Weston A.'s Key Ideas from Becoming a Changemaker
by Alex Budak

Adopt a servant leadership mindset that puts ethics first and focuses on empowering others. It's never too late to embed service and ethics into your work. Take a long-term view versus seeking quick wins - changemaking is a marathon requiring sustained effort over years.

Don't fear an ambitious vision to inspire people to join you. Keep a clear why but flexible how to adapt over time. Lifting others benefits all.

Approach leadership as lifelong learning. No matter how experienced, remain a student ready to grow and see things freshly. Changemakers practice cognitive, emotional and dispositional adaptability. Specifically cultivate dispositional flexibility to update how you work.

Build resilience to stay strong when facing inevitable hurdles and setbacks. Deliberate practice across mental, physical, emotional and spiritual realms compounds strength.

Continual learning enables continual growth.

Increasingly, change comes through networks versus individual heroes. Embrace collective and network-based leadership to build sustainable movements. Anchor in your values when facing hard choices rather than compromising.

If unsure how to lead, focus on asking great questions to unlock others' wisdom. Seek diverse perspectives for better solutions. Distribute leadership to many hands versus centralizing control.

Microleadership means seizing tiny leadership moments anytime, wherever you are.

You don't need a title or permission to practice microleadership.

Break leadership down into its most basic and profound unit - the brief interaction.

Invest in relationships, apply empathy and create safety to influence honestly. Small moments compound into massive change.

Foster psychological safety so team members feel respected, trusted and able to take risks without rejection. Google found it most important for team success.

Combine self-awareness of biases with humility to keep improving as an inclusive leader. Seeking diverse perspectives increases innovation but requires equity and inclusion.

Give the leadership you wished you had.

• Ideas need action.
• Before launching initiatives, reframe obstacles as opportunities and examine if resources can be redeployed.
• Test ideas early, often and small through lean startup's build-measure-learn approach.
• Data and experience can spark ideas. Engage collaborators, approval-givers and skeptics to grow support.
• Move boldly but incrementally from idea to action.

• People resist change. Engage champions early to delegate and advocate. Hear out sceptics but make smaller asks to build buy-in.
• Lead culture change through formal and informal norm entrepreneurship from any seat.
• Overcome status quo bias with extra effort. Expect obstacles and be adaptable but persistent to drive change adoption.