Show Me the Receipts

Leadership Notes

On building an organization where promises get kept

For Executive Directors and the leaders who resource the receipts: the systems, handoffs and continuity that keep promises when no one is watching. Each note is honest about what we found and what we still don’t know.

Leadership Note 102326 · Essay
The Ghosts We Need
You cannot see your own story from inside it. Why leaders need someone allowed to interrupt them.

Scrooge did not change by trying harder. Leaders turn people into roles without noticing, and we cannot see it from inside. Three kinds of interruption a leader can build in.

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Leadership Note 102226 · Essay
The Cleaning Station
Even the biggest fish on the reef cannot see its own gills. Why leaders need someone to read their receipts with them.

Most leaders believe they see themselves clearly, and the higher they rise, the fewer people will tell them otherwise. What coaching is for, and a receipts review you can start this month.

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Leadership Note 102126 · Practice
Who Else Knows How?
A forty-five-minute exercise that turns your next staff meeting from reporting into tracing.

You cannot find where the delivery lives on your own. Your crew already knows. A meeting plan for finding out together.

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Leadership Note 102026 · Essay
The One Who Tried to Change Everything
When a beloved leader leaves, the next one often takes the blame. The better question is where the delivery lived.

Charisma carries the day, and so does tradition. Neither transfers. Why successors get blamed, and what a leader can build before leaving.

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