Recommendations from Harvard faculty
Uche Amaechi is the chair of the Leading Change Foundations and a lecturer on leadership at the Graduate School of Education.
TV show
“Severance” on Apple TV+
“Severance” is a great story and it’s great storytelling, and I highly recommend it. So many rich conversations about organizations and leadership can come out of it: It gets into the idea of multiple versions of yourself, and which versions may come to the fore in different contexts. It asks the question: Why would a company want its employees to be severed? Is it about risk management? Is it about control? Is it about blind allegiance to the mission?
I’ve always been a cycling commuter, but I didn’t start cycling for fun until COVID. The reason I recommend cycling is that you get emotional and mental benefits as well as physical benefits. Mentally, cycling gives me time to really think things through, to work through what’s in my head. Emotionally, it’s a great way to release stress I didn’t even know I had, it’s very cathartic. And it’s a great way to get to know what’s in your neighborhood: You become more aware of your surroundings.
In leadership, we always talk about the importance of work-life balance. You can’t be a good leader if you’re not taking care of yourself. Cycling is a great way to get time on your own to focus, clear your mind, and find your center so you can be a better leader and a better team member.
In my line of work, we often encourage leaders to be on the balcony as opposed to on the dance floor: When you’re on the dance floor, you’re part of the system, but when you’re on the balcony you’ve removed yourself from the system a little bit so you can make decisions for the benefit of the system. That’s important for strong, empathetic leadership. But there’s a lot of value to being on the dance floor.
I dance — and teach — Argentine tango. It’s you, your partner, and the music. The leader has to pay attention to how their partner is interpreting their lead, and they have to adjust in real time. The follower has to interpret what the leader is asking them to do. In a way, the leader has to know how to follow, and the follower has to know how to lead. Both people have to really pay attention to each other, and to the rest of the dance floor: What are the other couples doing? It’s personal, it’s interpersonal, and it’s systems-thinking.
— As told to Sy Boles/Harvard Staff Writer
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