Instead of studying leadership, why not spend some time studying leaders and strategies in the wild? You can learn a lot from leadership experts, but you always see the leader and what he or she does through the expert’s personal lens. Supplement that learning with studying real leaders in real life situations and draw your own conclusions. The posts in this series will help you.

Every week I’ll point you to articles by and about real leaders in real situations and to articles about how real companies are faring in the marketplace. Read them. Think about them. Draw your own lessons and conclusions from them. Then try to apply those lessons in your own real life.

This week I’m pointing you to articles about Corie Barry, Three Square Market, Apple, Blake Irving, and GoDaddy.

From Kavita Kumar: CFO Corie Barry proudly leads the way as Best Buy surges

“Pushed to succeed, she is doing just that amid Best Buy’s surge.”

From the Oregonian: One company explains why it’s implanting microchips in its workers

“You’ll never forget your work badg1e if it’s implanted in your flesh. That’s the thinking at Three Square Market, a Wisconsin vending machine software firm offering to inject microchips into employees so they can open office doors, log in to computers, share business cards and even buy snacks with just of a wave of the hand.”

From the Economist: The new old thing

“APPLE has a new hit device, so popular that it has sold out across most of America and Britain. If you order it online it takes six weeks to arrive. ‘Best Apple product in a long time,’ sings one online review. Useful and (of course) slickly designed, it enjoys the highest consumer satisfaction of any Apple product in history, according to a study by two firms, Creative Strategies and Experian.”

From Zack Friedman: GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving On How To Be A Boss

“I interviewed the former Microsoft and Yahoo! executive about GoDaddy, the future of work, the state of small business, why his door is always open, his best business advice, why he wears t-shirts and shorts to the office, and what’s on his Spotify playlist.”

Thanks to Smartbrief on Leadership for pointing me to this story

From Charles Duhigg: If GoDaddy Can Turn the Corner on Sexism, Who Can’t?

“Today, as Silicon Valley sexism again draws attention, it’s worth studying those shifts at GoDaddy. There’s a regular procession of headlines about sexual harassment scandals at venture capital firms and large tech companies. But learning to address this problem requires studying where things have gotten better, as well. And GoDaddy has become, surprisingly, a lodestar among gender equity advocates — an example of how even regressive cultures can change. So what did GoDaddy do right?”