Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up

considered a problem. Everyone else had already concluded that the aggressive style each of them showed was the reason the company couldn’t make any decisions. “I don’t think either of them is really sick,” the CEO confided in me. “I think they just don’t want to deal with all the touchy-feely stuff you make people talk about.” I nodded and joked a

The Unsorted Baggage of Leadership For those who hold power, the price of unsorted baggage is paid by those with whom they pass their days—their coworkers, peers, direct reports. Of course, not all organizational challenges can be traced back to the dismembered, unsorted parts of themselves in the leaders’ shadows. But the toughest, most intransige

“Take your seat.” “Sit like royalty in your leadership seat,” I say. “Sit as if you’ve the right to be there.”

“What would Obama do?” we took to asking each other in moments when his heart flagged. How do you handle yourself on the way out, regardless of whether you were given the respect you deserved?

we are basically, unalterably good. We are born that way. (And,

The magic, the alchemy, occurs when what we do mixes with who we are and is cooked by the heat of what we believe.

Listening, I’ve come to understand, is bearing witness to lives unfolding, to lives being discovered. Deep listening, listening compassionately, means guiding, gently nudging, or sometimes shoving people down the path of radical self-inquiry so they can make their way to their own truest selves. Then, and only then, can they lead with the dignity a

Journaling Invitations How did my relationship to money first get formed? How did that relationship shape the work I’ve chosen and my definitions of success and failure? How does it shape my view of the quality of others’ work and contributions? What was the belief system around money and work that I grew up with? How does that impact my view of my

“There’s no book,” I say, often nearly preaching. “There’s no ‘way,’ no ‘path,’ that’s been kept hidden from you.”