Smart Leaders Who Care About People
You're a smart leader who cares about people.
That doesn't mean they don't drive you crazy.
If you didn't care, then they would just be a management problem. Instead you're frustrated with someone you're responsible for, which feels bad in a way that it's hard to talk about.
Upcoming Event: Smart Leaders Who Care About People
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Upcoming Event: Smart Leaders Who Care About People -
That's what this space is for.
All of it working almost purely on instinct, flying by the seat of my pants.
For a long time I wondered where that instinct came from. Turns out it isn't magic - it's pattern recognition, the kind you only build in a high-stakes place where reading people wrong gets someone hurt. The circus qualified. But the real teacher was the horses.
Once a month, a group of us get on Zoom for an hour and bring our people problems, because you can't see the real shape of something from inside it.
Come hang out with some other smart leaders who care about people. Bring your problem (or just your perspective), and together we'll find a new vantage point.
The circus is where My leadership Grew up
I was backstage by eleven, performing on horseback for thousands by fourteen, directing the show at twenty-three, and running the whole operation at twenty-seven. 65 horses, 500 shows a year, 365 days a year, a thousand guests through the doors at a time, and we served them all dinner too.
Then, right after I took over, the 2008 crash forced a $3 million budget cut, a full quarter of everything. That's the kind of hit ordinary businesses don't survive. But a circus is no ordinary business, and "the show must go on" isn't a catchphrase - it's gospel.
So I didn't just cut. I restructured, protecting the people who cared the most, and we came out the other side with every metric higher than before: food, show quality, guest experience, morale.
I’ll get you un-stuck
The person you keep having to do everything for? I'll help you turn what only you can do into something your team can actually run.
Keep getting read as cold, or difficult, or "too much"? I can usually tell you exactly why - and what to shift so people get you.
Can't tell whether someone will ever change? I can - and I'll tell you how to move them if they can.
How Horses taught me to read people
"Horse" was my first language. I was born onto the breeding farm and took my first ride at three days old. I was eight when the circus opened.
That childhood does something specific to a person. I was raised by animals who cannot lie, in the middle of a circus full of people who perform for a living. The honest thing and the performed thing stood side by side, every day, and the gap between them was obvious - so I learned to read that gap by reflex.
It's why people don't mystify me, not even the ones who mystify everyone else. I have a kind of x-ray vision for understanding why people do what they do. Which means I can usually see why someone is getting misread, too - and how to fix it.
Eventually, that ability led me to a career in helping leaders be understood.
Most of the leaders who come to me are stuck on something they can't quite name.
You’ve read the books, tried the methods, and don't have time for another program. If the problem had an easy solution, you’d have solved it already.
