Up & to the Right

Hello, hello! Welcome to all the new subscribers who have joined since the last issue. You are now on a journey with hundreds of others who are intensely curious about effective leadership. I have absolutely no basis to make this claim (but I will anyway 😜): this is the only newsletter in the world that will make you a better leader in 10 minutes. 💪 (total flex)

As I work to find more people interested in developing their leadership skills along with us, I'd really appreciate you sharing this newsletter! You can do so by simply forwarding this email to anyone in your network that you deem worthy to be among this elite community (i.e. you think would like the content).

And, If this was forwarded to you and you are all, "heck yeah, I'm worthy" - come join the party! We'd love to have you. Just click this button 👇

Ok, ok, let's get to the main event. I recently had the great opportunity to talk all things leadership with David Morris, COO of NeoInsulation (). David’s path to the COO role was full of what he calls,”left turns”.

A developmental psychology major in college he thought he would be a therapist but his path to date has never included that role. He has, however, been a bagel baker, a recruiter for a start-up, a not-for-profit leader, spent time in learning and development for a Fortune 500 company, and was a strategy consultant among other things.

Learning from the best: David Morris

In traditional Up and to the Right fashion, we got right to tactical ways to become a better leader and David did not disappoint.

Here are some of David’s most valuable leadership lessons-learned:

1. Be open to the opportunities to grow 🚨. Growth comes from putting yourself out of your comfort zone and growing with your role. When a company he worked for was acquired, he moved to a smaller organization where his initial job was technical training but as he says, “I kept being given more and more responsibilities including process improvement, the HR function, the broader L&D function, fleet management, field quality, and quality management. I ended up having six or seven different groups of people reporting to me. I got such a breadth of experience managing different functions and different types of teams that it shaped my approach to leadership going forward.”

2. Always try to be the best at your role (no matter what that role is) 🔥. Even when David wasn’t in the role of his dreams, he approached every role as an opportunity to be the very best X he could be (insert bagel baker, technical trainer, or recruiter). He cautions to look at new challenges from multiple perspectives so as to not overlook anything important, and then advises doubling down and learning all aspects of the role. Striving to be the best you can be at whatever it is that you are currently doing will both be satisfying personally and lead to more opportunities.

3. Smile 😎. It is really easy to forget that as a leader, you will have a different impact on the people around you. If you’re walking down the hall and pass someone with a scowl on your face, they may spend the rest of the day wondering what they did to make you mad. This is true even if you are just thinking about the load of laundry you have to do at home. There is almost a sacred nature to being in a leadership role, says David. Remember and respect that you are having an impact on people’s sense of self, their enjoyment of work, sense of accomplishment, and confidence. So smile.

4. Make your expectations crystal clear 💡. When problems arise with a team member and you can feel yourself getting frustrated, David advises asking yourself if you have made your expectations crystal clear. He says “Until I have been clear with my expectations, their performance is on me but once I have been clear with my expectation, their performance is on them.”

As we wrapped up the conversation, David mentioned that he believes “leadership requires the ability to truly appreciate others. You can’t see people as impediments to achieving your goals, but as wonderful and necessary to the process of achieving and exceeding those goals.”

Well said, David, well said!

Lead on,