Charisma, Patience, & Calendars | LSW#53
Hey! It’s Sheril from Leading Sapiens. Welcome to my newsletter, where I share strategies for getting savvier at leadership & work.
I’m trying a new concise format today. It’s short with 3 high-density, high-impact ideas. Want deeper dives instead? I’ll link them to longer pieces that you can delve into. Let me know what you think.
Previous editions ICYMI:
On patience
Shockingly it took many years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk for the Wright brothers’ seminal achievement to be recognized. Their achievement didn’t get “media attention” until 1905, two years after Kitty Hawk. And that was from Amos Root, editor of Gleanings in Bee Culture.
Five years after Kitty Hawk, the brothers finally became celebrities, with Wilbur setting world records for flight duration in France and Orville making similar demonstrations at Fort Myer in Virginia.
— Gene Kim, Steven Spear in Wiring the Winning Organization
Reflection question:
If it took the Wright brothers five years before the world caught up to them, how long do you think it will take you?
Related:
Leadership charisma
All of my subsequent research into what makes great companies tick uncovered convincing evidence that some of the greatest business leaders of all time lacked any obvious charisma.
Furthermore, our studies showed that some of the worst episodes of corporate decline and failure happened with colorful charismatic leaders at the helm.… Far better to be an uncharismatic leader who gets the right people to confront the brutal facts than to be a magnetic force of personality who leads compliant followers to disaster.
— Jim Collins in Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0
Reflection question:
Are you using a lack of so-called “charisma” to stop yourself from going for that next role?
Related:
The truth of calendars
When it comes to values, so much of what we tell ourselves is different from what we actually do. For example, if you believe that “nothing is more important than people” in your business but spend most of your day looking at spreadsheets, then you’re valuing analysis and paperwork over relationships. If it’s that important to you, the amount of time you spend developing people on your team and in one-on-ones should reflect this value.
All too often, our time is spent on tasks with quicker rewards. The decisions we make on how to spend our time are normally more heavily influenced by our desire to feel productive rather than to adhere to our values. The quick hit of dopamine from checking our emails or resolving a small problem quickly overrides what we know matters more.
You can tell yourself all kinds of stories to rationalize how you spend your day, but the calendar doesn’t lie. The accounting of how you spend your minutes is the hard truth of your values.
— Scott Belsky in The Messy Middle
Reflection question:
If someone checked your calendar for the past week, what might they conclude about what you value most? Is that consistent with what you claim?
Related:
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