With so much content out there in the leadership space it can be hard to know which books are the best investment of your time. While of course there is no right answer to this, if you are new to the leadership/self help space, these are five tried and true titles that can get you started.
Procrastination is a gift of mine. I love putting something on the bottom of my list that needs to be done but I don’t want to do. I mean it’s on my list, but I will find 30 other things that absolutely have to be done before that task that I loathe.
Starting a new habit may be one of the harder leadership challenges but perhaps one of the most important. Learning how to start a positive habit is key to being able to follow through in doing the things you want to do to thrive and feel fulfilled. As James Clear writes in his book, Atomic Habits, it really is all about starting the action that makes sure you get to the finish line.
Another day, another meeting. When done wrong, meetings might be the one of the biggest barriers to productivity in modern history and it has gotten a lot worse in the last five years. At least it used to be a little bit harder to hold meetings, but after the pandemic the use of video conferencing exploded from something that used to be a novelty to integration into everyday use.
It’s no secret that it’s getting harder and harder to face the job market. Competition is fierce, AI is taking market share and the industries in need are constantly changing. All this to say that a “good enough” application package 20 years ago won’t get you a sniff today. Good has to become great and in some cases great as to become exceptional. So what does exceptional look like?
Trust me, I’m really not that narcissisistic. But I am curious.
Times have definitely changed quickly within the online space. Search Engine Optimization or SEO was once gold for online creators. Put in the proper keywords and learn the algorithm and you could be first on search engines like Google or Yahoo.
While SEO isn’t completely dead, it has been replaced at the top of the search engine output by an Artificial Intelligence or AI summary of the search term. Essentially, what you search for is what is now known as an AI prompt. The output isn’t always fantastic but it usually is fairly accurate with links on the side to show where the sources of the output came from.
We love to keep things locked up in our minds where only we can see it. You have this great idea, and you let it sit there and marinate. You think about it quite frequently and you know in your heart of hearts that it is a good idea. Except that it never leaves your head.
While most in the private sector are used to a one to two page resume, those in the federal workforce have been accustomed to a much longer format than most human resource officials would recommend. Very recently that has changed and resumes will now be limited to two pages. This week we’ll dive into how to be a distiller of information in order to maximize the impact of your resume.
Depending on who you talk to there is a vast difference of opinions on cover letters. Do you need them? Are they worth your time? Some jobs require them, and some don’t. As someone who has served on many hiring panels in the federal government, I can tell you that the cover letter still holds tremendous value.
Hustle culture is killing us, both literally and figuratively. This is a product of societal norms imposed on us by a system that values numbers over people. If we aren’t constantly raising the bar at all times then we are expendable. Companies and organizations use people until they burn out. Then they replace them with someone who has yet to burn out. Good for the numbers, terrible for the culture.