With Christmas next week and the New Year following, I wanted to send a slightly different newsletter to close out the year. Overview of the year This was the first year of the Stuck In The Middle newsletter. I…

Leaders need vision! I am sure you have heard this said over and over again. In leadership positions, we often discuss vision as a critical attribute a leader must have. A leader needs to create a vision to inspire…

“Imagine a government that assigns almost everyone a superior whom they must obey. Although superiors give most inferiors a routine to follow, there is no rule of law. Orders may be arbitrary and can change at any time, without…

Last week, we looked at three different types of freedom and how they show up at work. This week, we are looking at the idea of freedom as a choice and what that really means. Choice and indifference What…

A constant theme in leadership literature is that employees should have a degree of autonomy, which is directly tied to engagement. While there is much I could challenge about the notion of engagement, I want to focus on what…

What happens when you write? For me, it starts as capturing raw ideas as a stream of words pouring onto the page (screen). The first step of the process is not much different than writing a tweet, posting a…

I was recently working with a client who raised a concern over competition between them and a peer in their workplace. As the job market becomes increasingly uncertain, with the number of layoffs increasing every week, this is becoming…

Last week, we examined Althusser’s concept of Ideology; in this week’s newsletter, we discuss how Slavoj Žižek builds on Althusser’s concepts of ideology in some important ways. Žižek takes Althusser’s view on Ideology: “Ideology represents individuals’ imaginary relation to…