Best Among What I Read Today, The Leadership edition – Jan 1st 2017

I read a lot and on diverse topics. I used to share all the interesting stuff on Twitter and Facebook, but realised that searching for them at a later point (in case someone wants to find out more or I want to connect with someone) became extremely difficult.

Also, my friends said that it is easier for them if they can find all the interesting stuff that i find in one place so that they can visit one single post and decide to read something that they find interesting as well.

Hence, going forward, on days that i read and find interesting articles, blog posts, books, podcasts and any other piece of content, i will share them in a blog post titled – “Best Among What I Read Today” and publish on my blog.

Here is today’s content that i found interesting. You can look at all the past posts here.

The 5 Skills That Innovative Leaders Have in Common

In this HBR blog post,Katherine Graham-Leviss, shares 5 skills that leaders who lead the most innovative teams exhibit. The skills that she mentions are:

1. Manage Risk
2. Demonstrate Curiosity
3. Lead Courageously
4. Seize Opportunities
5. Maintain a Strategic Business Perspective

One further skill that I think that should have made the list was the ability to maintain contradicting views and still function well.

You can read the detailed post here.

The Best Leaders Let Go Of Control

In this blog post, the strategic coach, Dan Sullivan talks about the difference in being in control vs being in charge.

This is in my opinion, very critical as this tells you your own leadership style and has an impact on the culture of your organisation as well.

You can read the post here.

When your phone uses you

In this short but insightful post, best selling author Seth Godin talks about perspective. Do you let your phone (and everything/everyone who is on the phone) use you or if you use the phone to do your bidding.

This is true not just for your phone, but also for everything else in our lives. Do we live our lives on our terms or do we allow things/people around us dictate how to lead our lives.

Being a leader at times could feel very lonely and as leaders, we create our own heuristics about making decisions and build a team of people, who become our go-to-people to bounce off our thoughts. We need to question if we are in control of these conversations or are they controlling the conversation by only sharing things that we want to know or what they want us to know – both of which will lead to our failing as a leader.

You can read the post here.

Best Leadership books of 2016

In this blog post, Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi shares his list of best leadership books of 2016. I truly respect him and his opinion and this list comes very close to my own list as well.

I would recommend that you check out the list and try and read these books. If you are pressed on time I would definitely recommend that you read at least Deep Work and Pre-suasion at least.

You can read the entire post here.

Your Turn

Pls do share any interesting article/post/book that you have come across recently in the comments section.