""It is extraordinarily difficult to be brave right now for a lot of different reasons," Brown said. "Politics is one, but [also] radically changing markets. A workforce that is-I'm going to tell you right now, people are not okay. If you're leading people, you probably know people are not okay.""
"People are neurologically wired for certainty, not for a high level of stress, fear, and uncertainty, Brown said. Successful leadership at work today requires self awareness, managing one's nervous system, metacognition (or thinking about how we think), and the ability to slow down decision making to stay aligned with mission and values."
"Still, "we're s*** at being deeply human right now," Brown said. "We can't stand each other.""
"And Brown said we're not good at them for a "very serious reason:" we're too attuned to the leadership principles of Jack Welch. The late former General Electric chairman and CEO taught that human qualities are liabilities to performance. Brown argued that this advice, which was adopted by many Fortune 500 companies, no longer holds true in today's complex and uncertain world."
Human nervous systems are poorly adapted to prolonged uncertainty, stress, and fear. Bravery is unusually difficult amid political turmoil, rapidly changing markets, and a workforce experiencing widespread distress. Effective contemporary leadership requires self-awareness, nervous-system regulation, metacognition, and intentional slowing of decisions to maintain alignment with mission and values. Many uniquely human skills remain beyond AI replication, yet people currently struggle with empathy and connection. Legacy management doctrines that portray human traits as performance liabilities, including rank-based vitality curves, undermine the vulnerability, authenticity, and emotional intelligence demanded by today's workforce.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]