Leaders Letter 142

The 50 Best Pieces Of Leadership Advice I Have Received

Read the newsletter online

Dear leaders, this week I wanted to offer something a little different.

I keep a note (you know by now I love and recommend note-keeping to everyone) of all the best and worst pieces of advice throughout my career and upon some regular reflection here are the top 50 pieces of leadership advice I have received.

I have added links to the frameworks built from these or will help you apply these pieces of advice into action in your workplace.

The best pieces of leadership advice throughout my career

1. Improve yourself every day 

2. For every problem, have two solutions (one problem two solution framework)

3. If in doubt, talk it out 

4. Value is what people want 

5. Learn from history (humans just don’t)

6. Communicate only the most essential information. If you don’t know what’s important, work it out first before hitting send or hosting a meeting / all hands

7. Remove emotional decision-making - we all have our bias that drives emotion, remove emotive and bias based decision making

8. Land the exec summaries (it is rare anyone will read the 50-100 slides) - if you cannot summarise your actions in 7 bullets with dates and priorities you don’t know what your plan is

9. Never reward bad behaviours - even for superstars 

10. Everyone hires A players, hire smart but adaptable power players (read how power players do it)

11. Make the complex, simple 

12. Own your time, if it’s taken from you you’ll never get it (run a calendar audit to optimise your time)

13. Words matter most (sentiment goes a long way for opt-in or opt-out)

14. Underdogs win (don’t take them for granted)

15. Think, breath, think: Take a breath, take another, then comment  

16. Never give headcount away (whatever you do, do this for the right reason but remember once it’s gone it’s incredibly hard to replace or win back)

17. Don’t take my kindness for weakness 

18. Politics plays even when you aren’t playing (political intelligence is optional for you but everyone else is playing the game)

19. Learn
    The
    Culture! (without understanding the people, processes and how culture works, you will not influence positive change)

20. Make time for those who matter most (for life and professional work)

21. Your deadline isn’t everyone else’s deadline 

22. Colleagues & Friendship

    1. You’ll know if your colleagues are friends in hard times 

    2. You’ll know if your colleagues are friends when you or they leave 

23. Walk it off: write the draft and walk it off and revisit (never hit an angry send)

24. The CFOs formula will drive more important decisions than you will for many years 

25. Everyone has a manager, but not many have a good or great one, make your choice (management is a privilege)

26. Follow the rule of three 

27. Don’t wait for luck 

28. Be disciplined 

29. There’s no magic system (but there is magic in some systems)

30. If it seems too good…

31. Remove fear (fear of missing out, fear of the future, fear of history repeating itself)

32. The most intelligent people aren’t the smartest 

33. Be wary of someone who always says no 

34. Be wary of someone who never says no 

35. Your circle of competence should be your confidence 

36. Lies bite - liars bite hardest  

37. Sharks smell blood 

38. Big dreams aren’t dreaming big 

39. You’ve won the lottery to be here (in life) - so go for it

40. Not everyone has common sense 

41. Work smartest not hardest (hard and smart compete)

42. The loudest in the room is often the weakest and most destructive

43. Keep your eye on other people’s bad habits (they’ll creep and people mimic bad habits)

44. Mistakes happen - find those who actively look to fix their mistakes

45. Find your edge - no one else will

46. Plan - execute - review (I have a saying always be marketing, always be auditing and this is based on this cycle)

47. Respect patience  

48. Good intentions don’t always last 

49. Knowledge builds up. It’s a muscle you need to build. 

50. For every optimist, there are three pessimists 

Let me know which one is your favourite? Hit reply or email me (danny@focus.business)

This week’s action: Review the list, and see which ones you should take on onboard and apply (by all means steal them and share them with your team - copy and paste https://focus.business/blog/leaders-letter-142 into teams/slack or department email)
Reading for the week: The simple but highly effective pieces of leadership advice you can apply this week.

Thanks and have a great week ahead.

Danny Denhard

I am taking on 2 more coaching clients - get in touch to book a matching call, email me at coach@dannydenhard.com