This manifesto outlines the way I intend to show up. These are not the 10 commandments. This is a working document I expect to update as I learn more and develop over time.
Kia ora. Tēnā koutou katoa.
Whether you lead a large team at work or you are a team of one, it starts with you.
Investing in yourself feels great and gives you the sustenance to care for others.
It gives you the opportunity to really lead.
Leadership preparation or How to care for yourself
- Talk to yourself the same way you would a close friend or loved one, especially when nobody’s looking.
- Exception: Your family is worried about you because you keep talking to yourself
- 7-8hrs sleep before each workday
- Exception: You saw an amazing mid-week concert and stayed for the encore
- Dress in a way that makes you feel good every day
- Exception: It’s the 1950s
- Move your body in challenging ways a few times a week
- Exception: Your favourite challenge is to move your body as little as possible
- With your partner, do a monthly couple check in [1]
- Exception: You are single and you checked out of this bullet point long ago. Try checking in with yourself instead. [2]
- Meditate for at least 5 minutes every day, or do something meditative
- Exception: You are a puppy
- Invest at least 10% of your take-home pay every week into something that will grow your wealth over time [3]
- Exception: You are so excited to be old and poor
- Develop a habit of giving [4]
- Exception: Your passport lists your Given Name as ‘Scrooge’
The average person will spend one third of their life at work.
One third can change everything.
Because how we lead affects people’s lives, long after they leave the office.
As leaders, it needs to become our highest priority to send each and every person home to their family, friends and loved ones enriched.
We can do this by caring for our people.
How to care deeply for the lives of those you lead
- 👂 Listen with empathy, by putting yourself in their shoes and listening. We are taught to talk, learn to listen. [5]
- 👩🏫 Relish teaching to develop your people
- ⬆️ Point people in the one direction and patiently repeat, repeat, repeat, so everyone knows the destination and why we want to get there. Take people questioning this goal as a very good sign. It means they care and they feel safe enough to question.
- ❓Ask questions from a place of genuine curiosity
- 📖 Share your stories: both the wins and the losses. People learn best through story.
- 😅 Give your people a little more responsibility than you are comfortable giving them and that they are comfortable taking on. Prepare to both be pleasantly surprised.
- 🤝 Set clear expectations and hold your people accountable to them, checking in regularly to coach them along the way.
- ⛅ Together, shine a light on difficult things early to build trust. Hard conversations get harder the longer you delay.
- ✅ Do what you say you will do. If priorities change, communicate this.
- 🥳 Recognise and celebrate your people. The little wins are just as important to celebrate as the big wins.
- 😄 Praise your people in public, coach them to improve in private
- 🎁 Share your feedback generously
- 🚀 Find out where your people want to go and help them go even further
- 📈 Create and maintain a profitable business model. This enables you to be able to care for your people sustainably.
- 💰 Be generous with pay and perks, to the extent you can afford to be
- 🎨 Ignore all of the above and care for your people in your own unique way
Start by caring for yourself and then extend this kindness to your people.
We are only here for a short time.
Let’s use this time to enrich the lives of those we lead.
Me haere!
Let’s go!
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Notes
[1] Set a recurring reminder in your calendar to sit down with your partner once a month and take turns answering the following five questions: 1. What is the other person doing well? 2. What did you appreciate about the other person this week? 3. What do we think we are doing well? 4. What was hard? 5. What would you like more of?
This was inspired by Brene Brown. You might also like to consider the more involved concept of a Life Dinner.
[2] Common ways to check in with yourself: journaling or writing out your thoughts, talking to a close friend and getting honest about what’s working and what isn’t in your life, talking to a parent or sibling, going for a walk with the intention of thinking through how you feel about your life at this moment. There’s no silver bullet, other than to regularly take some time to reflect.
[3] Investing in this way helps you take care of your present-day self and your future self simultaneously. It also positions you to be able to care for more people.
[4] To develop a habit of giving, I recommend creating a checking account and nicknaming it ‘Giving’. Each week you get paid, automatically send $20 to this account. The only rule is that you must give it away to any person or cause that inspires you before the next $20 arrives. Great books to read on giving include ‘Give and Take’ by Adam Grant and ‘The Go-Giver’ by Bob Burg and John David Mann.
[5] Article by Barry-Weymiller CEO Bob Chapman: The powerful impact of empathetic listening
Resources for leaders
Human Work Network
Network map of leaders that share similar leadership philosophies
Barry-Wehmiller
Simon Sinek
Art by Sierra Truong
Thanks to Hamish Bulsara, Christine Chow, Cynthia Gao, Clarissa Hirst, Kel Lysaght, Sierra Truong and Adam Walmsley for reading drafts of this.
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