Today we dispatched the April 2021 edition of our Leadership That Works Newsletter, a curated digest of the best leadership links to read right now from around the web, sent at the end of each month. Topics covered in this month’s best leadership links to read right now: The agony of email, beg to differ, the open office is dead, and more. As always, we’re sharing the articles from our newsletter here in case you’re not subscribed to our mailing list. If you find these links enriching, you can sign up to receive our newsletter right at the bottom of this page.
The Power of Small Steps
No Purpose? Prepare to Lose Talent
“Employees expect their jobs to bring a significant sense of purpose to their lives,” explains this comprehensive McKinsey article on helping employees fulfill their purpose at work. Due to the upheaval of COVID-19, people in the workforce everywhere are reevaluating their careers and what matters most to them—and will now, more than ever, expect their organization to help them meet their need for purpose. Employers need to adapt quickly—or lose the best talent to the companies that are successfully fulfilling this mandate—and the full post has helpful tips for taking action.
The Open Office Is Dead
That Malaise You’re Feeling Is Called ‘Languishing’
As the pandemic has dragged on, in many cases depleting our energy and dampening our joy—even with the bright light of the world re-opening and people getting vaccinated in our midst—many have sought to find shared language for our collective experience as Adam Grant has done in this validating New York Times piece about the phenomenon called “languishing.” The word describes feeling a bit “joyless and aimless,” capturing “a sense of stagnation and emptiness,” and exists in the middle of the spectrum between the peak of well-being, which is “flourishing,” and the valley of ill-being, which is “depression.” Learn more about this very 2021 state of being and learn strategies for coping with and curing it in the full post.
The Agony of E-Mail
“Email is making us miserable,” is the blunt declaration in this engaging book excerpt published in The New Yorker, which continues: “In an attempt to work more effectively, we’ve accidentally deployed an inhumane way to collaborate.” The problem lies in a communication tool that facilitates “constant, improvised messaging,” that keeps the human brain in a prolonged state of “low-grade anxiety,” and creates a “tortuous cycle that increases the amount of work on our plate while simultaneously thwarting, through constant distraction, our ability to accomplish it effectively.” Learn more and read tips for improving a work culture built on email in the full post here.
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CEOs Must Find Their Courage
March’s Leadership That Works Newsletter
In last month’s newsletter: The workplace of the future, beat burnout, make better decisions, and more.
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