The Why Most People Are Terrible at Giving Feedback Sheryl Sandberg had just watched Kim Scott present to the founders of Google. It went well. The room was pleased, the numbers landed, and Scott walked out feeling like she had nailed it. Then Sandberg offered to walk her back to her office. On the way she mentioned a few things she liked. Then she added that Scott had said "um" a lot. Scott waved it off as a small verbal tic. Sandberg tried again, a little more directly. Scott brushed it off...
6 days ago • 3 min read
The Leader Nobody Sees: How to Lead Without Authority John Maxwell once said something worth taping to your desk: "Leadership is influence. Nothing more. Nothing less." That single sentence kills the biggest myth about leadership. The myth that you need a title to lead. That you need direct reports, a corner office, or "manager" in your email signature to actually make things happen at work. You do not. Walk into any office and watch closely for one week. Notice who people actually listen to....
10 days ago • 4 min read
How to Build a Reputation Before You Have Experience Warren Buffett once said something that everyone quotes but very few people actually act on. "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." People read that quote, nod, and move on. They assume reputation is something you start worrying about later, after you have a few promotions, a fancier title, or some real experience behind you. That’s an expensive mistake...
13 days ago • 4 min read
Emotional Intelligence Is Your Secret Weapon When Satya Nadella took over Microsoft in 2014, the company was in trouble. Not financially. The money was fine. The problem was culture. Microsoft had become known inside tech for being arrogant, internally combative, and slow. Engineers fought each other instead of competitors. Teams hoarded information. Talented people were leaving for Google and Apple. Nadella did something unusual for a tech CEO taking over a giant company. On day one, he...
17 days ago • 3 min read
Stop Being Busy. Start Being Productive. Do you know the most dangerous lie in the modern workplace? "I've been so busy." Say it enough and it starts to feel like an achievement. Calendars packed. Inbox full. Phone never quiet. There is a version of that life that looks, from the outside, like someone who is indispensable. But here is the thing nobody tells you early in your career: being busy is the easiest performance to fake and the hardest to actually benefit from. Jeff Bezos understood...
20 days ago • 4 min read
How to Disagree Without Burning Bridges Steve Jobs and Tim Cook debated with each other on a regular basis. Yes, you read that right. For years, the two went back and forth over how the first iPhone should be sold. Jobs wanted a revenue-share model, where Apple would take a cut of every carrier's monthly revenue. Cook believed a carrier-subsidy model made more sense. It was a real disagreement, held over years, between two of the most powerful people in tech. Cook did not stay quiet. And he...
24 days ago • 3 min read
Why Leaders Make Bad Decisions When Stakes Are High "The difference between a good leader and a great one only becomes visible when the pressure is on." On April 13, 1970, an oxygen tank on Apollo 13 exploded 200,000 miles from Earth. Three astronauts were drifting in a crippled spacecraft with failing power and less than 90 hours of oxygen. NASA flight director Gene Kranz had no manual for this. Before anyone touched a single control, he told his team, "Work the problem. Not the panic. The...
27 days ago • 3 min read
The person who controls your next opportunity is not HR. When Sheryl Sandberg joined Facebook as COO in 2008, her boss was a 23-year-old who cared almost entirely about product and very little about running a business. Most executives would have pushed back or worked around him. Sandberg did neither. She studied what Zuckerberg needed, adapted to how he worked, and made herself indispensable to what he was already trying to build. That partnership became one of the most written-about in tech....
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
If You Want To Be a Future Leader, Do This! "Nobody respects the leader who is always right. They respect the one who is honest when they are wrong." In September 2011, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, made one of the most publicly criticized decisions in tech business history. He split Netflix into two separate services, raised the price by 60% overnight, and announced the streaming side would stay as Netflix while the DVD business got rebranded as "Qwikster." Subscribers revolted. Netflix...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read