Hidden possibilities.
Leaders must navigate anxious moments, in themselves and in their teams. Anxiety is abundant. And it is exhausting, with the ancient programming of the human body perhaps taking us to all the wrong places because we are on heightened alert, thanks to what often feels like a world gone mad. Still, we are better equipped than we have been over the centuries. Anxiety is just another factor of the complexity we juggle every day. Let's make it easy on the leaders by blocking all the silly sensory triggers that mean nothing to performance and progress.
A Friendly Call. William Merritt Chase. 1895. Oil on canvas. Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art.
7 character traits of leaders worth following
Mukesh Gupta: all of these characteristics are connected to one another. They are all like a spider web. If a few of these are strong and the others weak, the web doesn’t work well. For the web to be strong and do what it is designed to do, all the areas need to be equally good. Good leaders have a few of these characteristics. Great leaders develop all of them and the wisdom to know when to deploy which characteristic to ensure that they are able to deliver the results that they are expected to deliver.
Mildred Blount: Milliner to the stars
Sandy Levins: She also developed custom fabrics and colors, along with innovative stiffening and dyeing techniques that turned linen into shimmering straw-like creations. Some of her hats, sold with matching gloves and scarves, even had detachable and reversible brims. She once remarked, “my desire to do this work is first of all to acquaint all who see it with the hidden possibilities of women.”
Where clinical psychology and neuroscience converge
Dr. Pearl Chiu: Stay curious. Stay skeptical. Develop good instincts and follow them. And lift each other up. It’s hard enough to succeed without adding unnecessary negativity. I also tell students that the best way to learn is to do. Go beyond the textbooks. Work with real data, make mistakes, and find your mistakes so you learn from them. Making progress in science is about trial and error and constantly learning new skills.
Style vs. fashion
Habitually Chic: I recently read the following in a New Yorker article about Larry Gagosian, “In 1984, the cantankerous art critic Robert Hughes bemoaned the new generation of art collectors: ‘Most of the time, they buy what other people buy. They move in great schools, like bluefish, all identical’.” This could very well describe most fashion influencers today.