It’s Official! My New Book, It’s Leadership, Stupid! is scheduled for release by Amazon on September 25th. This fun-filled leadership book takes you through my life in 40 short vignettes. Each chapter of my life has been fun, and I know many of my circumstances will resonate with others who read the book.

In the meantime, here is another ‘rejected’ story that did not make it into the book.

Leadership: Uh, Unh, Ugh!

How exhausting it can be when facing challenges, working with people, and running an operation. Nevertheless, these emotional nuances help to convey feelings quickly and effectively. When it comes to leadership, things get complicated, frustrating, and unless they have good emotional bandwidth, then a leader’s work can become a drag on their energy, their brain, and their ability to deal with adversity.

Each of these short utterances expresses feelings from agreement to annoyance to complete exasperation without using full sentences. For example, Uh can signal that a person is thinking or trying to recall something, while Unh could mean pleasure or surprise. Ugh, on the other hand, typically expresses a strong sense of disgust or disappointment.

Throughout our lives, especially mine, I have used these expressions when I have found myself in certain situations or conversations to ward off hitting somebody in their back real hard, slapping them into next week, or rolling my eyes at them. In fact, these three expressions convey all of the emotions and reactions one could muster in dealing with other people. But, people make the world go round! Who said that and tried to convince us? Obviously, they really meant to say: People make your head go around! There is not a single leader I know that has not found themselves uttering one of these informal expressions.

Leaders have to deal with ‘aces and spaces’ in the workplaces every day, so they can expect to groan and moan one of these utterances: Uh, Unh, Ugh!