixed hierarchies have been used for signaling dominance, which is arbitrary, which erodes connection, which erodes trust between individuals and of institutions, which erodes community, which erodes human prosperity, which erodes generosity and compassion and joy?

What if we used hierarchies as a fluid tool that could flatten and reassemble based on context and necessity?

Where affluence flowed to the most valuable based on circumstance—not fixed, arbitrary judgments of who has more “social capital” or “power” than whom?

What if the hierarchy understood that the top of the triangle only exists because the entire rest of it exists? That it is a reciprocal, interdependent system that can only operate as a unit? That every role is only as valuable as the circumstances it responds to, which will shift because life does?

What if hierarchy knew how to get itself into flow state?

What if the structures and systems we build evolve as quickly as we do?

This is part of my series “Healing Hierarchy: How to shift from domination to collaboration in the workplace.” More to come.

The importance of showing up messy

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The importance of showing up messy

I’m someone who, for the most part, has been able to show up well in my life. I’m pretty presentable. I know how to play well with others. I can get the job done. Not always perfectly, not always the best, but good enough.

One May day in 2020, I woke up and everything changed. I had a cerebrospinal fluid leak, which caused by brain to sag, which prompted a cascade of neurological and physical degeneration over the next 13 months. It was awful, and terrifying. It screwed up my life, and my nervous system. I was conscious, but my brain would fade in and out constantly. I cried and catastrophized frequently, methods my body and brain used to try to find regulation. I was a complete mess. I felt like I was losing my tether to my body and this planet.

Interestingly, I could still show up, albeit in a diminished way. I could still have conversations. I could still garden or make art, some days. I could smile and laugh, sometimes. I grieved with some friends who were also going through difficult challenges. I even navigated the sh!tshow that is health insurance. I was just a complete mess while I did it all.

And this was an important lesson for me:

I’ve learned that showing up messy doesn’t diminish my intelligence.

I’ve learned that showing up in grief doesn’t lessen my impact.

I’ve learned that showing up in tears doesn’t mean I can’t get things done.

I’ve learned that showing up even though I’m a mess doesn’t mean I care any less.

I’ve learned that showing up inconsistently is sometimes me giving 100%.

I’ve learned that showing up scared is actually pretty courageous.

If anything, these messy, inconvenient states remind me of why I’m showing up in the first place: to help and to care, and to normalize helping, caring, grieving, healing—in all realms of our lives. Even when we’re a mess.

This doesn’t mean I don’t need days of respite and solitude—I do.

This doesn’t mean I should push through everything, no matter what—it doesn’t.

This doesn’t mean it’s always a great idea to show up messy—it isn’t.

But there are a lot of stories floating around about how we should “never let them see you sweat,” that emotions are unprofessional, that grief is something to be dealt with… somewhere else, some other time, if at all: we don’t really make time or space for grief—or people experiencing it—in our culture. (And look into the origins of “professionalism” and ask yourself if just maybe we need to update the concept.)

At times, these ideas held me back from showing up, because I didn’t feel I measured up—that my mess, emotional state, ill health, inconsistency was a burden, one to be borne alone, by myself.

But really, these stories are just telling us to turn off our humanity.

To keep us alone, isolated, or shamed by our humanness when we most need to connect with others in it.

To keep the machine running.

I’m not at all interested in performing like a machine. I just can’t live down to that expectation.

I’m bringing human back—to all the places we’ve been told it’s too imperfect to work.

These might just be the spaces we need it most.

And in return…

We need to get comfortable with others showing up messy.

There is a lot going on on the planet. Too much.

If we’re going to move through these times with our humanity intact, we have to create compassionate space for falling apart—for ourselves, and for others.

This can’t be relegated solely to the realm of therapy, counseling, or self-development.

Grief, illness—they don’t care about our timelines. Q4 is irrelevant.

Grief and illness are the disruptive technologies meant to jolt us back into our humanness, and they will show up when and where they please. Maybe in the middle of a Tuesday.

And—if our systems can’t accommodate our humanness… remind me, what is the point of them?

We need leaders in every arena to learn and model how to hold grief, illness, and nervous system dysregulation humanely.

We all need to learn how to do this. There is a lot of grieving and caregiving to be done; this will be anything but convenient.

I truly believe that in some not-so-distant future, organizations will be evaluated by how well they are willing and able to embrace this.

We can’t turn a blind eye to the magnitude of change occurring. I’m not the only one who had a rough few years. Many went through worse than I did, or have been dealing with it for far longer.

It’s an invitation for us all to lean into our humanity, re-learn how to be fully human, and recalibrate our systems so they are in alignment with our full humanness—together.

This is the heart of humanful leadership: our capacity to hold one another in the full spectrum of our humanity—not just the sanitized parts.

It’s a mess. Hold on. Embrace it. And each other.

The savior and the nurturer

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Celebrate small, everyday acts of nurturing. Tell stories about them.

As long as we idolize heroes, we will unknowingly perpetuate the need for hardship and violence that give rise to them.

I say this not to diminish acts of heroism; life will naturally give us reasons to need them, and thank goodness for them.

And, we humans artificially manufacture many of the situations that give rise to the need for saviorism, as well. Create a problem, sell the solution. Let things fall apart, swoop in to fix it. Poof, instant heroism.

Why are so wed to the story of tragedy and the hero?

Maybe, in part, because it’s romanticized—we see and hear stories of it all the time. We love the story of the lone savior swooping in at the last minute to save the day.

Maybe, because it’s dramatic—and the drama of the adrenaline rush can be seductive.

Maybe, because of who it elevates—the lone wolf, the solo savior, the One—all reasonable role models in a fragmented, isolated society. If we continue to hope for a hero, we don’t have to do the mundane work of nurturing, maintaining, caring for, repairing, healing.

Maybe, because it’s good PR.

It’s time to elevate new narratives: stories that render the ordinary extraordinary; of reverence toward countless minuscule daily acts that affirm and nurture life—the ones that make life worth living.

We need nurturers as much as we need saviors. 

Maybe, when we can continually celebrate and uplift the nurturers, we’ll find we need fewer saviors. 

Maybe when we tell story after story of small acts of caregiving, we’ll have less that needs saving—and more that is thriving.

Small acts of kindness, to ourselves and others, are every bit as crucial as sweeping episodes of heroism.

We need firefighters to come in and stop the blaze with a deluge of water.

AND, we need those who plant new seeds, water them consistently, nourish them, and help them grow. We need nurturers who create conditions for life to thrive.

We need this for ourselves, and for our planet.

Not as big + dramatic, perhaps, but still a matter of life and death. Growth does not happen without the right conditions.

Celebrate small kindnesses. Elevate a caregiver. Create legends about tiny, joyful things. Live that kind of legend.

What’s a tiny story of nurturing you witnessed or embodied? Tell me in the comments, I’d love to know!

Why feedback feels risky and what to do about it

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To the ego, feedback is a threat. In a growth system, feedback is a necessity.

Offering feedback can feel risky, whether it’s at work or to someone we have a close relationship with. Receiving feedback can feel awful.

But why?

Because we have egos.

The ego feels threatened by feedback when its identity is wrapped up in ideas of perfection, authority, goodness, worthiness, value, or rank.

“Perfection” doesn’t need feedback, it’s already perfect—so feedback threatens its perfection. However, there’s no such thing as perfection, so what that’s all about is actually needing to be perceived as excellent. It’s about identity—and comparison.

“Authority” is in charge, so feedback threatens its in-chargeness—its power over others, its higher rank (which keeps the ego feeling worthy). This is also about identity and comparison.

The ego HATES its identity being questioned.

This is why, in an organization, it can feel risky to offer feedback up—if the hierarchy is rigid and identities are very invested in their rank within it, then the person receiving the feedback can feel like their authority is being questioned.

The person offering the feedback feels vulnerable, because the person they’re giving the feedback to is often the one who evaluates them—and thus can determine their livelihood.

This is one of the perils of hierarchy—and a great loss.

In our personal relationships, the stakes are also high: we risk the possibility of rupture if we lack the skills to navigate the dynamic of giving and receiving feedback graciously. No wonder we don’t like to deal with this.

This is source of tension that’s rarely talked about, but very real and pretty common.

Instead of tiptoeing around our egos and pretending this dynamic isn’t happening, why not just admit to the fact that our feathers get ruffled—but that’s okay, we can learn the skills to get on with things anyway?

Any organization, system, or relationship that plans to grow needs feedback. Without it, it’s flying blind and stunting its own growth.

Like failure, feedback is just data.

When we remove judgment from it, it’s neutral—not an attack on someone’s skill, worth, or authority.

It IS an admission that things are not perfect—which is REAL. Reality is something we can work with.

And so are egos: we can learn to witness our egos, but not let them derail the feedback loop.

We can build feedback-sharing practices into businesses and relationships so it’s expected and welcomed—like vacuuming under the rug when we’ve swept stuff under it. It’s just good hygiene.

We can de-personalize the feedback, so it doesn’t feel so vulnerable: it’s just what happened, not the sum total of who you/we are.

Again, we get tangled in the identity piece.

The more feedback we give and receive, the more our egos can relax into and trust the new pattern.

We’re all still responsible for our actions, but the more we give and get feedback about how we’re impacted by events and our part in them, the more levers we have to find healthier ways of doing things.

Without feedback, we’re stuck repeating the same unhealthy habits.

We can learn that our egos can survive feedback, and even better—thrive beyond it.

Then, we can grow—together.

Failure is just feedback. How to use it well.

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Recognize that failure is just feedback.

What is failure, anyway? Just something that didn’t work. 

So why are we so ridiculously uncomfortable with it?

Not because it didn’t work—all sorts of things don’t work—but because of the judgment we place on the fact that it didn’t work. And the scrutiny that subjects us to—from ourselves, and others.

Why do we need to judge and scrutinize?

We don’t need to, really—we’re just used to it. Why? Because humans love control almost as much as we love rank + authority to define ourselves. We pretend they’re not the arbitrary illusions that they are in order to feel some sense of agency in our lives.

But control and rank are not actually agency, they’re coping mechanisms for NOT feeling our agency.

For trying to force outcomes, instead of allowing them to unfold. For allowing the trial, but not the error. For judging others—or ourselves—in order to rank our identities as “better than” or “not enough.”

But true agency is actually NAVIGATION of what arises, not control over it.

What’s the best way to navigate something?

Get curious, not judgmental.

To the ego, feedback feels like a threat. To a system seeking healthy balance, feedback is a necessity.

When we remove judgment from a situation, “failure” becomes incredibly useful data for how to move forward—and how not to.

Then, when we move forward, integrate feedback, and iterate, the “failure” becomes just one more step in the process.

This isn’t to say we need to aim for failure, just that when it happens, to not act as if we’re shocked by the treachery.

Failure. Is just. A thing. That. Didn’t. Work.

That’s it.

Why did it fail? Why did that person do this thing? Why didn’t I?

Those are the more interesting questions—open-ended portals to solutions, rather than judgments people can’t wait to squirm away from.

When curiosity comes in, there’s POSSIBILITY. And whenever there’s possibility, there’s POWER—power to iterate, tweak, putter, collaborate, practice, try, try again.

That’s where true power lies: building agency and identity through navigating ALL of life, not just the successful parts—together.