 |
|
|
|||||
If you haven’t read the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, youre probably at least familiar with the idea behind it: that people give and receive care in different ways. Some value words, others actions. Some want quality time; others want gifts or closeness. Problems arise when two people in a relationship give and receive care differently. Even the best intentions dont land if theyre expressed in a way the recipient doesnt recognize. This dynamic is well-established in personal relationships, but I’ve also seen a version of it play out between leaders and their teams. Very often, what leaders see as performance issues are really a mismatch in leadership languages. As a leader, I consider it my job to enable people around me to be their bestboth at work and beyond. Applying the idea of leadership languages to these relationships gives me a practical framework for doing that. LEADERSHIP IS EXPERIENCED, NOT DECLARED Just as in personal relationships, leadership is not measured by what you mean to convey, but by what the other person experiences. As leaders, we care deeply about our teams. Yet even the best intentions can get lost in translation when theres a leadership language mismatch. Like there are leadership styles, there are followership preferences. Some people want clear guardrails; others want autonomy. Some value frequent feedback; others prefer independence. When leadership and followership styles align, work feels energizing. When they dont, even talented people struggle. These disconnects often show up as performance problems. But at a deeper level, they are translation problemsmoments when a leaders way of showing support or direction doesnt align with what a team member needs to do their best work. Ive seen this pattern repeatedly, and Im sure you have too: A strong hire struggles. Communication becomes tense. Projects and initiatives stall. Often, a leaders instinct is to treat the problem as a performance issue and institute more structure, clearer expectations, and tighter oversight. But that makes the situation worse, because the problem isnt capability. Its that the leader and team member speak different leadership languages. 5 LEADERSHIP LANGUAGES Every leader Ive met has a unique leadership style, but Ive seen common patterns that lead me to believe we all default to one of these five leadership languages. They all have their advantages, but they also all have the potential to be misunderstood by people who work best with a different leadership language: Direction and controlCharacterized by: Centralized decisions, detailed guidance, and close involvement. How its received: For some, this creates clarity and confidence; for others, it feels like micromanaging. Inspiration and visionCharacterized by: Emphasis on purpose, narrative, and momentum over day-to-day execution. How its received: Motivating for mission-driven teams, but frustrating for those who want clear direction. Empathy and presenceCharacterized by: Leading through listening, availability, and emotional attunement. How its received: Builds trust and a sense of belonging but can slow decision-making. Results and accountabilityCharacterized by: Relentless focus on outcomes, metrics, and performance. How its received: Drives excellence in some people and burnout in others. Servant leadershipCharacterized by: Prioritizing growth and enablement. How its received: Builds long-term capability but requires clarity and boundaries to work well. None of these approaches is inherently good or bad. It’s important for leaders to understand that their preferred style may not match what their team members need. CLARITY IS A LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITY Before diagnosing an issue as a performance problem, ask: Has this person succeeded in similar roles before? Does the friction feel procedural? Or does it feel more personal? Are you responding with more of what isnt working? Would this person describe your leadership the way you intend it? Do you see a pattern across multiple people you manage? Taken together, these questions help distinguish true performance gaps from leadership that’s lost in translation. Its on us as leaders to be explicit about how we lead. People should not have to figure out our leadership styles through trial and error. That clarity starts in the hiring process. I’m direct with candidates about how I lead. I even encourage them to talk with people who have worked for me to learn about my leadership style. A leadership language fit is too important to leave to assumption. It may seem like this level of transparency could limit the candidate pool or make people feel excluded, but my goal is to give them agency. My primary leadership language is servant leadership. That works wonderfully for a lot of people. But for people who want more direction and control, Im probably not the best fit. And thats okay. Better to know early on and make decisions accordingly. WHAT TO DO MONDAY MORNING Of course, no organization can have only one leadership language. There will always be mismatchesand leaders can address them with clear assessment and communication: Name your default leadership style. Be explicit about how you lead when youre not consciously adjusting. Ask your team what they need. Ask what helps them do their best work and what gets in the way. Create a simple translation guide. Note how each direct report prefers to communicate, receive feedback, and operate day to day. Revisit strained relationships. Before escalating performance concerns, have a direct conversation about working styles and expectations. Make alignment part of onboarding. Share your leadership language early and invite new hires to do the same. Small moves like these wont change who you are as a leader, but they can change how people experience your leadership. Leadership alignment is one of the most underutilized tools in building high-performing teams. You may be the worlds best leader, but that doesnt mean much unless the way you lead helps the people around you do their best work. Chris Ball is the CEO of 6sense.
Category:
E-Commerce
Monday night’s episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was missing somethingan entire interview. But viewers weren’t left in the dark about whyhost Stephen Colbert told his audience that CBS didn’t air his interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico due to concerns it could run afoul of shifting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules. “We were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said on the air Monday. That didn’t stop him from calling out the move in the episode and poking fun at FCC Chair Brendan Carr and CBSand it didn’t stop him from uploading the entire interview to YouTube. But the incident offers a look at how networks are responding to Trump administration pressure in the wake of ABC’s sidelining of Jimmy Kimmel for six days last fall. Shifting FCC rules According to Colbert, CBSs lawyers were acting in compliance with a recent letter from Carr about the FCC’s equal time rule. It says that a broadcast station granting airtime to a legally qualified candidate for public office must offer the same amount of time to all other candidates for the same office. The January 21 letter suggested that late-night showswhich have been exempted from the rule as bona fide news interview programs (aka, nonpartisan, regularly scheduled newscasts)no longer fit that definition and could be subject to the equal time rule. The FCC has not formally changed how it classifies late-night shows. In a statement to Fast Company, CBS said it did not prohibit the show from airing the interview, but offered legal guidance that airing it could trigger the FCC equal time rule for Talarico’s opponents in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat currently held by Republican John Cornyn. “The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled, the statement said. The Late Show decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal time options. An online loophole As CBS’s statement said, The Late Shows solution was to post the interview with Talarico to its YouTube channel rather than air it live on CBS. In the interview, Colbert highlighted that Talaricos recent appearance on The View also prompted the FCC to open a probe into the daytime talk show. Do you mean to cause trouble? Colbert joked. I think that Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas, Talarico replied. This is the party that ran against cancel culture, and now they’re trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read. And this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culturethe kind that comes from the top. On his show Monday, Colbert pointed out that the FCCs bona fide news exemption for late night hasnt been revoked yet; Carr has merely implied he intends to eliminate it. He hasn’t done away with it yet, but my network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he had, Colbert said. That was the element of the story that caught the attention of FCC commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat at top of the agency. “CBS is fully protected under the First Amendment to determine what interviews it airs,” she wrote. “That makes its decision to yield to political pressure all the more disappointing. Corporate interests cannot justify retreating from airing newsworthy content.” The FCC did not respond to Fast Companys Tuesday afternoon request for comment by press time Tuesday evening.
Category:
E-Commerce
A dispute between AI company Anthropic and the Pentagon over how the military can use the companys technology has now gone public. Amid tense negotiations, Anthropic has reportedly called for limits on two key applications: mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. The Defense Department, which Trump renamed the Department of War last year, wants the freedom to use the technology without those restrictions. Caught in the middle is Palantir. The defense contractor provides the secure cloud infrastructure that allows the military to use Anthropics Claude model, but it has stayed quiet as tensions escalate. Thats even as the Pentagon, per Axios, threatens to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk, a move that could force Palantir to cut ties with one of its most important AI partners. The threat may be a negotiating tactic. But if carried out, it would have sweeping consequences, potentially barring not just Anthropic but its customers from government work. “That would just mean that the vast majority of companies that now use [Claude] in order to make themselves more effective would all of a sudden be ineligible for working for the government, says Alex Bores, a former Palantir employee who is now running for Congress in New York’s 12th district. It would be horribly hamstringing our government’s ability to get things done. (Palantir did not respond to a request for comment.) Alex Bores [Photo: John Nacion/Variety via Getty Images] Anthropic and the Pentagons war of words Anthropic has, until now, maintained close ties with the military. Claude was the first frontier AI model deployed on classified Pentagon networks. Last summer, the Defense Department awarded Anthropic a $200 million contract, and the companys technology was even used in the recent U.S. operation to capture Nicolas Maduro, the Wall Street Journal reported this week. But the company’s commitment to certain AI safety principles has irked some people in President Donald Trump’s orbit. (Katie Miller, Stephen Millers wife, has publicly accused the company of liberal bias and criticized its commitment to democratic values.) Unlike rivals xAI and OpenAI, both of which also also have Defense Department contracts, Anthropic is now locked in a fight with the Pentagon that playing out in public. “Anthropic is committed to using frontier AI in support of US national security. Thats why we were the first frontier AI company to put our models on classified networks and the first to provide customized models for national security customers, a company spokesperson tells Fast Company. Claude is used for a wide variety of intelligence-related use cases across the government, including the DoW, in line with our Usage Policy. We are having productive conversations, in good faith, with DoW on how to continue that work and get these complex issues right.” The Pentagon has taken a more confrontational tone. Agency officials are reviewing their relationship with Anthropic and have suggested that other contractors may also be required to stop working with the company. The Department of Wars relationship with Anthropic is being reviewed, Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell tells Fast Company. “Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight.” (Parnell did not respond to a request for clarification regarding specific concerns about autonomous weapons or surveillance.) Palantir, the middleman Palantir occupies a critical position in this ecosystem. A longtime government software provider, it has met a bevy of requirements allowing it to offer cloud services to support classified work. And, as is typical in the dizzying world of government technology contracting, Palantir also has key partnerships with Anthropic. Two years ago, the companies partnered to bring Anthropics technology to the government, a move that made Claude available to defense and intelligence services through Amazon Web Services. Last April, Anthropic joined Palantirs FedStart program, which expanded the availability of its technology to government customers through Google Cloud. Government tech contracting is a wonky business, but companies that want to sell software to the government typically need to work with a certified cloud provider like Palantir, or obtain certification themselves. If youve never operated in a classified environment before, you essentially need a vehicle, explains Varoon Mathur, who worked on AI in the Biden administration. Palantir is a defense contractor with deep operational integration. Anthropic is an AI model provider trying to access that ecosystem. Growing tensions over how the Defense Department might use Claude also raise questions about how much visibility companies like Palantir and Anthropic have into the governments use of their tools. Anthropic and OpenAI offer Zero Data Retention usage, where they dont store the asks made of their AI, notes Steven Adler, a former OpenAI employee and AI safety expert tells Fast Company. Naturally this makes it harder to enforce possible violations of their terms. A person familiar with the matter said Anthropic does have insight into how its technology is used, regardless of whether its in a classifiedenvironment, and that the company is confident its partners and users have been deploying the tech in line with its policies. In its reporting, the Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter who said an Anthropic employee did reach out to Palantir to ask about Claudes use in the Maduro operation, though Anthropic denied to that outlet that it had spoken with Palantir beyond technical discussions. The Anthropic spokesperson tells Fast Company that the company cannot comment on its technologys use in specific military operations, but said it work[s] closely with our partners to ensure compliance.” More broadly, the standoff risks chilling relationships between Silicon Valley and Washington at a moment when the government is pushing to adopt AI more aggressively. To state basically that it’s our way or the highway, and if you try to put any restrictions, we will not just not sign a contract, but go after your business, is a massive red flag for any company to even think about wanting to engage in government contracting, says Bores.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||