THE ONE THING

1. Keep Leadership Simple, Stupid

Research from Monash University analyzing 4,000 leaders across five countries has highlighted the following: most leadership styles are basically the same thing wearing different hats.

The study found that transformational, authentic, and ethical leadership share "substantial overlap. " This means that we've been overcomplicating leadership for years.

The real key? Strong leader-follower relationships.

As Associate Professor Nathan Eva put it: "Our findings show that follower perceptions and affect toward their leader play a central role in determining leadership effectiveness. Leadership is as much about relationships as it is about behaviors."

The takeaway

Stop chasing every new leadership framework. Focus on building trust, collaboration, and genuine connections with your team members.

The research proves that relationship quality beats style complexity every time.

INSIGHTFUL THOUGHTS

2. How to Lead Across Cultures

I first learned about the concept of the Power Distance Index (PDI) from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers. It’s a concept that helps explain how power and authority are distributed and perceived in different cultures.

• High PDI cultures (e.g., South Korea & Columbia) tend to emphasize strict hierarchy and deferential attitudes toward authority, where subordinates may hesitate to challenge or question those in power.

• Low PDI cultures (e.g., USA & Sweden) promote egalitarianism, open communication, and a more collaborative approach to authority.

How important is this in team settings? Important enough that it causes airplane crashes.

In some cases, copilots from high PDI cultures used indirect language to point out critical problems because they didn’t want to disrespect the captain.

Here’s Gladwell giving a 45-second overview of this concept (skip to the 1-minute mark):

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WORDS I LIKE

4. Being Concise Takes Time & Effort

THE 80/20

5. An 80/20 Tip You Can Apply Today

Here’s a low-effort, high-impact tip you can use with your team today:

• What: Assign tasks in emails using the “3Ws.”

• Why: The “3Ws” stand for: Who, What, and When, and they drastically reduce the chance of miscommunication when you use them in your task assignments.

• Example: Instead of “Please update the attachment,” try “John - Please update slides 4 and 5 of the attached PowerPoint presentation and send me the revised version by Thursday, July 16, at 1:00 pm US Eastern Time.”