What the CEOs of Nasdaq, JPMorgan, and Netflix teach us about leadership

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Story by Marcel Schwantes

 

The world’s best-performing CEOs have learned to treat self-awareness as their superpower.

Even at the very top of the corporate ladder, the hardest person to manage is…yourself.

According to McKinsey research featured in A CEO for All Seasons, CEOs consistently rate themselves higher on every leadership dimension—from culture and vision to teamwork and personal effectiveness—than their boards and direct reports do.

The “Lake Wobegon effect,” named after the fictional town where “all the children are above average,” refers to the human tendency to overestimate our own abilities. The authors note that it is alive and well in the corner office.

That gap in perception isn’t just psychological. It can be costly. Poorly managed CEO transitions erase nearly $1 trillion in market value every year, much of it traceable to blind spots that leaders never saw coming.

The good news: the world’s best-performing CEOs, leaders like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Reed Hastings of Netflix and Larry Fink of BlackRock, have learned to make feedback their superpower. They treat self-awareness not as a soft skill, but as a strategic one.

Here are five practices drawn from A CEO for All Seasons that any leader can use to sharpen self-awareness and lead more effectively.

1. Seek the truth you don’t want to hear

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, often speaks about the importance of staying alert even when things are going well. Reflecting on challenges earlier in his career, he put it simply: “The big lesson I learned? Don’t get complacent.” As the authors explain, even the most seasoned leaders can drift into overconfidence during stable years. Outstanding CEOs counter that drift by deliberately surfacing uncomfortable truths and asking, What am I not seeing? Who’s telling me only what I want to hear? Dimon’s openness to reflection and course-correction helped him reinforce a culture of vigilance and continuous improvement across the firm.

2. Turn feedback into a system, not an event

Adena Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq, admits that in her early months she didn’t spend enough time meeting board members individually. “I thought, ‘Okay, I’m done with this board meeting—on to the next.’ But then board members began reaching out saying, ‘Adena, I’d like to give you my individual feedback.’”

She soon formalized one-on-one meetings with each member twice a year. Those candid conversations, she says, “enabled both sides to share concerns and, over time, forged trust.” Leaders who systematize feedback through skip-level check-ins, and open board dialogue, normalize constructive critique as part of the operating rhythm.

3. Admit weakness — and build around it

Larry Fink, the longtime CEO of BlackRock, puts it simply: “One of the most important characteristics of a good leader is knowing your weaknesses and admitting them.” Self-aware CEOs don’t chase the illusion of being well-rounded. They build teams that complement their blind spots. The authors note that Fink intentionally surrounds himself with executives whose strengths offset his own, ensuring decisions are tested from every angle. Tech leaders lean on self-awareness as well. Netflix founder Reed Hastings routinely ran “future failure” exercises with his team — asking them to imagine Netflix had collapsed a decade from now and list every possible reason why. That willingness to confront blind spots early is what helped the company keep reinventing itself. Admitting limitations doesn’t erode authority, it expands it. Employees trust leaders who model vulnerability and continuous learning.

4. Get an outsider’s mirror

Robert Smith, founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, compares coaching to developing ambidexterity: “If you’re right-handed, you usually have a weak left hand. A great coach helps you see what you’re weak at and learn to be better.” The research shows that CEOs who outperform across every stage of their tenure rely on external perspective—mentors, board chairs, and executive coaches—to challenge their assumptions. As one author notes, “A true skill of an excellent CEO is executing specific strategies to draw forth candid feedback—and act on it.”

5. Make reflection a daily discipline

Michael Fisher, former CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, keeps two lists: a to-do list and a to-be list. “It’s a simple but profound shift,” he told the authors. “I still keep my to-do list, but now I ask: who do I want to be today—curious, calm, clear?” That habit, the book explains, reinforces a mindset of deliberate self-leadership. Leaders who pause to reflect not only on tasks but on presence stay grounded amid pressure.

In closing, the higher leaders rise, the less feedback they naturally receive and the more intentional they must become about finding it. As A CEO for All Seasons shows, the most successful CEOs build mechanisms for truth-telling into their calendars, cultures, and conversations. They listen hardest when the news is hardest to hear. Because in every season of leadership, the ultimate differentiator isn’t brilliance—it’s self-awareness.

This post originally appeared at inc.com.

How to deal with an annoying boss

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BY Art Markman

 

Annoying peers are hard enough to deal with. Things get even more complicated when the annoying person is your boss. As with peers, there are several ways that a boss can be annoying. Unfortunately, you have to tread lightly with many (though not all) bosses.

To be clear, the focus here is on annoying bosses, not toxic ones. A boss who is a narcissist, a harasser, or who sows mistrust isn’t just annoying, they’re bad for you and the organization. I’m going discuss four things that may seem petty, but if you start dreading your engagements with your boss (or resenting them for their foibles), it can come back to hurt your working relationship.

The cipher 

Some people are blessed with the ability to communicate clearly. They open their mouths, and full paragraphs of well-formed sentences spill out that illuminate whatever they are talking about. But, as Steve Martin once said, “Some people have a way with words, and others . . . uh . . . not . . . have a way.”

If your boss is in that latter category, they may ask you to do things, give you feedback, or generally talk about things going on at work that you don’t fully understand. It might be tempting to nod along with them and then try to figure it out later. That avoids an awkward discussion, but it probably causes more problems than it solves.

Instead, develop a routine with your manager to summarize the outcome of meetings/discussions at the end. Tell your boss that this is to help you remember. Then, repeat back the important bits. Your boss will correct anything you get wrong. As an added bonus, this exercise might give your boss additional words and phrases they can use to talk to you about similar things in the future.

The micromanager

A boss who gets into the details of your work is frustrating, because you’d like to be able to complete what you’re doing without constant oversight. There are two common reasons why bosses micromanage.

When someone gets their first supervisory role, they are usually in a transition from front-line work to management. Because their job (up to that point) involved doing something just like what you are doing now, it may be hard for them to let go of the details of the work to focus on what they need to do with their new position. For these bosses, it is often okay to have a gentle conversation in which you ask questions about their new responsibilities and provide a subtle reminder that the front-line work is not part of their day-to-day any longer.

The second typical source of micromanagement is anxiety. When your boss is not confident in their leadership or when they feel threatened by other factors at work, they may clamp down on the people working for them to ensure that nothing goes wrong. While this tactic may make them feel better, it makes everyone else miserable.

There are two things you can do here. First, create a schedule of checking in with your boss every so often. You’d like to get that to once a week if you can, but you may have to start by doing it at the end of a work shift, or every two days, and gradually work your way to once a week. Second, provide a shared document of the status of projects. This record is helpful anyhow, because it can be used when something goes wrong with a project. If your boss has access to the status of key projects, they may be less likely to pester you for those details and add suggestions about how they would approach things.

The forgetter

One of the Big Five personality characteristics is conscientiousness, which reflects the degree to which you focus on details and follow rules. Some bosses are highly conscientious, and they are up on the details of every project. Others are not.

When your boss is not conscientious, they may be great at giving strategic and tactical advice, but they may forget things later. They may miss meetings that don’t make it to their calendar, or forget something they told you they would do later.

A forgetful boss needs more constant reminders than a conscientious one. Follow up meetings with a written summary of key points and any specific information you need from your boss later. Send that summary by email. Even bosses who aren’t that conscientious are likely to check their email and to respond to direct requests on those emails.

If there are particular things you need to get from your boss by a specific date, coordinate with their admin if they have one. Try to ensure that key dates and requests get on their calendar. Often, a forgetful boss is aware that things slip through the cracks, and so they have a system to help them keep from dropping too many balls.

The (long-winded) storyteller

One thing about being the boss is that people feel like they need to listen to you. Some bosses (particularly those who have been in a leadership role for a while) get used to having an audience, and they may use meetings and even hallway conversations as an opportunity to regale you with stories.

A good storyteller keeps it brief and relevant. If your boss is not a great storyteller, then seeing them wind up to tell a long tale can send shivers of dread up your spine. You may have to bear a certain number of these stories—particularly if you’re sitting in the break room. But, you should try to have something scheduled up against meetings you have with your boss so that you have something you need to get to. That way, if your boss does launch into an epic narrative, you have a good reason to excuse yourself and move on.

 

Source: Fast Company 

The Most Undervalued Leadership Skill: Listening

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BY STEVEN GONZALEZ

 

Teams make more meaningful progress when leaders stop talking and start listening.

 

When I first began leading teams, I thought leadership was about having the right answers. Over time, I discovered something far more powerful: The best leaders aren’t the ones who talk the most—they’re the ones who listen the best. This reflection sparked a recent discussion on my LinkedIn Culture Lab post on that topic, a reminder that leadership isn’t about being heard, but about hearing others.

Too often, we mistake leadership for certainty. We celebrate confidence, decisiveness, and vision—all valuable traits—but we rarely celebrate curiosity. In a world that rewards quick answers, slowing down to learn can feel like weakness. Yet the inability to learn quietly erodes leadership from within. The moment we believe we’ve “arrived,” that we have nothing left to learn, we start leading from ego instead of growth.

The turning point

My perspective changed when I realized that real learning doesn’t happen in isolation, it happens through listening. Early in my career, I believed my value as a leader came from providing direction and answers. But over time, I noticed something interesting: Our teams made the most meaningful progress when I stopped talking and started listening.

When I led with curiosity instead of certainty, asking questions like “What do you think?” or “What am I missing?” collaboration deepened, innovation grew, and trust flourished. That’s when I learned that leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room. It’s about being the most curious.

How to lead through listening

Learning as a leader starts with humility—the willingness to admit you don’t have all the answers. That humility creates space for others to bring their best ideas forward.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Start with humility. Admit when you don’t know something. It invites others to teach you.

• Ask more than you answer. Curiosity fuels better thinking and more inclusive dialogue.

• Listen before you decide. Pause long enough to truly understand before taking action.

• Model the behavior. When leaders listen, others follow suit.

Listening isn’t just an instinct, it’s a skill. It can be taught, practiced, and strengthened. Over time, it transforms the way we communicate and collaborate. It becomes not just something we do, but something we are.

How we practice it

At HealthView, our core values—kindness, unity, humility, and patience—guide how we lead every day. Listening is an act of kindness; it shows respect for others’ perspectives. It builds unity by creating shared understanding. It demands humility to admit we don’t know everything, and patience to truly hear what’s being said.

Whether it’s in a strategy meeting, a patient care discussion, or a hallway conversation, I approach each moment as a chance to learn something new. Those small choices, repeated over time, shape culture. When people see their leader learning in public—asking, listening, adjusting—it gives them permission to do the same.

That’s how organizations evolve, not through grand gestures, but through a shared commitment to continuous learning.

The ripple effect

When leaders choose to learn openly, it sets a tone that ripples across the organization. People begin to mirror what they see. Teams become more curious, more collaborative, and more comfortable challenging the status quo.

At HealthView, I’ve seen this shift firsthand. When I ask, “What can we learn from this?” it signals that growth matters more than ego. It turns mistakes into opportunities and feedback into fuel.

When our actions align with kindness, unity, humility, and patience, learning becomes cultural. Listening becomes connection, and connection builds trust. Over time, that mindset doesn’t just improve outcomes. It strengthens relationships and reinforces who we are. Because when leaders are learners, they remind everyone that growth isn’t a phase; it’s a way of being.

The bottom line

Leadership today demands more than strategy or skill — it demands self-awareness. The ability to stay curious is what keeps us relevant, grounded, and human.

Every conversation, every challenge, every failure carries a lesson if we’re willing to hear it.

So here’s my challenge to every leader reading this: Never stop learning. Ask more questions. Listen without agenda. Let curiosity guide your decisions. And let kindness, unity, humility, and patience guide your actions.

Because in a world that continuously changes, listening isn’t a soft skill. It’s a survival skill.

 

Source: INC.

4 Brilliant Leadership Lessons You Can Learn from Donald Trump’s Meeting with Zohran Mamdani

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The president welcomed the mayor elect to the Oval Office this past week.

 

Why are Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, former enemies from opposite political camps, suddenly acting like the best of friends? That’s the question politicians, journalists, and New Yorkers are asking themselves after the president and next mayor of New York City held a meeting and joint press conference Friday in the Oval Office. It was actually a very, very clever move for both of them. Every leader can learn from it.

Mamdani has said that Trump has a fascist agenda. Trump has called Mamdani a communist and urged Republicans to vote for Andrew Cuomo–a Democrat–to try and keep Mamdani out of office. So it was astonishing to see them side by side, praising each other to the press.

That astonishment is the point. We live in an attention economy and Mamdani and Trump’s “love fest” captured a huge amount of attention. “You know, I’ve had a lot of meetings with the heads of major countries, nobody cared,” Trump said to the press. “This meeting, you people have gone crazy.”

Here are four more ways the meeting benefited both men, and what every leader should learn from them.

1. Use the power of being unpredictable.

Trump seems to delight in keeping people guessing, and it often works to his advantage. Though Politico’s Jonathan Martin predicted that Trump would heap praise on Mamdani, most observers expected the meeting to go very differently. The president foiled those expectations, as he has so many others.

Just two days earlier, Trump announced he had asked the Justice Department to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein, after working for months to block their release. Many MAGA Republicans, including Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, had called for the files to be released. (She now says she’ll resign from the House in January, after her public falling out with Trump led to death threats.) Some suggested Trump might be losing his grip on the party.

It was clear Trump wouldn’t be able to block the files’ release. So calling for their release was a way to regain his leadership position, forging ahead in the direction the party was going, with or without him. It was a reminder that you never really know what he’s going to do next.

2. Stay in tune with the times.

Trump and Mamdani have one important thing in common: They come from outside the traditional power structures of their respective parties. In both cases, that outsider status helped them win office against opponents who’d been inside those power structures for years.

Voters from across the political landscape are frustrated with the status quo these days. They blame longtime political leaders for problems such as inflation. They seem to want to try something new. In very different ways, both men promise something other than business-as-usual. And that’s a very big part of their appeal.

3. Be practical.

Mamdani could be a useful ally for Trump. At 34, he’s young enough to be the 79-year-old president’s grandchild. He seems to represent a politician of the future. And because both men appeal to voters who want to see things get shaken up, Mamdani could conceivably help Trump win more votes.

As for Mamdani, like most major American cities, New York is under threat of a military and ICE takeover of its streets, as well as a threat to have federal funds withheld. A good relationship with Trump may be Mamdani’s best chance to keep both those things from happening.

4. Look for common ground.

That may be the biggest lesson of all. Trump and Mamdani say they share many of the same goals. They’re both concerned about inflation and high prices. Both want safe streets. They’ve both lived in Queens. And they both want the best for their home city. ” I don’t care about affiliations or parties or anything else. I want to see if this city could be unbelievable,” Trump said at their press conference.

We live in a very divisive time, when most people seem to look for disagreement, rather than agreement. They’re quick to demonize their political opponents. And they assume they’ll disagree with those opponents about absolutely everything.

That approach might make sense on social media, but in the real world, our differences are much more nuanced. And we probably share a great deal of common ground, even with our political opposites. But we don’t find that common ground because we don’t look for it.

It’s rare for anyone to do what Trump and Mamdani just did and sit down for a friendly conversation across a great political distance. That’s a shame. If more of us did it, we might learn that there’s more agreement between our different sides than we think. Like Mamdani and Trump, we might even learn how we can benefit each other.

 

Source: INC

First-time manager? Here’s how to build ‘boss brain’

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by Erica Lamberg

Easing into a leadership role can be nerve-wracking. Here’s how to set a ‘manager mindset’ and lead with confidence.

 

 

Being a manager is never easy. And if you have never supervised others, the feat can be even more daunting.

Managers are often spinning several plates: leading by example, setting and exceeding goals for your team, keeping workflow moving, providing support, and keeping employees motivated, engaged, and productive . . . all while adhering to your company’s objectives. If you haven’t done it before, it can be overwhelming.

It’s almost like having to activate an entirely new part of your brain. Luckily, experts say creating “boss brain” is within anyone’s reach, regardless of leadership experience . . . or lack thereof.

Listen and react to the feedback of your team

To develop a leadership mentality, it doesn’t necessarily start by trying to muster up more confidence. Rather, it can start by simply listening to your new direct reports. Show them that you care. Ask your team specific questions about their well-being and identify ways to alleviate some of the challenges they are facing.

According to the 2025-2026 Aflac WorkForces Report, “fewer than half [48%] of employees believe their employer cares about them, down from 54% in 2024, and nearly 1 in 5 employees [18%] believe their company doesn’t care about their mental health at all,” says Matthew Owenby, chief strategy officer and head of human resources at Aflac in Columbus, Georgia.

Part of developing “boss brain” means also developing your empathy muscle.

Zero in on direct reports’ individual strengths

Another component of a manager’s role is to meet goals. But when you’re first becoming a boss, it helps to get more granular and specific with your direct reports. Discover ways to best leverage people’s individual strengths. And then, share their accomplishments, pointing out to the rest of the organization how their contributions strengthen the team and the overall organization.

The same workplace survey revealed that when employees have a strong sense of purpose, they are more likely to report job satisfaction, be more engaged, have strong relationships with colleagues and superiors, and be less likely to experience workplace stress and burnout—all of which contribute to employee retention, he notes.

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