One Year In
Simple Leadership turned one this month.
There's no lesson this week. No framework, no story from a client's conference room, nothing to put to work Monday morning. That'll be back in two weeks.
This one is a thank you, and a look at where Simple Leadership is headed.
Gratitude, First
None of this happens without you.
I've gotten more emails this year than I expected, and I've kept nearly all of them. Readers telling me an article changed how they saw a problem they'd been staring at for months. Readers telling me one gave them the courage to have a conversation they'd been putting off. Some of you have stopped me at conferences to share this in person. It's a strange but wonderful experience.
And every week, some of you forward these to your teams or share them with your networks.
I don't take any of it for granted. It's what keeps me writing.
The Experiment
A year ago, this was an experiment.
I wanted to get what I've learned in front of more leaders than I could ever sit across from. I also wanted to find out whether I'd enjoy the writing enough to keep at it.
Twenty-seven articles later, I have my answer to both.
The full archive now lives on the website, free to read.
What You Told Me
I read every reply. I also watch the numbers.
Two things came through clearly this year. You'd rather read this on a weekend than in the middle of your week. And you want more than one way to take it in.
So Simple Leadership is evolving.
What You Can Count On
Before the changes, here's what isn't changing.
I've gotten a lot clearer this year. From now on, every article, tool, post, and audio recording will hold to three things.
Leadership can be simple: simple doesn't mean easy. The hard part is the courage to act on what you already know. Complexity is usually avoidance in disguise.
Real world, not theory: what actually happened inside real companies, including my own, including the parts that didn't work.
Clarity without the fluff: one idea, worked all the way through, in about seven minutes.
If something doesn't meet that bar, it doesn't go out.
Saturday Mornings
Full articles are moving to every other Saturday.
The next one arrives Saturday, September 5. It'll show up near the top of your inbox on a weekend instead of buried in it on a Tuesday.
On some of the off weeks, I'll send something shorter, usually a tool or a resource you can use that day.
Simple Leadership, Out Loud
Many of you have shared that you'd rather listen.
Soon, new articles will be available in both written and audio form. They'll live in a podcast feed and inside the article itself. I also plan to record the entire Simple Leadership archive. I'll share when it goes live.
Five Days a Week
I post a short Simple Leadership idea every weekday on LinkedIn.
If you find one useful, pass it along. That's how these ideas reach the next leader who needs them.
Where This Is Going
A newsletter is where this started.
What I'm building is a library. Articles, tools, cheat sheets, and diagnostics, in one place, organized around the problems leaders actually run into. A new website is coming to bring it all together.
I want this to make a bigger dent than I can make by working with one leadership team at a time.
Tell Me What Works
Hit reply to any email.
Tell me what landed, what missed, and what you'd like more of. I read it all, and it shapes what I write and where this goes.
If something here helped you lead one person better, make one hard decision sooner, or see one problem more clearly, then the experiment worked.
Thank you for reading, replying, and passing these along.
Looking forward to year two with you!
