"Man can be deprived of everything but one thing, the last of human freedoms - the choice of one's own attitude in given circumstances, the choice of one's own path." - Viktor E.

In moments of greatest adversity, questions arise about the meaning of suffering. Can suffering teach me something? Can the limitations imposed on me by life become the seed of positive change?

Suffering makes us start looking for solutions, escape or even a change of position. When your leg hurts while bending, don't you automatically change position and straighten the painful limb? This is nothing more than the very beginning of transformation and change. It can be the same at the level of our psyche.

As a leader on a daily basis with haemophilia (a serious genetic disease - a blood clotting disorder that causes me to experience prolonged bleeding), these questions have been with me for years in both my personal and professional life

Everyday life with Haemophilia includes pain, sudden strokes, frustration, movement restrictions, arthropathy, joint stiffness (especially in winter), complications from concomitant diseases or intravenous drug administration a minimum of 104 times a year

My first stroke occurred shortly after I turned one. When I was a child, my parents fought a constant battle for my health and our lives consisted of constant hospital visits. There were so many that, when I think about them now, they all merge into one.

For a long time, I treated my condition exclusively as a burden, something that set me apart from others and could theoretically stop my development. Over time, however, I discovered the paradox in the fact that suffering can become a teacher and even a gift if we consciously choose our attitude towards it.

Today I would like to tell you about my journey from seeing illness as a limitation to discovering in it a source of exceptional leadership competence. I will show how personal suffering can become a foundation for empathy and provide practical tips on how to turn your own challenges into a transformative force

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the next episode of the Leadership in the Age of AI podcast, where we will explore the fundamental leadership competency - self-awareness. This is where other critically important skills such as communication and building trust come from.

When metrics, business goals, and efficiency discussions dominate our meetings, self-awareness often takes a back seat. Perhaps because of a lack of time or an unwillingness to look inward.

But stop for a moment and think about the last time you felt frustrated during a team meeting. Did you ever think about where that emotion really came from? What exactly upset you? And most importantly, did your team sense what was going on with you, even though you tried to hide it behind a professional facade?

Ask yourself other honest questions, such as

Do I really understand why I react emotionally to constructive criticism?

Or why some team members immediately make me feel tense or resentful? Why am I reluctant to delegate tasks, or, on the contrary, why do I give up control so easily?

The truth is that most leaders dramatically overestimate their self-awareness. Research shows that while 95% of leaders believe they know themselves well, only 10-15% actually do. This gap costs companies millions in lost productivity and increased turnover.

As leaders, we are adept at analyzing the market, the competition, and team performance, but in our day-to-day lives we forget to look at the most powerful tool we have - our own minds and their unconscious patterns.

In today's episode, I will tell you how a deep understanding of your own thinking style directly affects your success and that of your team. I will show you how unconscious reactions and behaviors can undermine your authority, even if you have great talent and competence. I will share proven diagnostic tools and present five practical steps to help you develop true self-awareness.

Thanks for listening!

Learn how to use the latest research in artificial intelligence to be an effective leader and strengthen your leadership skills. Discover four thinking strategies (revision, backtracking, goal decomposition, and backward reasoning) that support leadership development at every stage of your career. All in the context of neuroscience discoveries that suggest a properly trained mind stays sharp for many years-even in an environment of technological change.

Unpopular opinion: your team doesn't need another “positive leader”

It needs someone REAL.

The modern world glorifies constant joy and positive thinking. Sadness, on the other hand, is often seen as a sign of weakness or lack of professionalism. But does this really mean that there is no right to more difficult emotions in the business world? Can sadness actually be a source of strength, reflection and authenticity?

In my latest article and podcast episode, I look at the role of sadness in leadership. I talk about why allowing yourself this emotion can:

👑 improve decision-making,

⚙️ improve analytical thinking,

🧠 increase memory,

🔍 increase the ability to remember details,

💙 and build confidence and strengthen relationships.

I also share personal experiences and research findings that show that sadness is not an obstacle, but part of the path to better understanding ourselves and others.

Over the course of seven months, I conducted more than 50 interviews with top-level managers, mainly CEO (chief executive officer), CTO (chief technology officer), CFO (chief financial officer), COO (chief operating officer) and CIO (chief innovation/IT officer), from countries such as Poland, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States and Sweden.

These meetings gave me the opportunity to hear a variety of perspectives on the onset of the recession in the markets, particularly the IT and high-tech crisis, and to learn about the current situation in their organisations. Based on these reflections and the data collected, the following notes have been created. You will not find all the interviews here, only a selection. Those that do appear have been anonymised. I have left only the positions and countries of my interviewees.

Virtually every manager I spoke with described the enormous and devastating effects of the crisis, which seemed to have no end. I didn't meet a company that wasn't feeling the weight of these problems. The specter of uncertainty and stagnation hung over the entire industry. Even the most ardent optimists no longer talked about growth, investment, interesting projects or long-term plans.

When I attended a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on building organizational resilience, one of the topics covered was an analysis of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, which ended in the tragic deaths of seven astronauts.

The classes at MIT and the analysis of the disaster taught me with very valuable lessons about managing complexity and crisis in organizations. I learned a lot from them, and I continue to try to apply the practices presented in my daily work.

So I was particularly pleased when, a year later, in September 2024, I happened to come across a newly released 72nd episode of the HBR On Leadership podcast, which covered the same topics. In it, I found an additional, equally interesting analysis of the tragedy, this time focused primarily on the role of leadership.

I was so inspired that I decided to search for the latest data and reports on the role of leaders in organizations that same day. I wanted to compare it with material from MIT and HBR. I wanted to see how leaders and the organizational culture compared to what NASA faced more than 20 years ago. This led to an analysis based on data from the reports, which I invite you to listen.

7 Ways to Build Trust in a Team - A Guide to Strategies and My Own Experiences

Trust is the invisible glue that binds people together and allows them to achieve more together than they could individually. Building it is a process that doesn't happen overnight. It is a long-term effort that requires patience, consistency, and commitment.

Trust is a very important, but rarely addressed and underestimated aspect of teamwork. So I decided to give it the attention it deserves.

I have combed through dozens of studies, reports, lectures, and materials and compiled them into this book. You won't find a better condensed dose of knowledge dedicated to the broadly understood trust in your team.

In this book, I'd like to share with you my experiences and insights into building trust. Together, we'll explore not only the benefits, but also the strategies that any leader can implement with his or her team. Using research, data, and real-life examples, we will try to understand why trust is so important and how to build it effectively. You will also learn how authentic communication, respecting others' time, showing vulnerability, and sharing personal experiences in a balanced way can affect your credibility.