SkillInside

Hey, introverts! Stop trying to become an extrovert. Embrace your unique and successful qualities. I just finished reading,  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking , and one of the key messages was to stop forcing yourself to be different by emulating extroverts. In the book, author Susan Cain describes how our culture has undervalued introverts and why that is a mistake and a “colossal waste of talent, energy and happiness.” Did you know that nearly  one-third  of us are introverts? Introverts (I’m one of you) get energized by having alone time, while extroverts get motivated from social settings. It doesn’t mean that introverts can’t be successful. In fact, the list of successful introverts is long: Michael Jordan, J.K. Rowling, Christina Aguilera, Bill Gates, President Obama, Emma Watson and more. Here are 10 habits of successful introverts that I hope can help give you the confidence you need to be yourself. Build deep relationsh...

It’s good to be smart. After all, intelligent people earn more money, accumulate more wealth, and even live longer. On the surface, being smart looks like easy living. But there’s another side to the story. Intelligent people have a reputation for making dumb mistakes, especially in situations that require common sense. The simplicity of these situations and the abundant intelligence of those who tend to muck them up can be downright comical. “Common sense is not so common.” -Voltaire After decades of research, scientists are finally beginning to understand why this happens. Shane Frederick at Yale University was among the first to conduct research that explained why rational thinking and intelligence don’t tend to go hand in hand. In his studies, Frederick gave people simple problems to solve, like this one: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? Frederick found that some people have the tend...

Organizational changes are becoming increasingly commonplace and  frequent in today's dynamic business environment. Driven by mergers, acquisitions or internal restructurings, they bring about a period of change accompanied by uncertainty. Having gone through some such experiences, I have often found myself reflecting on how I responded to the challenges; what I did well and what could I have done better. My failures in some situations have been important developmental milestones in my career. Through all these experiences, I can think of sharing the following 5 key takeaways on managing organizational change and uncertainty: 1) Operating within your circle of influence : During periods of organizational change, there are many things that are happening that you know will impact you or your position, but most of them are just way beyond your influence. You spend hours fretting over the uncertainty, listen to the grapevine, trying to get the latest version of the imp...

No doubt feedback is essential in your career development & growth cycle. Actually; feedback serves as the oxygen towards your career growth since you have limited own resources of judgment on self-competencies. Most of the time your judgment on yourself will be inaccurate, biased and will consciously or unconsciously miss the weaknesses and highlight the strengths.  The external feedback is powerful and will mostly come from an observer having a wider angle on yourself than you do have. Recipient of the feedback will identify whether the feedback will be utilized, just considered or may be neglected. The recipient will also encourage or discourage the re-occurrence of feedback cycle! In order to encourage re-occurrence; recipient should consider the feedback as a gift and should acknowledge and thank the sender of this great gift. Seeking feedback from any colleague (either management, peers or subordinates) will be great and will further encourage the feedback...

Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you cultivate your skills of great leadership. If you want to be a great leader who attracts other great people, you first must find great qualities within yourself. But leadership qualities often come as a paradox, packaged along with their contradictions. Here are seven surprising but important traits of great leaders--see which you should be leaning into. 1.     Be strong and vulnerable .  Great leaders need to be strong in their convictions, relentless in their values and passionate in their beliefs. They also need to be vulnerable enough to show their weaknesses and flaws. We cultivate strength when we allow our most vulnerable selves to be seen and known. 2.     Be tender-hearted and tough-minded .  Leadership is a combination of toughness and tenderness; it's a combination of both. A great leader partners a tough mind with a tender heart. Do not mistak...

What's the most important thing a leader can do for the team? Explain to them what the business wants to achieve and why.     A recent  survey conducted by The Harvard Business Review  reveals that autonomy at work (not micromanagement) is the key to employee satisfaction and organizational achievement. It describes this concept as "rebelling," or giving employees the freedom to "deviate from organizational norms, others' actions, or common expectations, to the benefit of the organization." This has been a core value at my company, Wattpad, since we launched a decade ago. We describe this frame of mind as that of a trailblazer. Trailblazers challenge themselves and others to think big and think differently. They are not afraid to lead, or to try something new. This all sounds good on paper, but structure, vision, and process also need to be in place to  run an effective organization . So, the question becomes: How do you creat...

The biggest fallacy that some leaders subscribe to is that intimacy has no place in leadership or business. They subscribe to this fallacy out of fear and a need to protect themselves. They fear that if they become intimate—that is, if they allow their true selves to be revealed to others—they might lose respect, lose their importance, and lose their power. The fallacy of intimacy is that if you don’t engage you won’t get hurt. But life has a way of exposing us, even if we don’t want to be revealed. Every day, in a thousand ways, we disclose ourselves to the people around us—in our teams and organizations, among our peers, and even with our partners. Everything we say and everything we do reveals something about who we are. Even the things we don’t say and the things we don’t do tell others something about us. If you are the kind of leader who is busy building walls and hiding behind masks so you can feel protected, your thinking has one terrible flaw: the things th...