25 Leadership Blogs You Could Write Today (with 5 bonus tips!)

Blogging is a great way for leaders to communicate with employees. It fosters community, conversation, learning, and relationships that cross the org chart. If you’re stuck on “What do I write about?” here are a few suggestions.

1. Include a link to an interesting news or business article that you read, and share your own perspective on it.
2. Did you recently go to a conference or seminar? Share highlights of what you learned.
3. Share career advice with employees who aspire to your role.
4. Share career advice you wish someone had given you.
5. Write about the best mentor, leader, or teacher that you ever had.
6. Write about the worst day you ever had at work, and what you learned from it.
7. Is this the career you planned to be in, or are you surprised by where you ended up? Discuss.
8. Write a “day in the life” journal of either a typical day, or a unique one.
9. Write about how one of your hobbies or outside interests (sports, family, gardening, etc.) has shaped your professional perspective.
10. Give your own take on a broad business topic, e.g., customer service, personal accountability, planning, time management.
11. Take one of your organization’s values or principles and explain what it means to you. Depending on how many values your company has, this could be a series of multiple blogs.
12. Tell us how you do that thing that makes others ask, “How did you do that?”
13. Share the most important things you learned in college or graduate school, now that you’re X years after graduation.
14. Compare and contrast: What you thought effective leadership was at the beginning of your career, versus what you value today.
15. Share the spotlight: Celebrate the success of a team or work group by telling their story.
16. Make a list, e.g.: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Me, 5 Mistakes New Leaders Often Make, or 7 Tips for Presenting to Executives.
17. Visit one of your company’s stores or branches where you don’t know anybody, or call the service center. Write about your experience from a customer’s perspective. (Only mention employees by name if your feedback is positive)
18. Do the above, but with a competitor.
19. Test-drive a new technology, such as Google Glass or 3D printing, and write about your experience.
20. Compile a list of the mobile apps that you can’t live without.
21. List 3-5 books that greatly influenced you, and explain why.
22. Share your goals (personal, professional, or both) for a specific future timeframe – 3 months, 1 year, 10 years.
23. Write a “Throwback Thursday” entry – Tell us about something interesting that happened to you a long time ago.
24. Is this your first blog? Acknowledge your newness and tell your readers why you decided to start blogging, and how it feels to be putting your words out in this format for the first time.
25. Turn it around: Pose a question you find interesting, invite readers to answer in the comments, then join in the conversation by commenting on your own blog.

#170024763 / gettyimages.com

5 Bonus Tips!

• The tone of your blog should be conversational, friendly, and sincere. Write in the same voice you would address your employees in a meeting or via email.
• Even if you’re brand new to this, you already have the skills to do it well. If you can write a clear email or present before a group in a meeting, you’re over halfway to a great blog.
• Break up your text visually with frequent paragraph breaks, subsections, bulleted lists, or (better yet!) photos. Big text blocks are ugly and hard to read.
• Personal stories are always more interesting than vague platitudes.
• Vulnerability is the new black for leaders.

Do's and Don'ts of Communicating Organizational Change

For the last few months, my organization has been changing. I have a new leader, I'll soon have some new employees. I've been through more org changes than I can count on my fingers, but this is my first as a leader, and the best one yet. I'm not steering the ship - I'm one of those org chart boxes in the middle - but I've learned a few things that I would like to pass on to other leaders and communicators.


When planning an organizational change:

Don't take the surprise party approach. It never works. Employees can smell change in the air, and they notice when certain leaders start having long meetings with Human Resources in conference rooms. It breeds suspicion and fear. Instead, be transparent: "We're looking at our team's structure to see if it's the best approach." Chances are, your employees have already noticed that your department might benefit from some shuffling, and they may have some useful feedback or suggestions.

Do make space to dream. When we first found out that we would be reporting to a new leader and that our roles would be changing, I started by having a lengthy conversation with my employees about our team's work. What was working well? What needed attention? What would they do completely differently if we could start from scratch? These conversations are inspiring and energizing. 

Do ask your people what they want. I manage a small team, and I feel like I know each of my employees well: their strengths, their interests, their career aspirations. We talk about these topics at annual reviews, at goal-setting sessions, and regularly at our 1:1s. However, an org change can stir up new ideas and interests. It's worth asking questions like "What do you most enjoy doing?" and "Where would you like to go next?" even if you think you know the answer.

Don't lie to people. I was once in a conference room, listening to a HR manager explain a new organizational structure. She said, "This is not a RIF" (our internal acronym for Reduction in Force). The problem was, the PowerPoint document on her screen - which was projected for everyone in the room to see - was titled with the name of our department and the acronym "RIF." My job was officially eliminated a few weeks later.


When announcing a decision:

Do tell the affected people as soon as possible. The people most affected by an org change are the ones who are getting new managers, new job titles, or new teammates. Or, of course, severance packages. Once a decision has been made, they should be the first to know. The rest of the "FYI" list can wait. There's nothing worse than finding out about your own career change through the office grapevine.

Do follow a communication plan with clear dates, time of day, and order of notifications. During a layoff at another company, the telecom team shut off voice mail and extensions for terminated employees before HR had the conversation with the affected people. Nobody knew why certain coworkers' extensions were showing as "vacant" - until an hour later, when everybody knew. Time of day matters.

Do bring people together as humans. Shortly after I found out I had a new leader, he invited me to lunch. A few days later, he invited our entire local team to a hockey game. These little gestures went a long way to alleviating my fear of the unknown. Nobody wants to report to an unfamiliar name on the org chart. If you're inheriting new employees, get to know them in a friendly, low-key setting as quickly as possible. If those employees are spread across different offices, invest in the travel if at all humanly possible.


When you don't know any more about what's going on than your employees do:

Don't be Chicken Little. Leaders set the tone. Don't tell everyone that the sky is falling or the department is crumbling, even if you sometimes fear that it is. Remind yourself and your employees: You're smart, you're skilled at what you do, and the best thing you can do each day is show up and shine your brightest and embrace the opportunities around the corner.

Don't make it all about yourself. A friend found out on a Thursday afternoon that half of her team was laid off. When she returned to work on Friday morning, her manager wasn't there. The manager still had a job, but she had spent the morning exercising with her personal trainer and getting a massage. She was so tense, she explained to her employees when she arrived two hours late. So were they, and the support and reassurance of their leader would have gone a long way.

Do acknowledge the emotions that it stirs up. Even a re-organization with no layoffs, no budget cuts, and great opportunities for everybody is still incredibly emotional. Your employees have been working for a boss they know, doing a familiar job, and suddenly everything is thrown into chaos. There's the uncertainty of adapting to a new leader and new coworkers, the merging of different teams' processes and cultures, and often an insecurity about where they will fit in the new world order. For some people, it's an exhilarating time of opportunity. For others, it's a terrifying loss of control. Often, it's both. Acknowledge this. Let your employees know that it's perfectly normal to grieve for the old way, and to be apprehensive about the new one. Soon, the new way will become familiar, and you'll wonder how you ever worked any differently.

Do embrace the positive. Change can be scary, but change can be wonderful. It's a catalyst for creativity. Things that were previously too difficult suddenly become possible. It can bring clarity and insight. It can bust you out of a rut and turn you into a better, braver version of yourself.

The best thing about change is that it always, always teaches us something. I'm here, excited, and ready to learn.

This wasn't in the course catalog: A lesson about feedback and failure

It was an embarrassment to the university, a sad omen for the future of corporate America. Those were perhaps the gentlest words that my professor used.

In the last year of my MBA program, I took a logistics seminar that felt easy. There were no quizzes or homework assignments. The lectures were loose and breezy, full of the professor's anecdotes about his consulting experiences. Our entire grade was based on two group projects, the first of which was to analyze a local company's supply chain.

My academic strategy involved waiting until the night before something was due, panicking, pulling an all-nighter, cranking out a few pages of stream-of-consciousness writing that I'd be too embarrassed to re-read later, and earning a B, or an A- if I was lucky.

My group included two guys like me: deadline driven (i.e., procrastinating), busy people with full-time jobs and a heavy courseload. One of them even had a kid. We split out the work: one guy would research shipping costs and times, I'd build a database to compare vendors and track the inventory, and our third teammate would work on our presentation. Divide and conquer. Easy. Done.

The day of our presentation, I arrived at class an hour early to meet my group, my data sheets still warm from the office printer, ready for that heroic feeling of delivering in the nick of time. My teammate said there was no PowerPoint, he had been busy, but he could wing it. He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. It was titled "Things to talk about" with a few messily scrawled bullet points below.

What followed was the longest class of my academic career. For 5 hours, we watched each group present their supply chain recommendations to the local business owners and the professor. Mostly, they were the type of lightweight, surface-skimming presentations I had seen at work, at conferences, and in other business classes. Only this time, instead of the polite acknowledgement I was used to, the professor ripped them to shreds. He asked detailed questions and watched the students falter. He told them their presentations were boring, shallow, obviously thrown together at the last minute.

We went last. I nervously rambled through my database, and it was obvious I didn't really understand the data. When my teammate produced "Things to talk about" and started rambling, the professor interrupted us.

"That was the stupidest thing I have ever heard," he said. "Sit down. Your paper had better be f*ing brilliant."

Paper? We were supposed to write a paper?

The professor apologized to the business owner for wasting her time, excused her, and delivered an impassioned, obscenity-laden admonishment to us. Several students, myself included, were in tears by the end. I jotted down every insult and swear word so I could prepare a letter to the dean the next morning.

My first reaction was outrage. How could he talk to his students like this? Where was his professionalism? If every group failed, then didn't he share some accountability? The assignment wasn't clearly written, there weren't enough checkpoints, and the lectures didn't tie to the project.

The other feeling, the one that took longer to surface, was my knowledge that he was right. We had blown off the assignment. As MBA students, we should have had the intelligence to dive deep into the subject matter, the discipline to produce high-quality work in a loosely structured course, and the leadership skills to collaborate and hold our teammates accountable.

He let us redo the assignment. I set aside the database and volunteered for the part of the project that aligned with my strengths: I wrote the paper. And I wrote the hell out of that thing. I compiled my teammates’ detailed research, I did multiple revisions, I sent it to my team a week before the due date, I even made my husband read it as an objective third party. He needed a glass of scotch to get through it - well-written or not, supply chain management just isn't that fun to read about.

On a Saturday morning, we took another shot at our presentation. We had collaborated on the slides and practiced beforehand. We stood in front of the class and confidently shared our knowledge. We answered the professor's tough questions. We got an A. We immediately got to work on our final project and got an A on that, too.

I don't remember much about logistics, but I remember exactly what it felt like to be called out for performing below my potential. It was humiliating and it was physically uncomfortable (I can pinpoint the spot in my abdomen where I felt the shame) and it motivated me to do and be better. If he had politely applauded our presentation and given us a B-, we might have turned up our effort a little bit for the final, but probably not by much.

My professor gave me a gift wrapped in a rough, ugly package. He showed me the power of honest, critical feedback.

The hardest part of receiving feedback is rising above our natural, defensive reaction to criticism. If the criticism is delivered poorly - as it was in my classroom - it's easy to demonize the person who delivered it and brush it off altogether. We frame it as an either/or proposition: He was rude, and therefore his criticism of me was unwarranted. More often, it's both/and: He was rude, and I did a poor job on the assignment.

I wish I could say that I never procrastinated another assignment, or that I became a maestro of group work and team projects. It's not true. My professor shined a harsh, glaring light on a piece of myself that I am still working on, 10 years later.

This, I learned: Applauding and accepting mediocre work perpetuates it. Giving honest feedback in a respectful way is a skill that every leader must hone. And, if a message is so hard to hear that it hits me in the stomach, I best sit up and pay attention – because there’s something valuable in there.

5 New(ish) Communication Skills Leaders Need

“I’ll never use Facebook. Forget Linked In; that’s why I have a Rolodex. The symbol # is called pound, and it’s a button on my phone – which is plugged into my wall.”

If this sounds like you, I have some bad news and some good news.

The bad news is, social media isn’t a trend you’ll be able to wait out. In 10 years, Facebook may look as dated as a pair of acid wash jeans, but the concept of being in simultaneous conversation with just about everyone you know – that idea is significantly, permanently changing the way human beings relate to the world and one another. Leading employees in this world requires us to strengthen and practice a new set of communication skills.

The good news is, you can develop these skills without sending a single tweet.

1. Do dialogue well.

Meetings make us worse at dialogue. In a crowded meeting room, time is limited, and the ideas that prevail are the ones that get spoken aloud before moving to the next agenda topic. Traditional business meetings condition us to await our turn to speak, rather than to listen with an open mind.

Dialogue is fluid, collaborative, and open-ended. With online dialogue, there are no limits to how long your conversation can last and how many voices can be heard. You can comment on a blog written four years ago. In discussion forums, "off-topic" threads tend to be the most lively. Respect this openness and resist the urge to control every conversation or spin it back to a pre-formulated agenda. Creative ideas and surprising connections often come from unstructured conversations.


2. Make feedback a daily habit.

We live in a world where people are accustomed to giving and hearing immediate feedback on matters large and small. On Twitter, people constantly and instantly share their opinions about everything from Congressional decisions to new flavors of potato chips. On Facebook, we post a photo or status update and wait for the comments and “Likes” to roll in.

It’s unrealistic and unfair to expect our employees to only give and receive feedback about their jobs once a year. While annual reviews and surveys are useful tools, conversations about job performance and work environment need to be ongoing. Facebook asks its users “What’s on your mind?” every day. Your employees deserve the same courtesy from you.


3. Be succinct.

Twitter’s magic is brevity. Whether or not you tweet, practice distilling important messages into 140 characters for impact and clarity.


4. Respect communication styles and preferences.

Quick: Identify the introverts and extraverts on your team. Can you do it?

Introverts tend to develop their best ideas through quiet reflection, while extraverts draw energy from social interactions and prefer to “think aloud.” Some people straddle the middle ground, but most of us have a dominant style. If you're unfamiliar with introversion, listen to this TED talk for an insightful explanation.

Engage your team in a variety of ways to let the different styles shine. Use brainstorming meetings to engage extraverts, but send out the materials ahead of time or keep a discussion forum going afterward so that introverts have time to process and analyze the data before responding.


5. Know which tool to use for maximum impact.

Not every message is best expressed via email. I recently blogged about how to choose among the tools in our toolbox. As online communication evolves, we’re likely to see new tools added and refined.

Also, find out the preferred communication tool for each of your employees. Some people appreciate the speed and simplicity of instant messenger, while others find it intrusive. Some people love to talk on the phone, while others order their pizzas online. With more tools than ever, there are more ways to perfectly reach the people with whom you communicate.

Even if your phone is still plugged into a wall.

Get out of the trenches and off of the field

Who doesn't love a metaphor? Leadership trainings, business meetings, and strategic plans are rife with them. On one recent project, my team and I were cleaning closets, catching fish, moving buckets, and building sheds - all without leaving our desks.

I love metaphors as much as the next organizational geek, but there are two metaphors that I do not love:

War and sports.

They're almost cliche by now, and yet I still hear leaders using them. Customer service agents are "down in the trenches." Teams make decisions "at the buzzer." Ambitious goals are "half court shots."

The metaphors we choose, especially when we talk about leadership and strategy, resonate deeply within our organizations. They anchor abstract concepts to concrete images. They give people a vivid common language to talk about changes, decisions, and actions. They shape our understanding of the organization and our role within it. Many of us use war and sports terminology without pondering these implications, and so I'm asking you to stop and think: Do you really want your organization to resemble either of these things?

War and sports have masculine connotations. While there are many female soldiers and professional athletes, those women have had to overcome gender barriers and deep cultural assumptions. Whether the organizational "glass ceiling" has been broken or not, these metaphors can be loaded for some employees. Even if you don't intend to portray an "old boys' club" mentality, some employees may hear that message as an unwanted subtext of your metaphor.

War and sports have clearly defined winners and losers. War and sports are great examples of teamwork in real life. This is one of the reasons they are so appealing to managers. Individuals pool their best effort together for a single goal: to defeat another group of individuals trying to do the same thing. However, if your technical writers are the Minnesota Vikings, then who are the Green Bay Packers? The art department? HR?

War and sports have singular objectives. Winning on the battlefield or the football field is clear cut and easy to measure. Winning in business is muddier, more complex, and wrought with delays and downstream implications. If you launched your product on time, or had a profitable third quarter, that does not mean that you won the game.

War and sports have stopping points. Organizations do not. Or so we hope.


What type of metaphors should we use instead?

I like metaphors from nature, since they are gender neutral, acknowledge complexity, and affirm life and harmony.

I think the best leaders are those who can see the forest and the trees, while acknowledging the root systems, soil structures, and growth patterns of their organizations. They consider that even the smallest change can impact the entire ecosystem for years to come. While they are keenly aware of their own influence on the forest, they also know that the only way to exert complete control over a living system is to destroy it.

6 Myths of Motivation

Positive reinforcement is a touchy-feely approach to management. As long as it is used appropriately, positive reinforcement is the most powerful tool a manager can wield. It is not about giving compliments or gifts to everybody, turning a blind eye to poor performance, or making everyone happy at the same time. The strongest leaders use positive reinforcement and use it with precision.

I can't motivate anyone; motivation comes from within. Since motivation differs from person to person, it's easy to think we can't control it. In fact, the reason some people consistently perform at high levels is because of reinforcement they've received in the past: from parents, teachers, former and current bosses. Ignore these people for long enough, and they'll eventually stop performing. The same is true for poor performers: Experience tells them that extra effort is not worthwhile. Prove them wrong with sustained positive reinforcement.

It's their job; it's what they're paid for. I shouldn't have to motivate them. If all you want from your employees is the minimum effort required to keep their jobs, then this approach works just fine. But if the only available reinforcement is not getting fired, don't expect any extra effort. People are smart and, once they have met your minimum requirements, they will apply their spare energy and effort to tasks with worthwhile consequences.

If I give too much positive reinforcement, people will become complacent. Actually, the opposite is true. When people receive positive reinforcement, they will repeat that behavior in hope of more reinforcement. They will also try to do better each time. This is how people develop passions. A corollary of this myth is that positive feedback should include suggestions for improvement. At best, this neutralizes the positive message. At worst, employees only perceive the negative.

If I give too much positive reinforcement, people will expect it each time. This can occur, but not because of too much reinforcement. Common mistakes: The same tangible rewards are used too often, rewards are given indiscriminately, or rewards are given on a constant schedule. To avoid this, always make it clear what you are reinforcing, vary your tangible rewards, and remember that people never get tired of social reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement needs to be tangible. In fact, social reinforcement is more powerful, and it costs nothing to give. Tangible rewards have benefits too: They can serve as a lasting reminder of an accomplishment. Just make sure you choose tangible rewards that people actually like (hint: money doesn't have the same impact on everyone). Combine social and tangible for the biggest impact.

Cognitive Dissonance and Employee Motivaton

Even if you've never heard of cognitive dissonance, you're already familiar with the concept.

It's what happens when you experience something that just doesn't fit with your ideas or beliefs.

Imagine that you spent your life savings on a custom-built dream house. After moving in, you realize that the kitchen layout is awkward, the gorgeous bathroom tile you picked out is too cold for your feet, and morning traffic has tripled the length of your commute.

Cognitive dissonance is the difference between your expectations and your actual experience. Nobody can live like this for long. You have two options:

1. Abandon your original vision of the dream house and stick a "For Sale" sign on the lawn.

2. Change your behaviors (cook more efficiently, wear slippers in the bathroom, leave for work an hour earlier) so that your actual experience matches your original dream house vision.

Unless the house is ridiculously defective, most people will choose option 2. They will also rationalize their behavior ("I love being a morning person!") and not even notice that they have changed themselves in the process.

So, what does any of this have to do with employee motivation?

Cognitive dissonance is usually an internal, individual experience. But what if there is dissonance between two people, an employee and a manager?

Favorable Dissonance

When I started my job as a payroll tax representative, I was a 22-year-old, clueless, recovering journalist who (in my own mind) had no business filing anybody's tax returns.

However, I had a boss who seemed to think I was the most brilliant tax representative she had ever met. She signed me up for projects, enlisted my help with presentations to upper management, and assured me that, someday soon, I would make a great supervisor.

My manager's expectations of me were higher than my own. Dissonance. I had to resolve it. I could either convince her that she had overestimated me, or I could rise to the occasion and be the employee she already thought I was.

Most people will resolve cognitive dissonance in the way that it most beneficial to themselves. It's not a bad thing. It's our self-preservation instinct.

I couldn't stand the thought of disappointing my boss, so I jumped in. I worked harder. I signed up for classes outside of work. I forgot that payroll wasn't a field that originally interested me. I filled in the gaps between my boss's perception and my version of reality.

I was so motivated that I didn't even notice the changes in myself. That is, until I was promoted to supervisor and decided it was time to create the same experience for others.

Unfavorable Dissonance

Manager/employee dissonance is as strong as a weapon. It can spark an employee's best performance, or it can destroy it in one fell swoop.

Imagine working for a boss who is oblivious to your skills and potential. Maybe it's not even your direct boss, but someone up the corporate ladder has decided that you're lazy, have a bad attitude, or are just plain mediocre.

At first, you might scramble to make your talents known. You might speak up in meetings, volunteer for extra assignments, do anything you can to get on the manager's good side.

Sometimes, that just doesn't work. Sometimes, it backfires. Some managers look down on employees who appear too ambitious - even though those employees are just trying to resolve a very real and reasonable dissonance.

When you're stuck with unfavorable dissonance, there are, again, two choices. You can dismiss your boss's opinion as entirely irrelevant (this usually requires finding a new boss), or you can allow your own performance to slide until it matches his or her perception. If your boss already thinks you're lazy, why not buy housewares on e-Bay or sneak out early on Friday?

Bridging the Gap

In an ideal world, managers would hand-pick their teams and only select employees for whom they felt favorable dissonance, or no dissonance at all.

Unfortunately, corporate restructurings and organizational changes are a fact of life, and managers seldom choose all of their subordinates. As a result, many employees languish in situations of unfavorable dissonance, watching their own motivation decline until their actual performance matches the low standards (unknowingly) set by their managers.

How can an organization reap the motivation that comes from favorable cognitive dissonance?

1. Acknowledge the inevitability of bias and dissonance in management. Many managers claim to treat every employee equally, even though this is practically impossible. Policies can be administered equally, but the nuances of manager-employee relationships always contain subjectivity. They are, after all, human relationships.

2. Promote managers who tend to see the best in others. For some people, this is a natural gift. For others, it is a skill that can be learned. It is a core leadership competency that should be considered in both hiring and training leaders.

3. Change the relationship before giving up on the person. Employees who struggle with one manager are often "black-listed," stuck in their position until they either quit or get fired for poor performance. Before punishing an employee, try pairing that person with a new manager or mentor who might have a favorable dissonance effect. Remember to pay attention not only to immediate employee/manager relationships, but also to managers higher up the corporate ladder.

4. Create a culture in which it is acceptable to talk about dissonance. This is the bookend to Step One. Now that you have acknowledged that employee/manager relationships are inevitably biased, and that motivation comes from favorable dissonance, teach your employees what you have learned. Make self-evaluations and open discussions about manager and employee perceptions part of your corporate culture. It's a big change for many organizations, but one that's worth making.