Maintaining your humanity in management.

Recently, read a great piece from Dora Nagy about her time as Chief of Staff to CEOs. In my numerous leadership roles including CoS, I found many of her points to be beyond valid and applicable to any people leader.

In the complex world of business, it's essential to recognize the challenges that come with managing people and making critical decisions. CEOs and leaders must be prepared to embrace graceful failures and adopt human-centered management techniques.

This includes acknowledging that common sense may not be common, co-founder relationships can change, and that not everyone is suited for every role. Leaders should focus on their zone of genius, prioritize their time effectively, and accept that failure is a natural part of growth.

Additionally, it's important to have open communication, give tough feedback, and recognize when a change in leadership may be necessary.

Ultimately, experience trumps advice, and understanding your strategy doesn't guarantee your team does as well.

Read Dora Nagy’s Post Here (or below).

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50 things that close to a decade of working as a Chief of Staff & coaching great CEOs has taught me about operationalizing and scaling a business (part1/2):

1. Common sense is not that common.
2. Often co-founders fall out of love, and that’s ok. Divorce gracefully.
3. Money talks, bullsh*t walks. The rest is smoke & mirrors.
4. Not every CEO likes the job, and that is ok. Don’t force it.
5. Hire a Chief of Staff or a COO (or both) after series A.
6. No company is like a family. Families don’t fire anyone for poor performance.
7. Just because your roommate, friend, relative, fill in the blank was there at the beginning, it doesn’t mean they are the right fit for the job today.
8. The quality of leadership depends on the quality of the questions asked.
9. Your Chief of Staff is not your EA or PA or BizOps associate.
10. Impostor syndrome is normal and more common than you think.
11. As a CEO, your job is to make sure all the important things get done, but it is NOT to get them all done yourself.
12. Find your ‘zone of genius’ and shrink your ‘zone of competence’.
13. Do a time and energy audit once a month to work out what your ‘zone of genius’ is.
14. No strategy, no OKRs. No amount of OKRs can make up for the lack of strategy.
15. Your leadership has ‘lead’ in their name for a reason.
16. Being ‘nice’ sometimes means being inauthentic. Don’t do that.
17. $5M problems > $500k problems > $50 problems. Your time spent should reflect that.
18 Let people fail. And watch what they do about it.
19. Strategy is not a pretty powerpoint with big statements.
20. Just because you have had a few sales, it doesn’t mean you have product-market fit.
21. Giving tough feedback and having hard conversations are skills you can learn.
22. You might not be the CEO that the business needs anymore.
23. Fear and anger are the worst advisors.
24. Experience > Advice and opinions
25. Just because you understand your strategy, it doesn’t mean that the rest of the team does too. Most likely they don’t.