Teaching is Learning

Teaching is Learning

and Learning is Leading. How does that work?!

Hi everyone,

I started reading "The Diary of a CEO" this week, by Steven Bartlett. I like his mix of humility and power. He suggests that if you want to master a topic - teach it. It's how he started, aged 20. Latest valuation of steven.com: $425 million. He's 33.

So I’m going to start sharing some ideas on LinkedIn, perhaps daily. Not because I’ve perfected them, but because I hope that expressing them will sharpen and deepen my understanding. And because I feel they are too important not to share.

So it should be a win win. I get to polish some ideas that I think are valuable, readers get to learn something.

Let's connect if we're not already:

Connect on LinkedIn

Calm creates Change

The first idea I will explore is that Calm and Change are not opposites, they are partners. We might think "calm = slow and passive" and "change = fast and active". But in practice the calmer you are the more effectively you can change things.

It's when we're most relaxed that we are most effective.

We think better when we’re rested. We respond better when we’re calm. We lead better when we’re not overwhelmed.

This isn’t new information. It's ancient wisdom.

When we’re stressed, we narrow. When we’re calm, we expand. We see more options. We make better decisions. And we bring others with us.

Teaching is Leading

The management thinker and educator Noel Tichy said that successful leaders have a “Teachable Point of View” - ideas, energy and values that can be shared, understood and applied by others.

This is my point of view:

The world needs calm leaders, teachers and learners.

The world needs leaders, teachers and students of calm.

We can all be all of these.

And we need to be.

We can't force calm, or force change. We can teach it into existence though, by being the calm that allows others to see, think and act more clearly.

Leaders - by which I mean anyone with any responsibility - i.e. all of us - shouldn't ask “How do I drive change?” Rather: “How do I create the conditions where change happens by itself?”