Immanuel Kant’s ethics are the most common modern example of deontological ethics. (Deontological ethics are rule-based ethics; for more on types of ethics, see last week’s post) Rather than starting with a specifically Kantian view, I want to use…

This is the beginning of a series of newsletters dedicated to the question of what it means to be ethical as a middle manager. This first post will serve as a general overview of ethics to lay the groundwork…

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…