The traditional model of the leader-hero who saves the day knows it all, is the smartest person in the room, and is too often driven by power, fame, glory, or money is not appropriate in today’s environment.People today expect a different kind of leader. Here are five attributes that characterizes leaders who are able to unleash the kind of human magic you see at work at some of the most high-performing companies.<ol><li>First, be clear about your purpose.</li><li>Second, be clear about your role.</li><li>Third, be clear about whom you serve.</li><li>Fourth, be driven by values.</li><li>Finally, be authentic.</li></ol>

Purposeful Leadership: The Five Principles

Today’s fast-changing, complex, and unpredictable environment necessitate a different kind of leadership. Nobody can claim to have all the answers to solve the complex crises we’re facing, and the most adaptable organizations are those in which decisions are being decentralized.With the idea that a company’s purpose is about far more than making money gaining ground, the hard-charging, profit-optimizing hero-leader model has lost much of its appeal.

The New Kind Of Leader

That is, your purpose, the purpose of those around you, and how that connects to your company’s purpose.The staggering number of employees leaving their jobs or seriously thinking about it over the last several months has shed renewed light on the pre-Covid realization that purpose, both individual and collective, is at the heart of the business. For corporate purposes to be successful, leaders themselves must first be clear about what drives them and the people around them.

Be Clear About Your Purpose

You cannot choose circumstances, but you can control your mindset. Your mindset determines whether you generate hope, inspiration, and energy around you — or bring everyone down. So, choose well.More generally, your role as a leader is to create the right environment for others to flourish in support of the company’s purpose.

Be Clear About Your Role

A fundamental element of purposeful leadership is to be clear about who you serve in your position, both during good and challenging times. As a leader, you must serve the people on the front lines, driving the business. You serve your colleagues. You serve your board of directors. You serve the people around you, by first understanding what they need to give their best so you can do your best to support them.Golden Rule: View everyone as a customer. The way you treat airline employees or waitstaff, for example, will greatly influence the service you receive.

Be Clear About Whom You Serve

It takes vigilance and a healthy dose of self-awareness to avoid sliding into the trap set by power, fame, glory, and money. Before speaking or acting, be clear about your motivation and whom you’re trying to serve.The best leaders don’t climb their way to the top over the backs of others, they are carried to the top.

Be Self Aware And Vigil To Your Behaviour

Doing what is right is not always simple, of course, particularly during crises, when overwhelming stress and pressure can obscure our sense of values. For the most part, we all agree on what is right: honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness, and compassion. On paper, every company has great values. But values are no good if they remain on paper. Being driven by values is doing right, not just knowing or saying what’s right. A leader’s role is to live by these values, explicitly promote them, and make sure they’re part of the fabric of the business.

Be Driven By Values

It may take some time to embrace the true meaning of being authentic for many of us.“Be”: Be yourself, your true self, your whole self, the best version of yourself. Be vulnerable. Be authentic. Being vulnerable and authentic does not mean offloading everything to your colleagues. For leaders, it means sharing emotions and struggles when appropriate and helpful to others.

Be Authentic

As many of us were forced to work from home over video over the past two years, we revealed more of our whole selves — children, dogs, cats, wifi problems, etc. This was not always comfortable or easy. But we all had to see each other in a new light, as full human beings. Employees expect leaders too to be human. This starts with making ourselves vulnerable, including by acknowledging what we do not know. Vulnerability is at the heart of social connection. And social connection, in turn, is at the heart of the business.

The Surfacing Of Our Vulnerability

The way we lead has profound implications for people around us and how we do business. We cannot transform companies, and more generally capitalism unless we reflect on who we are as leaders, and particularly on the following questions:<ul><li>Have you decided what kind of leader you want to be?</li><li>How would you describe your purpose?</li><li>How would you describe your role?</li><li>What are you doing to create an environment in which others can thrive and flourish?</li></ul>So, start with yourself. Be the leader you’re meant to be. Be the change you want to see.

The Bottom Line

The traditional model of the leader-hero who saves the day, knows it all, is the smartest person in the room, and is too often driven by power, fame, glory, or money is not appropriate in today’s environment. People today expect a different kind of leader. While each company needs to define its own leadership point of view, the author presents five attributes that characterizes leaders who are able to unleash the kind of human magic you see at work at some of the most high-performing companies. First, be clear about your purpose. Second, be clear about your role. Third, be clear about whom you serve. Fourth, be driven by values. Finally, be authentic.

Stashed ideas

5 Principles of Purposeful Leadership

<ul>
<li> Don't cap compensation. If someone does an amazing job, pay them an amazing amount. </li>
<li> Know sugarcoating is lying. Provide honest, specific feedback, even if it's hard to hear.</li>
<li> Find poor performers another role or get them out. It's unfair to keep them in roles in which they're unsuccessful.</li>
<li> Know their goals are just as important as yours. When you help someone with their goals first, they'll help you more.</li>
<li> Hire people who want to start their own businesses. If their personal goal is to leave your company and start their own business, help them get there. They'll stay with you longer.</li>
</ul>

The Rules of Leadership Generosity

<ul>
<li> Shine a light on the path forward. Communicate a clear vision that people can grasp and understand. </li>
<li> Delegate work and get out of their way. Give them work to do. Let them learn failure and success without handholding.</li>
<li> Give them your direct phone number. Be generous with your time. Be available. Instead of telling them, "My door is always open," tell them if they contact you, you'll come to them.</li>
</ul>

Leadership Generosity: The Personal Touch

<ul>
<li>Make sitting in on other team meetings normal. Let your team members sit in on other teams' meetings so they can learn more than is required to do their current job.</li>
<li> Do not allow people to get stagnant. Always give new nonrepetitive work at increasingly more complex levels.</li>
<li>Failure is not a bad word. Allow people to experiment without fear, in a way that feels safe doing so. Failure should be celebrated. Full stop. </li>
<li>Blame yourself first. Before blaming them, find out if you provided clear direction, clear expectations, sufficient resources, and did the system allow them to do their job?</li>
</ul>

Leadership Generosity: Moving Forward

Generous leadership is different from paying a high salary, though fair compensation is table stakes. Being generous means truly wanting what's in your team's best interests, so in return, you will get what you want and what your business needs: engaged associates who reciprocate by doing their best without ever being told to do so. Autonomous excellence.It's not only about giving more money. It's about giving more respect.

Being a generous leader is about more than just paying a suitable salary.

The Principles of Generous Leadership

The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. 
When in doubt, just remove. But be careful of what you remove.

Law 1: REDUCE

Simplicity is about the unexpected pleasure derived from what is likely to be insignificant and would otherwise go unnoticed.
Fragility is an essential counteracting force to complexity because it can instil pity— which by coincidence also occurs in the word SIMPLICITY!

Reduction by the SHE Method: Shrink

When all features that can be removed have been, and a product has been made slim, light, and thin, it’s time for the second method: HIDE the complexity through brute-force methods.
Hiding complexity through ingenious mechanical doors or tiny display screens is an overt form of deception. If the deceit feels less like malevolence, more like magic, then hidden complexities become more of a treat than a nuisance.

Reduction by the SHE Method: HIDE

EMBODY-ing quality is primarily a business decision, more than one of design or technology. The quality can be actual, as embodied by better materials and craftsmanship; or the quality can be perceived, as portrayed in a thoughtful marketing campaign. 
Exactly where to invest— real or believed quality— to get maximum return is a question with no single definitive answer.

Reduction by the SHE Method: Embody

Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
To do it: 
<ul>
<li>SORT: Write down on small post-it notes each datum to be SLIP-ped. Move them around on a flat surface to find the natural groupings.</li>
<li>LABEL: Each group deserves a relevant name. If a name cannot be decided upon, an arbitrary code can be assigned such as a letter, number, or colour.</li>
<li>INTEGRATE : Whenever possible, integrate groups that appear significantly like each other.</li>
<li>PRIORITIZE: Finally, collect the highest priority items into a single set to ensure that they receive the most attention.</li>
</ul>

Law 2: ORGANIZE

Shrinking the time of a process can sometimes only go so far, and so an alternative means to “saving” time is to hide its passage by simply removing time displays from the environment.

Law 3: TIME

Knowledge makes everything simpler. Learning occurs best when there is a desire to attain specific knowledge.
To teach:
<ul>
<li>BASICS are the beginning.</li>
<li>REPEAT yourself often.</li>
<li>AVOID creating desperation.</li>
<li>INSPIRE with examples.</li>
<li>NEVER forget to repeat yourself.</li>
<li>REPEAT-ting yourself can be embarrassing, especially if you are self-conscious.</li>
<li>AVOID-ing desperation is something to target when learning is concerned.</li>
<li>INSPIRATION is the ultimate catalyst for learning: internal motivation trumps external reward.</li>
</ul>

Law 4: LEARN

Simplicity and complexity need each other. 
Understand the duality in the world around you.

Law 5: DIFFERENCES

What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
This law emphasizes the importance of what might become lost during the design process. That which appears to be of immediate relevance may not be nearly as important compared to everything else around. Our goal is to achieve a kind of enlightened shallowness.

Law 6: CONTEXT

The opportunity lost by increasing the amount of blank space is gained back with enhanced attention on what remains.
There is an important tradeoff between being completely lost in the unknown and completely found in the familiar. Too familiar can have the positive aspect of making complete sense, which to some can seem boring; too unknown can have the negative connotations of danger, which to some can seem a thrill.

The Paradox Of Lost And Found

Our society, systems, and artefacts require active engagement in care, attention, and feeling— the business value may not be immediately apparent. But the fulfilment from living a meaningful life is the ROE (Return on Emotion).
A certain kind of more is always better than less— more care, more love, and more meaningful actions. I don’t think I need to say anything more really. More emotions are better than less.

Law 7: EMOTION

<ul>
<li>In simplicity we trust.</li>
<li>The goal of LEAN BACK is to achieve relaxation as the desired state.</li>
<li>Overconfidence is usually the enemy of greatness, and there’s little room for personal ego when pleasing a customer is the true priority.</li>
<li>The more a system knows about you, the less you have to think. Conversely, the more you know about the system, the greater control you can exact.</li>
</ul>

Law 8: TRUST

<ul>
<li>Some things can never be made simple.</li>
<li>There’s always an ROF (Return On Failure) when you try to simplify— which is to learn from your mistakes.</li>
<li>Deeming something as complex or simple requires a frame of reference.</li>
</ul>

Law 9: FAILURE

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.
<ul>
<li>Key 1: AWAY More appears like less by simply moving it far, far away.</li>
<li>Key 2: OPEN Openness simplifies complexity.</li>
<li>Key 3: POWER Use less, gain more.</li>
</ul>
LIFE - Technology and life only become complex if you let it be so.

Law 10: THE ONE

<ul>
<li>REDUCE - The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.</li>
<li>ORGANIZE - Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.</li>
<li>TIME - Savings in time feel like simplicity.</li>
<li>LEARN - Knowledge makes everything simpler.</li>
<li>DIFFERENCES - Simplicity and complexity need each other.</li>
<li>CONTEXT - What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.</li>
<li>EMOTION - More emotions are better than less.</li>
<li>TRUST - In simplicity we trust.</li>
<li>FAILURE - Some things can never be made simple.</li>
<li>THE ONE - Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.</li>
</ul>

The 10 Laws: Recap

The book presents laws that the author has created for simplifying our life, and the things we may work on, or design.

Ten laws of simplicity for business, technology, and design that teach us how to need less but get more. Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We're rebelling against technology that's too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte "read me" manuals. The iPod's clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the simplicity paradox: we want something that's simple and easy to use, but also does all the complex things we might ever want it to do. In The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design—guidelines for needing less and actually getting more. Maeda—a professor in MIT's Media Lab and a world-renowned graphic designer—explores the question of how we can redefine the notion of "improved" so that it doesn't always mean something more, something added on. Maeda's first law of simplicity is "Reduce." It's not necessarily beneficial to add technology features just because we can. And the features that we do have must be organized (Law 2) in a sensible hierarchy so users aren't distracted by features and functions they don't need. But simplicity is not less just for the sake of less. Skip ahead to Law 9: "Failure: Accept the fact that some things can never be made simple." Maeda's concise guide to simplicity in the digital age shows us how this idea can be a cornerstone of organizations and their products—how it can drive both business and technology. We can learn to simplify without sacrificing comfort and meaning, and we can achieve the balance described in Law 10. This law, which Maeda calls "The One," tells us: "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."

The Laws of Simplicity

<ol><li>Stress + Rest = Growth. Decades of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11828249?dopt=Abstract">research</a> in exercise science show that this is how you get stronger and faster, and the latest <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/abca/8265a420f9b2cf03c9768249b2f1d4d862a2.pdf">cognitive science</a> shows that this is also how you get <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/abca/8265a420f9b2cf03c9768249b2f1d4d862a2.pdf">smarter</a> and <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015331">more creative</a>.</li><li>Focus on the Process, Not Results. <a class="idea-content-link" href="https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2004_BaardDeciRyan.pdf">Research </a>shows that concentrating on the process is best for both performance and mental health. </li><li>Stay Humble. If you don’t maintain an open mind, you’ll severely limit your opportunities to learn and make progress.</li><li>Build Your Tribe. A large and growing body of behavioral science <a class="idea-content-link" href="https://behaviormodel.org/">research </a>shows that motivation (or lack thereof) is contagious.</li></ol>

Part I

<ol><li>Take Small, Consistent Steps to Achieve Big Gains. Small and consistent victories compound over time, leading to massive gains.</li><li>Make the Hard Thing Easier. Willpower is overrated. Rather than relying completely on self-control, intentionally design your environment to make the hard thing easier. </li><li>Remember to Experience Joy. People are so driven to keep growing and progressing that sometimes they forget to be fully present for special moments or neglect to pause and celebrate their milestones.</li></ol>

Part II

The most important principles to grow your body and mind.

Better thinking, habits, growth mindset, decision making, bias, problem solving, and communication.

Self Improvement

The most important principles to grow your body and mind

As I am in my learning phase , I can feel the power of "Discipline". It not only helps us in achieving our success but it expands it. And the fuel of Discipline is our character.

5 Principles of Purposeful Leadership

The Principles of Generous Leadership

The Laws of Simplicity

The most important principles to grow your body and mind

SOURABH BHATT on Aug 28

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!