🥁 The OffBeat #74: Lead Sheet | Leadership Digest
Something to read, something to think about, something else
This is The OffBeat, from jazz drummer, two-decade marketing leader, and mom of two Allison Stadd: music-inspired answers for your leadership challenges, like leadership riffs from my best and worst bosses.
Lead Sheet is The OffBeat’s every-other-week roundup of links, recs, and quotes. Like a lead sheet in music (just the essentials: melody, harmony, lyrics), it always has something to read, something to think about, and something else—all within the themes of leadership cues from music, cultural curiosity, and personal/professional balance.
Something to read:
Company culture is the last 50 days
Better questions than “Any Questions?”
You don't need to "fill your cup first" to seek or be in community
I’m starting to think you guys don’t really want a “village”
The very strong case for giving kids more agency
Something to think about:
“Serenity is listening to your body and mind and getting in touch with your internal needs and wants, and catering to that truth, rather than adhering to some externally dictated idea of what you should be doing.” — Rachel Bertsche, Jennifer, Gwyneth & Me
Something else:
Language creates culture.
Have you ever noticed how you inherit sayings and verbal habits from one job to the next, based on your colleagues’ own speech patterns?
The words we use at work have impact.
I noticed recently how much of my go-to corporate jargon is actually really violent. Take this list, below—do you use any of these phrases at work?
Kill two birds with one stone
Punch above our weight class
Not a hill I’ll die on
Beat a dead horse
Kill time
War room
Hand to hand combat
Silver bullet
Divide and conquer
Under the gun
Throw a missile
Take a shot
Blow up
Small shifts in vocabulary can create a more inclusive environment. I’m making an effort this year to iron these phrases out of my work vocabulary.
(On a related note, if you haven’t read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, you must! It opened my eyes to, among many things, just how much of our everyday default language is male-dominated.)
For double the reading recommendations, including a guide to mindful productivity and 12 cultural predictions for 2025, plus some things to listen to / watch, keep reading.