Ling- English
Every institution broadcasts a signal through its decisions, not its declarations — and over time, that signal sorts for exactly the people it deserves. The question isn't what signal you want to send. It's what your attrition data says you're already sending.
Ling- English
Gandhi's followers could walk away. Yours can't afford to. This essay names the structural gap between visible engagement and genuine commitment that no open-door policy closes.
Ling- English
Two high schools. Same banner. Same word. If every school is producing leaders, who exactly are they going to lead? Something has gone wrong with leadership — and it's worth saying precisely what.
Newsletter
Here’s how language works Edwin L. Battistella | Oxford University Press Blog Veni, vidi, vici. Friends, Romans, countrymen. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. You already know the rule of three. Battistella draws on S. Jay Keyser’s study of repetition in the verbal arts to
Ling- English
In a small city, a bookseller named Javier curated a pile of books for every visit—drawn from conversations about dissertations, hockey, and a losing soccer team. This is an essay about that kind of knowing, why it rarely survives the big city, and the workaround one reader has invented: buy three,
Ling- English
Everyone in business knows the phrase: you need a fresh set of eyes. But fresh eyes almost always look through an inherited lens. This essay moves from zero-based budgeting to the examined life — and argues that scrutiny alone isn't liberation. When the criteria we use to examine our commitments wer
Ling- English
A new NBER working paper forced over a million real tradeoffs across 126 dimensions of life from 3,300 respondents. When people can’t just endorse everything, when they actually have to choose, a clear hierarchy emerges. Family well-being, financial security, and health dominate. Children’s health alone carries
Newsletter
Something has been bothering me this month and I haven’t been able to name it cleanly. The closest I can get is this: we are living through a moment in which the future is being used to make decisions about people in the present. Not the actual future of
Ling- English
My boss once addressed a serious misstep with a single question. What he chose not to say taught me more about leadership and respect than any debrief ever could.
Ling- English
A hostile challenge becomes a teaching moment when a facilitator shows how professional respect and self-awareness matter more than credentials.
Essays
When the project succeeds, it’s because of the leader’s clear direction. When it failed, the team didn’t execute properly. When retention improves, the leader has created the right culture. When people leave, they weren’t a good fit. When the product shipped on time, the leader kept
Ling- English
What if everything we assume about leadership and influence is backwards? True influence exists only when you completely abandon the intention to influence—a paradox that reframes management as craft rather than performance.