Today we dispatched the September 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 include: Lower your guard, go slow to go fast, understand ‘hedonic adaptation,’ 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 here.

Hope > Optimism

It’s common for people to conflate hope and optimism, but they’re two distinct concepts says this interesting piece in The Atlantic: “Optimism is the belief that things will turn out all right; hope makes no such assumption but is a conviction that one can act to make things better,” despite uncertainty. And research shows that hope is more effective in facilitating resilience, inciting positive action, and improving health and well-being—in work and life. While some studies suggest that a predisposition towards optimism might be genetic, hope is available to anyone and should be regarded as an “active choice,” even a skill you might practice. To start transforming your outlook into productive hopefulness, there are three steps you can take and you can explore them in the full post here.

Go Slow to Go Fast

Research covered in this interesting Time article on the power of patience studied career “hot streaks,” periods when a person’s performance is at its peak and they appear to be on a speeding rocket to the top of their field. Researchers found that these “hot streaks” had one thing in common: “A foundation of prior work,” honed over a long period of time during which “improvement was much less apparent.” The takeaway? “In order to make a meaningful difference” in work that matters to you, “the work needs to persist long enough to break through inevitable barriers and plateaus.” Fast-moving progress is usually preceded by slow-moving persistence, practice, and patience. Learn more in the full post here.

Do You Know Why Your Employees Are Quitting?

A record number of US workers—more than 15 million—have quit their jobs in the past four months, and the trend is on track to continue at this rapid pace says this McKinsey explainer. Companies are aware of the issue but have been struggling to respond because “they don’t really understand why their employees are leaving,” and are jumping to “quick fixes that fall flat,” offering purely financial incentives without any effort to strengthen “relational ties.” Many organizations, in their effort to retain employees, are actually reducing work relationships to purely transactional propositions. But research shows that while employees do value higher pay and perks they also “crave investment in the human aspects of work,” and want to feel valued as people. The good news is that if companies “seize this unique moment” to “better understand why employees are leaving and take meaningful action to retain them,” they can gain a significant edge in the talent wars. Explore the full slate of insight and advice in the full piece here.

**For more on a human-centric leadership approach that puts people first, get your free first chapter of The BLUEPRINT, a modern guide for leading in a way that honors individuals’ humanity and unique contributions.

Private Companies Lag in Boardroom Diversity

Last summer, “major public companies across the country pledged to increase diversity in their boardrooms,” in response to calls for anti-racist action in every sphere of American life “after the murder of George Floyd in police custody”—but what is “conspicuously absent is a discussion of diversity efforts at privately held companies,” says this DealBook newsletter devoted to the topic. While public companies have some measure of accountability with “investors, activists, and others tracking their commitments on racial equity,” there is no such check on private companies. The lack of diversity efforts at private companies is troubling because they outnumber public companies by the millions—and “today’s private companies often become tomorrow’s public companies.” The time for these companies to prioritize diverse boards is now, before they become public, because “the culture of most companies is created in their early days.” Learn more in the full post here.

You Can’t Ignore Mental Health at Work Anymore

Mental health, previously a “taboo” topic in the workplace, has come to the forefront in recent years as the ongoing effects of the pandemic have wreaked havoc on employee well-being and morale. According to this Today piece, leaders who want to retain employees must get comfortable having conversations about mental health—a topic that may have previously been “off-limits.” Many employers have awakened to the fact that “even a relatively mild mental health issue can lead to absenteeism, declines in work performance, damaged relationships with coworkers,” and more. To become comfortable with having these types of conversations, understand that it might be awkward at first and you might not have the “right words” but what’s most important is keeping an “open dialogue.” Learn more in the full post here.

Never Satisfied? It Might Be ‘Hedonic Adaptation’

Ever accomplished a big goal only to find that the feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment from the achievement were short-lived? You’re not alone, says this fascinating Fast Company post. When you find your positive emotional upswings fading, it’s likely you’re experiencing a survival mechanism called “hedonic adaptation” which leads to “fleeting feelings of happiness,” in the wake of achievements. As much as this adaptation works against you, it also works for you: The highs of goal-attainment aren’t long-lived, but either are the lows from setbacks; the adaptation is meant to propel you towards continued effort. Rather than trying to “outsmart your neurochemistry,” you can work with it by making small adjustments. The top tip for working in harmony with “your hedonistic tendencies” is to break big projects down into smaller steps which makes goals easier to pace and gives your brain bite-sized, “incremental wins and feelings of accomplishment.” Learn more ways to work with this adaptation in the full post here.

**For more on a small-steps approach to bigger wins, explore the incremental six-step Blueprint process for getting unstuck, maximizing your impact, and transforming your life.

Leaders, Lower Your Guard

“Telling personal stories helps lead to more trust in relationships,” reports this Harvard Business Review article that encourages leaders to share more of themselves with their team. Research shows that three key drivers of trust are “authenticity, logic, and empathy,” and we “tend to trust people who we believe are acting as their real selves.” You can tap into this desire for “realness” and build increasing trust with your constituents if you lower your guard and tell people who you really are. This ability to add “humanity” to your presentations and to connect more personally with others is a learnable skill. Find four tips you can put to work right away in the full article here.

**Explore one powerful practice for sharing more of yourself with employees in our post from the archives on ‘Declaring Yourself.'”

Insights & Resources from ConantLeadership

Leadership Assessment Take our FREE leadership competence quiz and learn how you stack up on the ‘3Qs’—Leadership FQ (Functional Intelligence); Leadership IQ (Intellectual Intelligence); and Leadership EQ (Emotional Intelligence). Quiz: https://start.conantleadership.com/leadership-assessment/

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August’s Leadership That Works Newsletter

About the Author: Amy Federman is ConantLeadership’s Director of Content and Editor in Chief and co-author with Doug Conant of the WSJ bestseller, The Blueprint.

(Cover Photo by ANIRUDH on Unsplash)