Understanding Leadership

With this round of Futur's Finds, we're looking to understand leadership, and how we can apply certain strategies into our personal and professional lives.

Last week, we focused on diversity and showing our support for the Black Lives Matter movement. If you missed that, click here to catch up on last week's list of diverse finds.

Let's lean into leadership:

‍

‍

This week's assignment

When someone speaks to you, do you hear them, or do you listen? The first step to learning how to lead, is learning how to listen. This week, we encourage you to try active listening. And if you need a little help to get started, follow these seven tips outlined here.

‍
Books of the week

• Tribes by Seth Godin - If the history of humankind has shown us anything, it's that we are naturally inclined to form groups, or in this case, tribes. Seth Godin explores our innate tendencies to bind together, and how we choose who will lead us.
• Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink - Navy SEAL officers Jocko Willink and Leif Babin dive into the complexities of combat and how they learned the toughest leadership lessons.

‍

‍

Webinar of the week

Tuesday, June 23 at 12PM PDT
The dynamic duo is back for a jam-packed webinar on Creative Leadership. Join Chris Do and Jose Caballer as they analyze patterns from their experience and share creative leadership strategies needed to build businesses.
Click here to register.‍

‍

Listen while you work

Podcasts

• Iconic clothing brand designer Eileen Fisher shares how she built a company on creative values and simplicity of design. Listen to her story on the What I Know Podcast from Inc.
• Do you find yourself caring too much what others think? You may be in the likeability trap. Journalist Alicia Menendez explains the phenomenon and how to break out of it in this episode of the Ten Percent Happier podcast.

Music

• Listen to The Futur's Finds playlist on Spotify! Cinematographer and editor Jona Garcia has returned to the DJ booth and put together an awesome list of tracks for you all. Hot tip: listen to the playlist in order!

Apps to check out

• We know, making time for exercise can be hard. But exercising for charity? We'll lace up our sneakers for that. Check out Charity Miles and turn every mile you jog, hike, walk, or run into a donation towards a charity of your choice.
• Journaling has plenty of positive effects, including reducing stress, anxiety, and achieving mental clarity. And with Day One, you can journal however you want--with words, pictures, or even emojis. Check out the app to get started.

‍

‍

What to watch

For your entertainment

• Wondering how Catherine The Great got her name? The Great on Hulu is a hilarious somewhat-true account of Catherine's rise to the throne.
• As the first openly gay politician elected for public office in California, Harvey Milk made massive strides for the gay community at a time where they weren't accepted. Milk (2008) is the story of his courage, leadership, and humility that will leave you inspired

TED Talks

• You may not think it, but introverts are far more powerful than we realize, especially in team settings. In this TED Talk, Susan Cain, author of the bestselling book Quiet, reveals what introverts bring to the table and what we can learn from them.
• Have you ever disagreed with someone's idea, and told them about it? As much as possible, we want to avoid conflict, so it's easy to hold back our thoughts on things. But Margaret Heffernan encourages us all to do one thing: dare to disagree.

Articles worth the read

• Seth Godin's blog is full of wonderful, bite-size glimpses into his brain, and this article in particular is more than fitting for this week's theme.
• Criteo CEO Megan Clarken shares her outlook on the tides of advertising and marketing in this changing economy in this article from Entrepreneur.
• Remember this week's assignment? Learning to listen? This article from Forbes details the importance of listening, and the challenges that come with improving this skill.

And finally, a quote to keep in mind throughout the week

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou

‍