Lessons from Ed Batista

On Leadership

On the Essence of Leadership: "Great leaders train people to become leaders. I mean ultimately leadership is about accomplishment through others." [1]
The Primary Responsibility of a Leader: "First, do no harm is as important in organizational life as it is in medicine, and any discussion of great leadership should recognize the risks posed by bad leadership." [2]
Embodying the Culture: "Great leaders accept their unique responsibility to embody the culture and walk their talk every day." [3]
The Leader's Symbolic Role: "Leaders operate under a spotlight at all times. Every action they take is scrutinized and measured against their statements—and any gaps between the two are observed carefully (and often held against them)." [3]
Leading vs. Doing: "Great leaders add value by leading, not doing, and focus on motivating, challenging and supporting others." [3]
The Transition to Leading: A transitional phase that I help a lot of leaders navigate through is this period of being the the most technically adept person in a given discipline to a phase in which they're actually adding value not on the basis of their technical expertise... but by uh bringing a group of of technically adept people together and helping them operate as a team ultimately that distinction between leading and doing is how a leader truly helps an organization scale. [3]
On Asking the Right Questions: "What leaders can do is ask the right questions to manage these problems better.” [4]
The Importance of Trust: "If we feel that sense of interpersonal connection, and have a greater sense of social cohesion, there's greater trust." [5]
On Vulnerability in Leadership: "I'm under no illusions about the risks to a leader of being perceived as weak or incapable." [6]
The Dual Role of a Leader: "My job is to actually be a steward of this community and help the best ideas arise from the community. They don't all have to come from me." [1]

On Feedback

Feedback as Data: “Feedback is not a gift. Feedback is data. Signal and noise. Signal – Important and good. Noise – Byproduct of someone's distorted lens.” [2]
The Importance of Non-Defensiveness: "The first thing that comes to mind I would say is non-defensiveness and response to critical feedback." [1]
The Peril of the Compliment Sandwich: “Praise, Criticism, Praise (PCP) is terrible. Don't give the compliment sandwich. It's disingenuous.” [2]
Creating a Feedback-Rich Culture: "We should strive to create a culture in which feedback conversations are less stressful for all members of the organization." [5]
The Power of Positive Feedback: "The importance of providing genuine positive feedback, not just focusing on negative or critical feedback. Positive feedback should be used as a regular part of communication." [2]
Normalizing Feedback: "If 'feedback' is something out-of-the-ordinary that only happens at unusual times (such as a performance review, or when something's gone wrong), it'll never really be an organic part of the organizational culture." [5]
The Leader's Role in Feedback: "As leaders who want to promote a feedback-rich culture, we have to walk the talk every day. Our teams will take their cues from us as to what's acceptable, and if we don't take some risks in this area, they never will." [5]
Balance in Feedback: "We often think that 'better feedback' really means 'honest criticism,' but that's just half the story. The other half is providing truly meaningful positive feedback, which is all too often absent in most organizations." [5]
Safety in Feedback: "We all need to feel a sense of safety, trust and intimacy before we're ready to give and receive truly candid feedback." [5]
Receiving Feedback: "When receiving feedback, note that how your perceive or frame the experience will affect your stress level." [5]

On Self-Coaching and Personal Growth

Defining Self-Coaching: "I define self-coaching as the process of guiding our own growth and development, particularly through periods of transition." [7]
The Social Nature of Self-Coaching: "Self-coaching is a self-directed process, but not a solitary one. While reflection is crucial, it is equally important to engage with others in the process." [8]
The Power of Writing: "We gain by virtue of writing down thoughts and feelings about experiences, even if we never reread it." [5]
Personalizing Your Process: “Construct writings in a way that's going to be sustainable for you and that's going to work.” [5]
The Goal of Self-Coaching: "Most coaching relationships last between six to 18 months... but ultimately coaches coaching is about helping people be better prepared to help themselves." [9]
The Art, Not the Science: "This class is called the art of self coaching. it's not called the science of self coaching... it's always going to be up to you to figure out how does this material apply to me as an individual." [9]
The Importance of Self-Awareness: "You can't manage others until you learn to manage yourself." [4]
Attention as a Resource: “My attention is my most valuable resource. Many things will be competing for attention and so we must work to keep our active minds focused on our priorities." [4]
The Impulse to Hurry: "The Impulse to Hurry is a Signal to Slow Down." [10]
Managing Emotions: "Managing emotions doesn't mean suppressing them. Efforts to ignore our feelings or pretend that they don't exist aren't sustainable over time (and may even exacerbate the very emotions that are causing us difficulty)." [6]

On Happiness and Fulfillment

The Fallacy of 'I'll Be Happy When...': "A theme in my work with senior leaders is the expectation that some future event will result in a profound surge in positive emotions and a sustained state of well-being, a process often described as 'I'll be happy when...'" [6]
The Hedonic Treadmill: "And even if the happiness we derive from any particular accomplishment lasts longer than that, our sense of well-being will inevitably fade as we come to take its benefits for granted. The hedonic treadmill never stops." [6]
Happiness in the Now: "We Won't Be Happy WHEN. We Could Be Happy NOW." [6]
Sustainable Happiness: "Sustainable happiness requires us to let go of our illusions, starting with the idea that happiness is a function of external events." [6]
The Problem with 'Getting Better': "Trying to be 'good enough' by 'getting better' just doesn't work." [6]
The Nature of Success: "The truly awful thing about success is that it's held up all those years as the thing that would make everything all right." [6]
The Role of Work: "No other technique for the conduct of life attaches the individual so firmly to reality as laying emphasis on work; for his work at least gives him a secure place in a portion of reality, in the human community." [6]
Meaning Over Fleeting Pleasure: "Positive psychology is really about the study of what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia, which is more accurately translated as 'flourishing' or 'a life well-lived.'" [6]
Embracing Reality: "Pursuing happiness need not entail minimizing or discounting our pain and suffering, or viewing reality through rose-colored glasses." [6]
The Value of Friendship: "And the only thing that makes things even slightly bearable is a friend who knows what you're talking about." [6]

On Learning and Mindset

The Nature of Learning Leadership: "Leadership can't be taught, but it can be learned." [2]
Continuous Learning: "Successful leaders have the ability to learn on their own beyond structured programs. They often create their own learning paths and adapt continuously." [2]
Learning from Failure: "If we don't ask ourselves, 'How could I have done better?' we don't learn, and we don't grow." [3]
The Growth Mindset: "We can adopt a growth mindset and learn from our inevitable failures." [6]
Problem-Solving: "Rather than solve the problem that needs to be solved, we solve a problem that we want to solve." [6]
The Power of Questions in Learning: "Getting beyond a yes or a no question... if we're trying to provide some kind of coaching support because they don't provoke analysis." [9]
The Value of Experience: "Coaching experience compounds rapidly, given the consistency with which issues emerge in leaders' lives." [11]
The Importance of Self-Reflection: "We need some time, time for solitary reflection, and we also have to come back and engage with other people and integrate that." [5]
From Expert to Learner: "I had come in thinking my job is to have the best ideas and champion them really aggressively... I soon realized oh my job is to actually be a steward of this community and help the best ideas arise from the community." [1]
The Journey of Development: "You've got to determine what are the most important questions and answer them for yourselves." [5]

Learn more:

Lessons from Ed Batista

On Leadership

On Feedback

On Self-Coaching and Personal Growth

On Happiness and Fulfillment

On Learning and Mindset

Written by Antoine Buteau

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Lessons from Joe Hudson