Author: Alexis
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One Step Higher: A Simple Process for Better Business Leadership
This month, let’s dive deeper into a critical dimension of the Emerging Leadership Navigator: the Business Axis. Effective leaders have a clear understanding of their organization, its strategies, and the broader market landscape. Below are 8 essential reflection questions designed to help you enhance your leadership impact. Your Reflection Process: For each question below, follow these four simple but…
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The One Exercise Every Leader Should Do Right Now
This month, I’d like to invite you into a practice that consistently helps leaders and teams clarify their direction, energize their actions, and align around what truly matters: Personal Visioning, inspired by the extraordinary approach developed at Zingerman’s. I was lucky enough to learn about the approach during a ZingTrain session organized by the OpenStack community in…
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We’re living through a transformation, but do we have the tools to make sense of it?
Robb Smith’s paper A Sociology of Big Pictures argues that we’re not just facing a set of isolated crises. We’re navigating a full-blown transformation age. An era where: – Disruption is the default. – Shared meaning is eroding. – We’re flooded with information but starving for clarity. And underneath it all, we face a metacrisis:…
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The Secret to OKRs That Actually Drive Impact
This month, let’s discuss Impact Mapping as the best way to create OKRs. If you’ve ever struggled with setting measurable, outcome-driven objectives, this approach is a game-changer. Too often, teams treat OKRs as just another to-do list—a collection of tasks rather than a framework to drive meaningful change. But what if we shifted the focus? Impact Mapping, created by Gojko…
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The Leadership Power of Recognition: Are You Using It Effectively?
This month, I want to explore a fundamental yet often overlooked aspect of leadership: recognition and its impact on motivation and team dynamics. Inspired by Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis, the concept of recognition strokes helps us understand how the way we acknowledge or critique others influences engagement, trust, and leadership development. The Four Types of Recognition Strokes How we…
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Psychological Safety: The Key to Collaboration and Innovation
This month, we focus on a cornerstone of high-performing teams and transformative leadership: psychological safety. In a world where uncertainty and complexity are the norm, creating environments where individuals feel safe to speak up, take risks, and be themselves is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. Psychological safety, as defined by Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership…
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Optimizing for the Unexpected – Insights from Gojko Adzic on Lizard Optimization
In the latest episode of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, I welcome back Gojko Adzic, renowned software development expert and author of Lizard Optimization. Gojko dives into an engaging discussion about his book, offering practical ways to identify hidden opportunities by paying close attention to unexpected user behavior—what he calls “lizard optimization.” Below, I have…
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Leadership as First-Time Founders with Héloïse Rozès and Nikolai Fomm
In the latest episode of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, I welcome Héloïse Rozès and Nikolai Fomm, co-founders of Corma. They dive into their journey as first-time founders and share invaluable insights into leadership, team dynamics, and startup challenges. Below are key takeaways from this enlightening conversation: Key Learnings: References and Tools Mentioned: Listen to…
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The Future of User Experience with Sebastian Cao
In the latest episode of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, I sat down with Sebastian Cao, a user experience and technology leadership visionary. Sebastian, with experience at Red Hat, Tesla, and a recent teaching role at Stanford, shares insights from his Stanford course on the future of user experience (UX). This episode covers Sebastian’s philosophy…
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Unlocking Growth through Unexpected Insights: A Review of Gojko Adzic’s Lizard Optimization
In his latest book, Lizard Optimization: Unlock Product Growth by Engaging Long-Tail Users, Gojko Adzic presents a framework for identifying and harnessing the potential of long-tail user behavior. Much like his previous works, Gojko takes a fresh, often counter-intuitive approach to product management, making this book a must-read for anyone involved in creating and managing…
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Agile2024: A Week of Insights and Inspiration in Dallas
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending Agile2024, the main conference organized by the Agile Alliance. The event in Dallas was a vibrant gathering of thought leaders, practitioners, and enthusiasts dedicated to building on top of the Agile Manifesto. Throughout the week, I had the opportunity to attend numerous sessions, each offering unique insights…
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Redefining Leadership: A Conversation with Russ Laraway
In the latest episode of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, that was a fantastic pleasure to have Russ Laraway, a distinguished leader with 30 years of operational experience, including roles at Google, Twitter, and as the co-founder of Candor Inc. Russ shares valuable insights from his book, “When They Win, You Win,” and discusses his…
