If you want to be followed, either for egotistical reasons or because you believe it more expedient to operate that way, you will pay a heavy price in the long run. When you are the only one thinking, the results will suffer. Authoritarian managers don't develop their subordinates, which means those who report to them stay dependent. This hurts everyone in the long run. If you give too many orders, people will likely resent them, and when you aren't looking, defy them. The greatest influence you can have over intelligent people--and the greatest influence they will have on you--comes from constantly getting in sync about what is true and what is best so that you all want the same things. #principleoftheday

Just worry about making the best decisions possible, recognizing that no matter what you do, most everyone will think you're doing something-- or many things-- wrong. It is human nature for people to want you to believe their own opinions and to get angry at you if you don't, even when they have no reason to believe that their opinions are good. So, if you're leading well, you shouldn't be surprised if people disagree with you. The important thing is for you to be logical and objective in assessing your probabilities of being right. It is not illogical or arrogant to believe that you know better than the average person, so long as you are appropriately open-minded. In fact, it is not logical to believe that what the average person thinks is better than what you and the most insightful people around you think, because you have earned your way into your higher-than-average position and you and those insightful people are more informed than the average person. If the opposite were true, then you and the average man shouldn't have your respective jobs. In other words, if you don't have better insights than them, you shouldn't be a leader-- and if you do have better insights than them, don't worry if you are doing unpopular things. So how should you deal with your people? Your choices are either to ignore them (which will lead to resentment and your ignorance of what they are thinking), blindly do what they want (which wouldn't be a good idea), or encourage them to bring their disagreements to the surface and work through them so openly and reasonably that everyone will recognize the relative merits of your thinking. Have the open disagreement and be happy to either win or lose the thought battles, as long as the best ideas win out. I believe that an idea meritocracy will not only produce better results than other systems but will also ensure more alignment behind appropriate yet unpopular decisions. #principleoftheday

Sometimes asking questions to gain perspective can be misperceived as being weak and indecisive. Of course it's not. It's necessary in order to become wise and it is a prerequisite for being strong and decisive. Always seek the advice of wise others and let those who are better than you take the lead. The objective is to have the best understanding to make the best possible leadership decisions. Be open-minded and assertive at the same time and get in tight sync with those who work with you, recognizing that sometimes not all or even the majority of people will agree with you. #principleoftheday

I don't use the word "leadership" to describe what I do or what I think is good because I don't believe that what most people think of as "good leadership" is effective. Most people think a good leader is a strong person who engenders confidence in others and motivates them to follow him/her, with the emphasis on "follow." The stereotypical leader often sees questioning and disagreement as threatening and prefers people do what they're told. As an extension of this paradigm, the leader bears the main burden of decision making. But because such leaders are never as all-knowing as they try to appear, disenchantment and even anger tends to set in. That's why people who once loved their charismatic leaders often want to get rid of them. This traditional relationship between "leaders" and "followers" is the opposite of what I believe is needed to be most effective, and being maximally effective is the most important thing a "leader" must do. It is more practical to be honest about one's uncertainties, mistakes, and weaknesses than to pretend they don't exist. It is also more important to have good challengers than good followers. Thoughtful discussion and disagreement is practical because it stress-tests leaders and brings what they are missing to their attention. One thing that leaders should not do, in my opinion, is be manipulative. Sometimes leaders will use emotions to motivate people to do things that they would not do after reflecting clearly. When dealing with intelligent people in an idea meritocracy, it is essential that one always appeal to their reason rather than their base emotions. The most effective leaders work to 1) open-mindedly seek out the best answers and 2) bring others along as part of that discovery process. That is how learning and getting in sync occurs. A truly great leader is appropriately uncertain but well equipped to deal with that uncertainty through open-minded exploration. All else being equal, I think the kind of leader who looks and acts like a skilled ninja will beat the kind of leader who looks and acts like a muscular action hero every time. #principleoftheday

If you aren't working with people you care about and respect, your job probably isn't the one for you. I will be there for anyone who really needs me; when a whole community operates this way, it is very powerful and rewarding. Personal contact at times of personal difficulty is a must. #principleoftheday

Plenty of people have threatened me over the years by saying they'd quit, bring a lawsuit, embarrass me in the press--you name it. While some people have advised me that it's easier to just make such things go away, I've found doing that is almost always shortsighted. Giving in not only compromises your values, it telegraphs that the rules of the game have changed and opens you up to more of the same. Fighting for what's right can be hard in the short term, of course. But I'm willing to take the punch. What I worry about is doing the right thing and not about what people think about me. #principleoftheday

It's often said that it is neither fair nor appropriate to treat people differently. But in order to treat people appropriately you must treat them differently. That is because people and their circumstances are different. If you were a tailor you wouldn't give all of your customers the same size suit. It is, however, important to treat people according to the same set of rules. That's why I've tried to flesh out Bridgewater's principles in enough depth that differences are accounted for. For example, if someone has worked at Bridgewater for many years, that factors into how they are treated. Likewise, while I find all dishonesty intolerable, I don't treat all acts of dishonesty and all people who are dishonest the same. #principleoftheday

Every key person should have at least one person who can replace him or her. It's best to have those people designated as likely successors and to have them apprentice and help in doing those jobs. #principleoftheday

It's a basic law of nature: You must stretch yourself if you want to get strong. You and your people must act with each other like trainers in gyms in order to keep each other fit. #principleoftheday

Thinking like an owner means making sure that your responsibilities are handled well regardless of what comes up. While you are away on vacation, it's your responsibility to make sure nothing drops. You can do that via a combination of good planning and coordination before you go and staying on top of things while you are away. This needn't take much time--it can be as little as an hour of good checking from afar and it doesn't even have to be every day, so you can typically slip it in when it's convenient. #principleoftheday

It's a basic reality that if you don't experience the consequences of your actions, you'll take less ownership of them. If you are an employee, and you get a paycheck for turning up and pleasing your boss, your mind-set will inevitably be trained to this cause-effect relationship. If you are a manager, make sure you structure incentives and penalties that encourage people to take full ownership of what they do and not just coast by. This includes straightforward things such as spending money like it's their own and making sure their responsibilities aren't neglected when they're out of the office. When people recognize that their own well-being is directly connected to that of their community, the ownership relationship becomes reciprocal. #principleoftheday

It's worth pulling all suspicious threads because: 1) Small negative situations can be symptomatic of serious underlying problems; 2) Resolving small differences of perception may prevent more serious divergence of views; and 3) In trying to create a culture that values excellence, constantly reinforcing the need to point out and stare at problems--no matter how small--is essential (otherwise you risk setting an example of tolerating mediocrity). Prioritization can be a trap if it causes you to ignore the problems around you. Allowing small problems to go unnoticed and unaddressed creates the perception that it's acceptable to tolerate such things. Imagine that all your little problems are small pieces of trash you're stepping over to get to the other side of a room. Sure, what's on the other side of the room may be very important, but it won't hurt you to pick up the trash as you come to it, and by reinforcing the culture of excellence it will have positive second- and third order consequences that will reverberate across your whole organization. While you don't need to pick up every piece, you should never lose sight of the fact that you're stepping over the trash nor that it's probably not as hard as you think to pick up a piece or two as you go on your way. #principleoftheday