Belong & Lead

1 behavior that reveals if leaders act on evidence in their decisions. This separates great leaders. They use it to empower their teams to innovate. This is even more critical for AI adoption. AI adoption is dependent on data-centric workflows. _______________ What Great Leaders Do: When their teams present to them, they ask for unbiased insights to inform their decision. They push for a different team dynamic in decisions. They demand a workflow with a balance of intuition and data. They set expectations to question their biases. 🎯 It raises the odds of success in tough business conditions. Their teams consistently overcome challenges. _______________ What Poor Leaders Do: They ask their teams to produce data only to justify their decisions after the fact. They push their teams to confirm their own biases. It may work occasionally for the lucky and visionary. But the probability of consistently knocking it out of the park is low.  _______________ Joselle and I cover this in our latest episode of Here’s the Deal on Innovation Amid Economic Volatility. Check out the Spotify and Apple podcast link in comments.

We have an exciting entry to our Joyful Stage❗ Meet Shujaat Ahmad, a trailblazer in people management and the future of work 🗣️ As Director of People Analytics - Future of Work Strategy & Innovation at LinkedIn, Shujaat is leveraging actionable insights to myth bust and drive executive decisions about embracing technological and social-cultural disruption and uncertainty impacting the Who, Where, What, How of the Future of Work. Don't miss the chance to hear Shujaat's proven track record of aligning evidence-based talent strategy with business strategy for outcomes. 🧑💻 #HappinessCamp #WorkplaceWellbeing #HappyWorkplace #CorporateCulture 💡Happy Mind: Lionesa Business Hub 🤝 Happy Partner: Happiness Business School

This leadership hack was a game-changer for me. It drove a culture change and set healthy norms in a distributed team. At the onset of the pandemic lockdown, everyone was forced to be remote. No one knew how to manage themselves and others. They mistook “always be ON” for performing. My research on flexible work, a passion project, was before the pandemic. It taught me that such behaviors would be a recipe for burnout. _______________ If you like this, ♻ repost and share it with others. Follow me for future posts. 

So remote work is bad for business results, huh? Starbucks' new CEO will work remotely and be among the highest-paid. He will be commuting to Seattle as needed. The high pay relates to the job's criticality. A desperate, herculean turnaround is needed. The "exception" to work remote and visit HQ as needed - comes because top talent demands it. Both factors show that you will make flexibility work if you mean it. One-size-fits-all policies are bogus. It's all about the intentionality of leadership from the top. I am very happy to see this. I was advocating for remote work a year before the pandemic. In my research on companies that got it right, especially startups, I found a similar trend. If the board needed a key player for growth and they didn't want to relocate - the CEO would oblige. This would allow a culture that is remote-friendly. It let startups scale while competing for talent outside the usual hotspots. At the same time, being in better financial shape. That would all stop once they took over or got big enough for HQ-centricity to define careers. Those who resist flexibility without evidence will pay a big price. As soon as the talent market gets hot, this will be the norm. I predict the race for AI talent will spearhead this in tech.  _______________ If you like this or disagree with this, would love to hear your comments. Follow me for future posts. All thoughts shared are my perspective only.