When you’re a new leader, your model won’t have much data to go on. So you need to think about ways in which you can continually train it with more data so that it can become better at pattern matching new inputs going forward.
The way in which I think about this is trying to constantly expose yourself to two types of data: tools and experiences.
• Tools are skills that you can use to do your job. These are tangible things like learning or creating processes to run successful 1:1 meetings, understanding how to do basic project management and estimation, and knowing how to write and deliver a performance review.
• Experiences are the application of your tools with an observed output. Sometimes this output might be good (e.g. Alice responds really well to a particular type of feedback) and sometimes they might be bad (e.g. we all seriously underestimated that project and now we’re delivering late).
These two halves are interconnected: you need the tools to feed into the experiences, and you need the experiences to hone and improve your tools based on whether you are successful or not.
Represented as a diagram, it could look something like this:
The more tools and experiences you are exposed to, the more you’ll grow as a leader. I'd rephrase this loop as: tools -> applied -> observed effects -> hone -> tools. Applies not just to leadership but to any field or role. You need to be observing the effects and effectiveness of your tools, changing some and discarding others, as you go.
There is no number one tip
from James Stanier
