Leadership

In the Appendix of “Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder,” I list my top 10 books on aging, wisdom and longevity, but I’ve read a bunch more since the book launched a year ago. Here’s my top 5 of the past year:

It’s hard to be wise and worried at the same time. Almost all anxiety can be traced to two sources: ambiguity and a perceived lack of influence. I’ve found when anxiety strikes, I create a balance sheet of what I know and what I can influence. Anxiety lurks in the dark, so this balance sheet acts as an illuminating flashlight.

EQ vs. AI. Is it a battle or a partnership? Is emotional intelligence valuable in a world that is increasingly reliant on machine learning? Those were the questions we faced at our AARP #DisruptAging Salon three nights ago in San Francisco. We had 20 MEA alums and several faculty members to help us find the answers.

My favorite business article of 2019 (so far) was in the MIT Sloan Management Review with the same title as this post and the subtitle of “How Management Style Varies With Age.” This is a perfect segue after my riff yesterday about how young founders, who often have deep but narrow technical skills and fresh eyes for disruption, could be paired with seasoned leaders who are usually more adept at interpersonal collaboration and focusing on the big picture.

Wisdom is about pattern recognition. It’s time for investors to recognize a pattern that is destroying value and making a mess of companies. The start-up game isn’t the same as the keep-it-up game. Start-ups are full of idealism and chutzpah, charisma and hubris. But, these blitzkrieg tactics wear thin when the keep-it-up game requires diplomacy with regulators, humility with competitors and clients, empathy with employees, and stamina to run further than a start-up sprint.

Jaws drop when I answer the question, “What’s your favorite leadership book of all-time?” Improbably, I consistently answer, “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. What does this rumination on life inside a Nazi concentration camp written by a psychologist have to do with leadership? Frankl chronicles how meaning can be the fuel for life even in the most challenging of situations. He articulates that character can overcome circumstances, which is an extremely valuable lesson for leaders.