Here are some of the most counterintuitive leadership mistakes I’ve fallen victim to. Making a mistake as a leader is never fun. You unintentionally embarrass a co-worker in front of the team. Or you brush off what you thought was a minor issue only to watch it balloon into something huge weeks later. I’ve been there.… Read the full article...

If you’re busy as a leader, you’re doing it wrong. The best leaders seem to be the busiest. If you’re busy, you’re getting a bunch of stuff done: You’re tending to your team, you’re making stuff happen. Being busy as a leader is a good characteristicRight? Well, quite the opposite. Being busy as a leader is… Read the full article...

Compiled from 4 + years’ worth of data, advice, and insights Over the past four years, I’ve written a fair share about how to be a good leader: I’ve offered leadership tips in our blog, pulling personal examples of what I’ve faced and learned. I’ve compiled leadership advice from, The Watercooler, where over 1,000 leaders have… Read the full article...

Specific questions that’ll help you get the actionable feedback you’re looking for. Most of us run some sort of employee survey in our company But how often is it that we learn something surprising from them? Or how about something actionable? Our research has shown you will get more honest, actionable feedback when you ask specific… Read the full article...

A better company culture can start with you – not just the CEO. “Culture starts from the top,” it’s often said. But is that really true? Surely, it is easier to influence company culture when you’re at the top. As a CEO, founder, or business owner, people are already looking to you for example and guidance around… Read the full article...

From over 1,000+ leaders all over the world in The Watercooler in Know Your Team, here are the six most-recommended books if you’re looking to become a good leader. We all have that one book — the one that shaped who we are as leaders. For some of us, it may have been more than one book. For… Read the full article...

  How do you help create the positive workplace culture you’re looking for? Start here. “How do you actually influence company culture?” This is the big, hairy question I often get asked by CEOs, managers, and employees alike. I recently posed it at the end of the piece, The 3 Key Elements of Company Culture — And Why… Read the full article...

Why sharing bad news makes you a more effective leader. Sharing bad news is a good thing. As a leader, you might not think it, at first. But it’s true. Leaders who are honest about the bad — just as much as the good — are better leaders. But it’s not just me saying this. Research proves this. In… Read the full article...

Here are some sample responses to the 3 types of negative feedback that are most infuriating to hear. The feedback we receive can sometimes feel like bullshit. I recently spoke with a CEO who told me she received feedback from an employee who proclaimed, “This company doesn’t care about parents.” The employee then proceeded to gripe… Read the full article...

Keep these 3 things in mind when you  — or someone you know  — starts to doubt how much feedback at work really matters. You know this person. That one person who’s skeptical of feedback in the workplace. To them, asking for feedback feels like a distraction. Or giving feedback seems unnecessarily negative and burdensome to consider. They’re… Read the full article...

The most overlooked element of a successful leader is self-awareness. Here’s why and what you can do about it.   A few months ago, I asked Ben Congleton, CEO of Olark, what he wished he’d learned earlier as a leader. No, he didn’t mention learning a new business development hack, nor did he talk about the… Read the full article...

If you’re looking to improve your management style, consider how action-oriented your leadership style is. The quickest way to improve your leadership skills is to live this phrase:  “It’s not what you say that matters — it’s what you do.” I observed the truth of this old adage, firsthand, about six years ago. At the time, I wasn’t CEO… Read the full article...

Take a closer look: You may be unintentionally cutting yourself off from the honest feedback you want to hear. I was on the phone with a CEO the other week. He wanted my advice on how he could cultivate a more open, transparent company culture for his team. This CEO seemed to be already doing a… Read the full article...

Quick, handy best practices to have effective, productive 1-on-1 meetings with your team One-on-ones with employees are one of the most underrated tools for managers. If done properly, these meetings can be an incredibly effective way for managers to receive feedback, gauge employee satisfaction and productivity and even offer some insight into how team members… Read the full article...

Let’s look past the buzzword and define the key elements of organizational culture. “Culture” has become the ultimate buzzword these days. Everyone wants to “improve their company culture.” I see the word frequently littered across the headlines of countless articles, book titles, and conference talk topics. Leaders also seem to talk about it all the… Read the full article...

What should you put on your next one-on-one meeting agenda? These one-on-one meeting questions should be a part of every manager’s toolkit. That one-on-one meeting is scheduled on your calendar this week. So, what should you talk about? As a manager, executive, or business owner, this is one of the most recurring and perplexing situations… Read the full article...

Our most popular get-to-know-you questions for work, based on four years of data. If you winced at the word, “icebreaker,” I don’t blame you. Get-to-know-you questions and games tend to feel cheesy. We’ve all been victim to a terribly trite icebreaker with coworkers that made us roll our eyes. I know I have. However reluctantly, you… Read the full article...

As unlikely as it sounds, breakfast cereal can be the ultimate team-builder and way to boost your team’s morale. The executive director of a prominent nonprofit called iMentor Chicago reached out to me the other week. Her name is Halleemah Nash. “A question I asked my team a few months ago really caught me off guard,”… Read the full article...

  /How do you structure your day as a leader? Favorite leadership books? CTO of Basecamp and Creator of Ruby on Rails, David, shares his answer to these questions and more. What kind of leader is David Heinemeier Hansson? We were lucky enough to find out his management style, leadership lessons learned, and more during… Read the full article...

Got an upcoming one-on-one meeting with your manager? Consider a few of these tips in preparation for it. Many managers say flat-out that their biggest frustration is when employees are not prepared for a one-on-one meeting. Yikes, really? Over the past four years, I’ve heard countless managers, CEOs, and business owners say a version of this… Read the full article...

Here’s why “Treat others the way you want to be treated” doesn’t work as an effective leadership strategy. “Treat others the way you’d like to be treated.” This is The Golden Rule we all learned growing up. As a manager or CEO in a company, you’d think it would make sense to follow it too.… Read the full article...

As the CEO and founder of a bootstrapped, remote company with over 13 million customers, Amir shared his leadership lessons learned with our online community, The Watercooler. Every few weeks, we invite one of our 1,000+ Watercooler members from all over the world in Know Your Team to participate in an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session.… Read the full article...

In this 5 minute lightning talk given at Disrupt HR, I share the worst way to deliver feedback – and what we should do instead. Ever catch yourself feeding a shit sandwich? You know, when you layer your feedback good-back-good. I happen to think this technique is the absolute worst method to give feedback in the… Read the full article...

In our leadership community in Know Your Team, The Watercooler, Val shared her expertise leading a world-class, remote support team in our first ever AMA. Here are the top 5 leadership lessons learned from it. In our leadership community, The Watercooler, we recently kicked off a series of “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) sessions, featuring Watercooler members… Read the full article...

From communication to delegation to meetings, I speak on what we’ve observed to be the most important things for remote leaders to keep in mind. Recently, I was interviewed by the incredible Jeff Robbins on the Yonder Podcast about best practices in managing remote teams. I had a blast. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Jeff… Read the full article...

We recently launched an online leadership community, The Watercooler. One member, Oana Filip of Pixelgrade, shares her experience as a part of it. “Leadership, as any other management concepts, can be tricky to understand and internalize.” Oana Filip, a digital strategist at Pixelgrade, wrote this recently. And I couldn’t agree more. Learning how to grow as… Read the full article...

The “right way” to fire an employee doesn’t exist — but we can all get closer to it by keeping these 6 things in mind. A few months ago, I fired someone. Ugh. It was gut-wrenching. I’ve fired people before – but it doesn’t matter how many times you do it, it always feels downright terrible. This moment… Read the full article...

Nature can teach us a lesson about company culture “Did you hear that noise?” I was in Hawaii last week walking along the Manoa Falls Trail, when our guide who was taking us through stopped us. We all shook our heads, “no.” “Okay, well that’s good,” he said. “If we had, it would have been the… Read the full article...

Three fallacies that get in the way of taking constructive feedback. Here’s how by recognizing them, we can overcome them. My stomach dropped. My face flushed. I thought to myself: “No way that’s true!” and “No way that’s me” Those were my physical and mental reactions when an acquaintance gave me some feedback a few years ago. (She… Read the full article...

You can’t just make the call if you want to be a good leader — you’ve got to explain it. Leadership is about making the call. Or, at least that’s what we seem to think. We seem to think leadership is about making the complex decision. As captain of the ship, you survey the seas — what your board is… Read the full article...