NOTE: I’d been looking for a simple, clean blogging template for years that wasn’t filled with a ton of bloated features, and it turned out one was hiding on my blogroll all along, on Jessamyn West’s website. Even better, it’s almost identical to the one I’d been using for a while, but it loads much faster. If you’re reading this via email or RSS feed, swing by and check it out!
_ONE
The Best Leaders Embrace the Role of Supporting Character | Jamil Zaki
People think they flourish by focusing on themselves, but the opposite is true. We are at our most effective and fulfilled when serving others. One powerful way to tap into this is by adopting supporting-character energy.
I love the idea of “supporting-character energy” and being “aggressively curious,” while “job crafting” has been something I’ve personally benefitted from and done with direct reports throughout my career. Unfortunately, the attention economy continues to reward main character energy, so it’s great to see research and insights validating a different approach.
Like most of Gen X, I didn’t get any training before I got my first roles that involved managing other people. If you’re good at doing something, the assumption is you’ll also be good at managing other people doing that thing — which in my experience, is often not true at all. I had to learn the nuances of management on the fly, from good and bad examples, making mistakes along the way, and it’s an ongoing learning process.
I’ve had my share of bad direct and senior managers, and I’ve never been a fan of hierarchical corporate structures that typically protect them from accountability. Whether it’s my lack of formal training or simply trying to live by the golden rule, I prefer to treat direct reports like colleagues I’m accountable for and to, which means I may not always be the best “manager” in traditional terms, because I prioritize being the best player-coach the moment calls for.
__TWO
The Book No One Wants to Read: How to Follow, Change your Mind, and Be an “Influencee.” | Carin-Isabel Knoop
An alternative view is to understand influence less as a battle and more as a kind of dance. In this framing, influence is not unidirectional, but reciprocal. It depends not only on the ability to lead, but also on the capacity to respond, adjust, and remain attuned to others’ movements. Interaction and co-creation emerge from interaction, not dominance.
This is a long but insightful read from Knoop that pairs well with Zaki’s insights above, so bookmark it for when you have a little free time to read both of them.
One of the things that appealed to me most about social media in the early days was the ability to build diverse personal learning networks, before vanity and engagement metrics changed everything. Long before “Influencer” became a job title (rather than a potential outcome of sharing one’s hard-earned experience with others), those feeds were channels I curated to learn things from people with more / other / different experience than I had. Today, being able to create a good feed is still the primary way I decide if a platform is of any use to me, and Knoop is one of a very small group of people keeping Medium on my radar.
We are all potentially influencers in different ways, to different people, at different times, and the best people to learn from are the ones who are also willing to continue learning from others, not the ones chasing influencer status.
___THREE
When Advocacy Becomes Avoidance | David Blansfield
There is a growing tendency to avoid discomfort, stay aligned with power, and minimize friction. That may be rational in the short term. It reduces risk. It preserves relationships. But over time, it comes at a cost.
Blansfield is a former direct manager of mine, and I learned a lot about the magazine business and how to be a senior executive while working for him in two similar but very different settings in the past. While he’s somewhat active on LinkedIn (which for all of its many faults remains one of my core personal learning networks), he hasn’t typically been a public writer himself, so this was a pleasant surprise to have pop up in my feed.
I remember not loving the meetings and events industries’ general response to the COVID pandemic in the early days — in complete denial about how long the short-term impact might be — so I’m not surprised at the situation the U.S. Travel Association has found itself in, nor how they’re handling it.
I am very glad to see Blansfield publicly call them out on it, in his typically level-headed style, and bonus points for his new endeavor not being on Substack!
____FOUR
Product-shaped or movement-shaped? | Ben Werdmuller
Mission-driven founders often think the value of their work is product-shaped when it’s really movement-shaped.
Executives love hyping their innovative business models and product features, especially the wannabe disruptors, but they often forget to spotlight (or don’t fully understand) the actual value they’re delivering to the community they’re trying to serve. Sometimes it’s just a communications issue, easily fixable, but too often it’s because the mission isn’t actually to SERVE a community — it’s to EXTRACT value as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Werdmuller is focused on journalism and tech, but his primary takeaway is applicable to many other industries, including publishing and libraries, the two worlds I’m most attached to.
I’m convinced there’s another mission-shaped project out there with my name on it, I just need to zero in on the missions I still care the most about.
_____FIVE
Entrepreneurship, Or My 50-Year Journey to Who I Was All Along | Kevin MacDonald
There’s a great irony to Oat Mode’s slogan: “Go with the grain.” Because it’s something I’ve never done. That makes me difficult. That makes me demanding. That makes me a bad employee.
My friend Kevin is in the middle of launching a new business this year, and it’s been fascinating to see him publicly roll out something I’ve gotten behind-the-scenes glimpses of along the way. While I’ve fantasized about opening a bookstore for years, I’m highly unlikely to ever actually do it, and this essay finally connected the dots for me.
He and I have similar personalities as employees, but there’s a difference between being entrepreneurial (me) and being an actual entrepreneur (him). I prefer the ephemeral stability of a structure I can push against and systems I can challenge and improve, but Kevin decided to grab the fishbowl and build his own thing!
It’s a timely realization as I’m actively figuring out what’s next in my own career journey…
______BONUS
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