On Leading with Greatness

A lot of readers might not know this, but for years I was in a cult. With the perspective of time I can now see it clearly. How could I have been so easily duped? This cult was so subversive that its own leadership, which was diffuse, was largely not aware that it was heading a cult. Leaders, in fact, often suffered the most from the cult’s abusive practices, which, as true believers, they still e...

I struggle to express how reluctant I am to start with a trigger warning, which I find potentially infantilizing and insulting to my audience. Still, since my audience is wide and general, I offer it in the spirit of broad acceptance. As an English professor, though, I simply will not censor a poem. Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

Let me be clear at the outset. Leaders should be approachable, friendly even, genuinely warm, unfailingly polite, supportive, protective, driven by integrity, and collaborative. In other words, just plain decent people who lead by building good relationships . Leaders should be nice individuals who lead by supporting their followers, but that is not enough. What leaders should never be is distant,...

Recently I watched yet another disturbing video in the inexhaustible (and exhausting) internet subgenre of someone-bullying-a-public-servant-over-rules-they-don’t-like . The story starts with a man and his daughter trying to enter a library only to be stopped by a librarian for not wearing a mask as required by public health policies. The video , taken by the man, shows the exchange between the li...

Picture this scene. You walk into a local fast-food chain franchise for lunch. You know, the one in which the burger is king. The teenaged automaton behind the counter mechanically asks what you will have. On the menu board you see there is a new item listed: the IllusoryBurger™️. You are trying to watch your weight, and this IllusoryBurger™️ is advertised with surprisingly few calories. So, in th...

A while back I wrote about imposter syndrome and how, when allowed to run rampant, it can hinder progress and encourage bad behaviors. As pervasive and damaging as it is, though, imposter syndrome is not nearly as insidious and debilitating as self-doubt , which can rapidly harden into regressive and persistent habit. Since then, I have embarked on an ambitious journey to make a quantum leap, an e...

Decades ago, my wife was a social worker advocating for nursing home residents. One resident she got to know well was Mr. Foley, who took a liking to this vibrant, pretty, young professional, who in turn found him to be wise and kindly. At some point in their acquaintance, he told her his life’s tale, which had all the makings of an O. Henry story. His experience would subsequently impact the life...

Do you remember that kid in the playground? You know, the one who had to be the winner every time no matter what. This is the kid who cheated at tag, who pushed the other kids off the monkey bars, who boasted — in the absence of all evidence — about zipping down the sliding board faster than anyone … ever . This is the kid who altered the rules and lied constantly for nothing more than bragging ri...

Those of you who regularly read my essays will know that I can be a wee bit cynical about bosses and the general state of bossing in our world . It is not that I think all bosses are bad — after all, I spent many years as a boss — but over decades I have had a series of bosses that ran from utterly mediocre to galactically bad with one major exception . It just doesn’t have to be this way. Get ful...

Because of the holiday season, I am reposting this revised version of an essay from December 31st, 2020. It encourages you to commit the act of egocide over and over again. Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

Because of the holiday season, I am reposting this revised version of an essay from December 24th, 2020. It addresses the theme of human decency and demonstrates that decency can be, in its simplest form, superhuman . Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

Goodhart's law states that “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Put another way, when we set a performance measure as a goal or a bar to hit, people and organizations tend to find ways to achieve that measure without regard for whether their performance or production is truly effective, beneficial, or even desirable. Goodhart’s law has to do with unintended consequenc...

The other day I went to visit my father in St. Agonistes Hospital about five hours from my home, where I got to witness a clear manifestation of BCD or Bureaucratic Compulsive Disorder, an affliction that compels organizations to do irrational things for their own sake. My dad has unfortunately been at St. Agonistes a lot in the past year, so I am familiar with their Covid protocols for visitors,...

The sheer quantity of articles and quotations on the subject of leadership is impressive. Lots of people over lots of years have offered lots of advice — in the form of adages, axioms, and maxims — but, as with any human endeavor, the results are decidedly mixed. Some leadership aphorisms are wise and pithy while most are banal or overwrought . More than a few are outright stupid or misleading . F...

Because of the Thanksgiving Holiday, I am reposting this revised version of the first essay in my series, from October 1st, 2020. It articulates the essence of what I see as the only hope for improved leadership and healthy workplaces: human decency. Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

How, she wondered, could she appraise her own performance and be assured that she was not just fooling herself? After all, by definition, a delusion is an inability to process the world as it is. It is a deceit. How could she know that she was not deceiving herself? How could anyone in a position of authority be truly self-aware? Her friend thought for a few long minutes before replying, “By askin...

We are hearing a good deal about the Great Resignation , the phenomenon of a surprising number people dropping out of the workforce since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Many pundits and employers have claimed that people have stayed away from work because of pandemic unemployment benefits expansion. Others have noted fears of Covid in the workplace and childcare needs complicated by Covid. S...

The culture of any organization can seem immutable to those within it. That is certainly the case in higher education. Many colleges, like many organizations of all stripes, tend to view their cultures as almost sacrosanct, as though they can never, will never, and should never change. I know I lost out on several university dean jobs when, during my interview, I offered observations of culture an...

What is the point of regret? To make heads or tails of regret, we will have to differentiate regret from guilt . Guilt has to do with past action or inaction we had some choice or informed agency over whereas regret refers to past action or inaction that we could neither predict nor control. So, properly understood, regret has to do with consequences from past action or inaction that we had no con...

Who is the best boss you ever had? What made that person such a good boss? I am lucky in that the best boss I ever had was actually quite a good boss. I am unlucky in that — even taking into account my teenaged years — the contest for the best boss I ever had was not particularly competitive. Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

Death is the mother of beauty. Wallace Stevens Steven’s observation is in line with the Stoic concept of momento mori , a practice in which the contemplation of mortality leads to greater appreciation of that and those which we value. Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

Cocks everywhere, the little dictators of our lives. We wear them on our wrists, consult them on our phones, and squint up at them as they tower over our towns. Think about it. A clock of all things, Big Ben , is one of the most potent symbols of Great Britain. And don’t get me going about Prague . Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

I want to differentiate critical thinking from what I call “ thinking hard .” Both critical thinking and thinking hard require a degree of smarts and effort, but only critical thinking is rigorous in the truest sense of that word. Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

This one is on effective oral and written communication , but what I offer are not rules. They are more like guides, mere suggestions, helpful hints, noodgy nudges, and the like. After all, rules just beg to be broken. For instance, consider my personal rule that I don’t write listicles. So take that, rules! Get full access to On Leading With Greatness at jimsalvucci.substack.com/subscribe

The human species is both blessed and cursed with an impressive power of recall. Recall allows us to review the past, searching for wins to replicate and losses to learn from. When we contemplate the present and future, sequences — the order of things — are difficult to ascertain or predict with any accuracy, but in scanning the past we can often easily see connections that escaped us at the time....