API’s Vice President of Journalism Programs Sam Ragland shares five common leadership challenges and assignments to help you navigate and overcome those challenges.
We want your input! Please share your leadership challenges and any feedback to help inform future Leadership Reset installments here.
Leadership is hard. And it stays that way when you, as a leader, think you’ve arrived at your position as a benefit only to yourself. I have always believed that leaders — that’s you — have been promoted to a position of power in order to benefit others by the way you support and coach them, by the way you advocate for them and help them grow.
As a newsroom leader — some of y’all have heard me say this — your first priority is to the journalists, not the journalism.
But leaders, like all people, are imperfect. We make mistakes and drop the ball; we benefit from redos as much as anyone else. The start of a new year is an opportunity to reset the relationships we have with the people we’re responsible for, and I want to help.
Each week, I’ll share a common leadership challenge and an exercise you can complete to help you navigate and overcome that challenge. You’ll have a full week to consider, plan and execute on each issue.
Let me be clear, however: The start of a new year is not the only time you can reset relationships. You can choose different behaviors that exemplify a more caring and resilient leadership style any time you want. And your team, both direct reports and adjacent staff, will appreciate these mid-stride resets.
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Leadership reset
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Share how the American Press Institute helped change how you lead, think or serve your community — and pay it forward to those shaping local news next.
Across all of our work, we’ve learned that the best solutions start with the people closest to the problem. We use evidence to inform what we do, create room to experiment and share what we learn so others can build on it.
