From Jogging Therapy To Micromanaging: This Week’s Top Leadership Stories
This week, we explored how stress can turn you into an unpleasant and unhelpful micromanager, why you should watch your pronouns when you’re on a job interview, and how one Fast Company writer fared when she attended a therapy session that involved running alongside her therapist.
These are the stories you loved in Leadership for the week of October 16:
1. In Jogging Therapy, You Can’t Run From Your Feelings
Therapy is awkward, and psychotherapist Sepideh Serami wants to make it less so. How? By inviting her clients to run with her as they dish on their troubles. Fast Company’s Rina Raphael laced up her running shoes to give it a try. Serami says her unorthodox approach to talk therapy is gaining a steady following of overachievers and entrepreneurs, and this week Raphael got a firsthand look at why.
2. Stress Is Making You Micromanage, Which Is Making Everything Worse
When you’re feeling like you’re losing control, it’s natural to tighten your grip on things. If you’re a manager, perhaps you’re hovering over your teams more than usual, asking them for dozens of updates. You might tell yourself it’s just for your peace of mind, but chances are it’s fraying your nerves even worse than before. This week we learned how stress can lead to micromanaging, and what it takes to break the vicious cycle that exacerbates those work pressures.
3. Why Using These Pronouns In An Interview Could Cost You The Job
A hiring manager has just asked you about your experience, and you think you can nail your answer. But before diving into it, think carefully about how to use key pronouns like “we,” “us,” “them,” and “they” when discussing your current employer’s mission. This week we learned why, according to one CEO, those four terms aren’t all created equal. As he sees it, candidates who overuse “them” and “they” “may not be a very engaged employee, or that they have little passion for their job.”
4. How Data Can Save Us From The Trumpocalypse
From Puerto Rico’s humanitarian crisis to First Amendment threats, political scholar Sarah Kendzior diagnoses at the highest reaches of American government, based on the pages she says President Trump seems to have ripped from the autocratic playbook. But Kendzior argues that data and transparency can help mitigate that thread. As she wrote this week, “one cannot solve a crisis without confronting it–but one cannot confront a crisis if proof of its existence is censored or warnings of its severity are waved away.”
5. A LinkedIn Leader’s Top Career Lessons To Learn Earlier
When it comes to career lessons, there are some that you just have to learn by experience. For Tey Scott, director of global talent acquisition at LinkedIn, a crucial one is knowing how to play the long game while the near-term one unfolds simultaneously. One of Scott’s key suggestions for keeping those two in balance, starting as soon as you enter the workforce? Your job title should never be the benchmark for your happiness.
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