Bite-sized insights for curious leaders & learners every other Sunday

Visit BobbyPowers.com for more book recs, articles, and insights.

Hey all! I'm working on a book for first-time managers. If you became a manager in the past 3 years and you're down to chat for 20 minutes, I'd love to learn about your experience. Reply to this email or click below.

🔥 Inspiring Quotes

⛽ Articles to Fuel Lifelong Learning

​5 Incredible Biographies You (Probably) Haven’t Read​ As much as I love legendary biographers like Isaacson, Chernow, and Caro, this list doesn’t contain any of them. Here are 5 bios & memoirs worth your time.

​How Are You Supposed to Complete Your ‘Own Work’ When You’re a Manager?​ The transition from individual contributor to manager is a huge transition . Here’s how to complete your "own work” now.

📚 Books Worth Your Time

​Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom​ Nonfiction: Memoir, Life, Death, Philosophy I've seen this book around for years, but I didn't read it until this week. If you're unfamiliar, it's the story of a journalist who reunites with his college professor (Morrie) who's dying of Lou Gehrig's disease—the same disease that took my grandpa. Morrie imparts his advice about life, work, friendship, marriage, and death. -> Get a used copy at ThriftBooks for only $4.

​The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman​ Nonfiction: Writing, Entrepreneurship If you want to make money with the written word, this book is for you. It's not only the best book on the topic, it's the best one I can imagine someone ever writing on the topic.

🧑‍💼 Quick Leadership Takeaway

🗣️ “The key to becoming an effective leader is not to focus on making other people follow, but on making yourself the kind of person they want to follow.” -John Maxwell

At the end of the day, you can’t make anyone follow you—that goes for whether you're an individual contributor running a project or a senior executive at the top of a company.

But if you act with integrity and produce results, others will want to be part of what you’re doing.

You’ll begin to see people volunteer to serve on the same projects as you, want to move over to your team, or ask to be mentored by you. Each of these situations is a signal you’re becoming someone worth following.

Leadership author John Maxwell says there are 5 levels of leadership:

• Position - People follow because they have to.
• Permission - People follow because they want to.
• Production - People follow because of what you have done for the organization.
• People Development - People follow because of what you have done for them personally.
• Pinnacle - People follow because of who you are and what you represent.

-> Dive deeper in the book The 5 Levels of Leadership​

🤓 A Personal Tidbit

I just got back from my 5-night solo retreat. I was in a small town called La Conner, Washington (1.5 hours north of Seattle).

I read a few books, went on some long hikes, and spent awhile writing my book for first-time managers.

My favorite part of my Airbnb was the table and chairs on a deck looking out at the water. It was really peaceful. 😃 (Picture below)

👇 Helpful Resources

Visit me at BobbyPowers.com for more articles and book reviews about leadership, self-improvement, and productivity.

You can also access high-res PDFs of my 1-pagers & cheat sheets here.

📬 Did someone forward this to you?

-> If you dig what you see, sign up here​