Member-only story
Leadership Transparency: My Week in Review
A simple way to build trust and empower your team
In mid-2020, I could feel the ties to my teams weakening. Some of this (okay, a lot of it) was due to the pandemic lockdown, which reduced the casual conversations with people based here in Austin and cut off travel to our other offices. Plus, as my team was growing, I was no longer a part of every set of interviews, so there were people in my team I barely knew, and in turn barely knew me.
Beyond the personal ties that come with those interactions, I realized I was now missing the opportunity to share context. What’s the business doing? Why? What about that group over there — what do they do?
And notably — the often unasked question: “Hey Alex, what do you do all day?” That’s a fair question in the best of times, but it’s even more important to answer it in the hard times when people see even less of me.
So, I went looking for some ideas to bridge the gaps and found a couple of good resources: How to be an information flow superhero by Jade Rubick and Lara Hogan’s excellent Week in Review Leadership Comms.
Building on their concepts, I’ve built a habit of sending out a weekly email to provide context and share a view into my world for those on my team.
