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Perhaps one of the most challenging parts of making an impact on social media is coming up with something profound in 140 characters. That’s right; I’m talking about the tweet.

A tweet is short, sweet, and to the point. And crafting one often leaves us staring blankly at that little blinking cursor, hoping for a way to rephrase the tweet to let up some characters for an image, a link, or that ever-essential hashtag.

Unsurprisingly, a Twitter bio is equally challenging. You mean to tell me that I have 160 characters (thanks for the extra 20?) to explain to the Twittersphere who I am, what I do, and why my Twitter is worth following?

It might not seem like a big deal, but keep this in mind: Your bio is one the main things people use to decide whether or not to follow you on Twitter — so what you write in your Twitter bio needs to count.

Today, we’re taking a moment to highlight some of the most amusing and entertaining bios we could find. We’ve scoured far and wide and am proud to present to you with 28 of the funniest bios — from real people, beloved brands, and fictitious characters that pepper the Twittersphere.

28 of the Funniest Twitter Bios We Could Find

1) @TheMikeTrainor

Why we’re amused:

Comedian and writer Mike Trainor makes my inner seven-year-old want to ask him to pull my finger. Also, imagining Mr. Trainor saying, “He who smelt it,” while looking as dapper as he does in his profile picture is a little slice of added amusement. Plus, we can’t help but love this bio’s self-deprecation, in its allusion to the fact that one of his shows is “still airing somehow.”

2) @UberFacts

Why we’re amused:

UberFacts fills our brains with seemingly unnecessary information all day, every day. Though with the rise of popularity in bar-hosted trivia nights and games like Trivia Crack, I wouldn’t say we’ll never need to know things like this:

Berserk llama syndrome is a real condition where a llama believes its human owner is also a llama, causing the animal to become aggressive.

— UberFacts (@UberFacts)
August 21, 2017

3) @NelsonFranklin

Why we’re amused:

I [verb describing feelings of having a strong liking for] this. American actor Nelson Franklin gets us. We’ve seen enough “Actor/Entertainer/Jazz Pianist” Twitter bios — seriously.

Franklin took it upon himself to create a bio that not only asks his followers to test out their imaginations, but one which will also withstand the test of time. I mean, no matter what Nelson Franklin becomes in life, “Noun/noun/noun” is likely to be pretty accurate.

4) @mikeindustries

Why we’re amused:

Mike Davidson, former VP of Design at Twitter, is a connoisseur of sorts — and while he has an impressive background, we do enjoy his present credential of, “Currently chillin’.”

We also can’t help but wonder: Does the Twitter bio 160 character limit have to do with the aesthetics of a Twitter page’s design? Is Mike Davidson to blame?

5) @JamieAmacher

Why we’re amused:

Some people aim to save neglected pets. Jamie Amacher aims to save neglected houseplants. Buffalo, NY resident (and coworker of mine at Mainstreethost), Amacher knows the importance of keeping plants alive indoors — especially since, here in the Northeast U.S., we don’t get to see much plant life outside during winter.

I must say, it’s a noble act; sacrificing a Twitter bio front-loaded with accomplishments. for the sake of our forgetful nature and thirsty houseplants.

6) @sixthformpoet

Why we’re amused:

Like a homeless individual asking me for beer money, I can respect this. The mysterious Sixth Form Poet is an author (as she or he is quick to remind us) of the book The Sixth Form Poet, and offers up this Twitter handle on the book’s cover as authorship. The Sixth Form Poet has attracted 143k fans to date, which is fitting, considering this 2013 tweet:

It would be so cool if I had lots of fans.

— sixthformpoet (@sixthformpoet)
August 23, 2013

7) @Lord_Voldemort7

Why we’re amused:

Harry Potter fans, rejoice — or cower in fear. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has a Twitter, and he’s not afraid to share his truth — in the form of a clever use of Christina Perri lyrics.

8) @shelbyfero

Why we’re amused:

As we mentioned above, we always appreciate a bit of tasteful self-deprecating humor, and Shelby Fero gives us just that in her Twitter bio. Though, according to HiTFiX (and her impressive Twitter following of 122k), it seems that people are crazy about her — at the very least, on Twitter. And, if you’re curious about her work, she’s also conveniently included a link to Google search her instead of providing a website.

9) @KevinSpacey

Why we’re amused:

Huh. Well, whoever he is, we wish him the best of luck on his creative endeavor.

10) @sweetestsara

Why we’re amused:

Sara Rubin is a video producer at BuzzFeed. You can thank her in part for many of the fantastic BuzzFeed videos you see circulating around social media and love are obsessed with. If you’ve seen any of the videos in which she’s, you know she’s an overall lovable and whimsical character — not to mention, hilariously awkward and anxious, like a good handful of us.

Her Twitter bio is just as imaginative and adds a touch of fantasy that I think provides a welcomed breather from some of the more serious Twitter bios out there.

11) @JohnCleese

Why we’re amused:

John Cleese is an English writer, actor and tall person (according to his website). As he is also a comedian, we’re allowed to find it incredibly humorous that he mentions in his Twitter bio that he’s still alive, contrary to rumor. Plus, he’s doing “the silly walk” in his app, and we invite you to see for yourself just how silly it is. (Monty Python fans, rejoice.)

12 & 13) @arnettwill & @batemanjason

Why we’re amused:

First off, it’s clear to me that BFF Twitter bios are the BFF necklace of 2017. Actors Will Arnett and Jason Bateman wear their BFF-dom proud for all of the Twitterland to see — but it’s not the first time they’ve taken their affinity for one another to the public eye. In 2013, they were seen strolling down the street on a sunny afternoon in 2013 while having some fun with the nearby paparazzi:

14 & 15) @AlisonLeiby & @alyssawolff

Why we’re amused:

In a similar fashion, writers Alison Leiby and Alyssa Wolff have obviously made a BFF pact to dedicate their Twitter bios to one another. Again — we approve.

16) @Lesdoggg

Why we’re amused:

What do we love about comedian Leslie Jones’ Twitter bio? It’s simple and to the point. Plus, we can’t help but snicker at the humor in its simplicity — she lets us know about her line of work, without any jokes. That’s okay; luckily, her on-screen work and actual tweets provide plenty of hilarious fodder.

17) @shondarhimes

Why we’re amused:

For many of us, Shonda Rhimes is a legend — and our Thursday nights would be so much less interesting without her. She’s the writer behind such hit shows as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” and yes: People love to tweet their plotline opinions to her. She stops that madness with a concise, funny quip in her bio: “It’s not real, okay?” Yes, Ms. Rhimes.

18) @aparnapkin

Why we’re amused:

Comedian Aparna Nancherla’s Twitter handle (@aparnapkin) is seemingly a play on her name, which is silly enough. Based on her bio I’d be willing to guess that her Twitter feed is equally as amusing.

That assumption is backed up by TIME, as her feed was named one of The 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2014. Out of about 328 million monthly active users on Twitter, that ain’t too shabby – she’s definitely considered a comedian in this culture, if I had to guess.

19) @notzuckerberg

Why we’re amused:

In case you haven’t already guessed, this is NOT Mark Zuckerberg. But that doesn’t stop @notzuckerberg (a.k.a., Twitter user @afterthatsummer) from tweeting as if (s)he were the “Zuck.”

The fake Mark Zuckerberg is pretty funny, as proven by his Twitter bio and tweets like this:

Facebook beat Wall Street’s target again. I am a wizard making mad coin from the most abundant thing on earth—your desire to procrastinate.

— Not Mark Zuckerberg (@notzuckerberg)
January 29, 2015

Touché, fake Zuck. Touché.

20) @AnnaKendrick47

Why we’re amused:

We’ve always been rather amused by Anna Kendrick’s self-deprecating humor in general. Take, for example, this pinned tweet:

Oh God. I just realized I’m stuck with me my whole life.

— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47)
May 26, 2015

Plus, we love the location she listed. (Same here, Ms. Kendrick.)

21) @FirstWorldPains

Why we’re amused:

This account pokes fun at “first world problems,” where people complain about things that really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things: cold French fries, getting the wrong coffee, a cell phone dying, or — as @FirstWorldPains mentions in its bio — the absolutely terrible moment when you really, really want to write a good online bio, but can’t think of anything. #worstdayofmylife

22) @Charmin

Why we’re amused:

Charmin, as we know, sells toilet paper. We’re all adults here, and we all know what it’s used for. Charmin’s Twitter bio is entertaining because, considering its industry, the brand gets the awkwardness out of the way immediately, letting us all know that, hey, quality toilet paper is a good thing … and a good bathroom trip — or, “the go,” as it’s called here — should be enjoyed.

Plus, who doesn’t enjoy a good, TP-related riddle?

#NationalTellAJokeDay
Q: Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?

A: Because the “P” is silent!

— Charmin (@Charmin)
August 16, 2017

23) @ComedyCentral

Why we’re amused:

Because we see what you did there, Comedy Central. Also, this:

A great way to deal with your problems is to melt some cheese on them.

— Comedy Central (@ComedyCentral)
August 21, 2017

For some of us, cheese is always the answer, no matter what the problem.

24) @YourAwayMessage

Why we’re amused:

Are we the only ones who remember the days of AOL Instant Messenger, a.k.a., AIM? Think back, if you can, to a time before Slack, Twitter, and even Facebook — and maybe, just maybe, it’ll all come back to you.

If looking at this bio (and its accompanying profile image) gives you an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia, then you already know why it’s amusing. Remember AIM profiles? And sub-profiles? And away messages? Or the sound of that creaky door opening when your ~*cRuSh*~ signed on?

Also, the location being “the den” is on point. If this doesn’t hit home for you, view this BuzzFeed article, or move on to the next!

25) @TheEllenShow

Why we’re amused:

Ellen DeGeneres entertains us on social media, television, real life, etc. She’s just plain amusing. So it should come as no surprise that her actual bio on Twitter is pretty darn amusing. According to her bio, she has a second job as an ice road trucker — hmm — and her tweets are both real, and spectacular. Well, she’s not lying about her tweets. After all, see below. So, what does that tell us about her second job? We buy it.

I just invested in an eclipse sunglass company. Does anyone know when the next one is?

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow)
August 21, 2017

26) @tomhanks

Why we’re amused:

Fame didn’t get to Tom Hanks’ head. He’s a normal person, just like you and I, having issues with fluctuating weight. Sometimes, he gains people’s approval — and other times, not so much. To that, we say, “Tweet on, Tom.”

27) @FranksRedHot

Why we’re amused:

If you’re as big a fan of Frank’s RedHot as we are, then you know how easy it to actually but that — ahem — [stuff] on everything. Of course, as marketers, we agree that the brand might as well put it on Twitter, too.

28) @popchips

Why we’re amused:

We wish eating popchips was in our job descriptions — since, when they’re around, we certainly eat them like it’s part of our collective responsibilities.

Find Your Twitter Humor

It’s true — exercising humor while also tweeting as a responsible business is often a fine line to walk. But as these examples show, it’s possible to be both self-deprecating and funny on social media, as long as it aligns with your brand.

And, as always, we’ll continue bringing you the latest news and tactics in conquering social media.

 

Direct mail regularly gets a bad rap as an exclusively outbound-focused tactic that doesn’t keep up with the ways buyers want to consume content.

But in the right situations, direct mail could be a crucial differentiator in a world where 78% of consumers have unsubscribed from a company’s email list because the company was sending too many emails.

Just as a product that’s similar to a dozen competitors will struggle to take off, marketing that looks like everyone else’s simply won’t be memorable. Classic digital marketing tactics like email have become so overcrowded that approaching inbound creatively is crucial to standing out from your competition.

The key to doing direct mail right is keeping it aligned with your inbound marketing funnel.

Never forget your main objective: you want to lead prospects back online to continue nurturing them there. Any piece of mail you send must direct prospects online to help you track them throughout the process — whether that’s including a link to a landing page or a code they can enter on your website. Plus, the more information you have about what kinds of offers they respond to, the better you can speak to their pain points and specific needs.

Identifying Your Potential Direct Mail Audience

Prior to beginning any marketing campaign, your team should be laser-focused on your potential customers’ preferences and needs.

Your number one priority is standing out to those who are most likely to buy your product. This fundamental step shouldn’t change when you’re considering incorporating direct mail into your marketing. Inbound is all about meeting prospective customers where they are.

If your target customers don’t check their mailboxes often, they’re probably not a good fit for direct mail.

Given the plethora of other places to spend, it’ll be hard to justify spending on direct mail over, for example, paid content promotion on social media if your target audience is addicted to their smartphones.

However, if your potential customers are old enough to own homes or apartments and are likely to check their mailboxes often, direct mail could prove to be effective. It’s all about understanding what your audience needs.

If you’ve identified that sending a letter or postcard is an effective way to reach your particular prospects, you can begin to think about the moments in the buyer’s cycle when it’s best to reach out with the personalized touch of a physical piece of mail.

Being Conscious of Your Prospects’ Stage in the Buyer Cycle

A prospect finds a piece of content useful and subscribes to your blog to stay in the know. So what’s your next step?

Keep in mind that all your prospect did was subscribe to an email list. That means they’re probably still a pretty “cold” lead. If they found a blog post through organic search or because they saw a headline that looked interesting on LinkedIn, they’re not going to appreciate receiving any type of content that attempts to make a hard sell, let alone a postcard explaining your pricing.

Think about the number of coupons and offers that you’ve discovered in your mailbox, only to toss them in the recycling bin immediately. Those pieces of mail probably weren’t relevant to needs you’d expressed.

You need to make the content you’re offering via direct mail speak to the individual. That means that if at all possible, you want to segment your mailing list in the same way you’d segment an email list. Can you match a physical offer on a piece of paper to the article or offer the prospect just opened online?

Ultimately, striking at the right time with direct mail comes down to maintaining awareness of your prospects’ stage in the buyer’s cycle. Craft the direct mail piece that stands out from the rest by showing that your company understands their leads.

Creative Ways to Incorporate Direct Mail — at the Right Time

Let’s return to the recent blog subscriber.

The typical inbound marketing response is to send them an email, thanking them for subscribing and assuring them that you’ll keep them updated when the next blog is published. Rather than sending a follow-up email, though, what if you responded with a direct mail piece?

You could thank them for subscribing to your blog and direct them to some of your most popular blogs. You could even direct them to a landing page with a video that contains a personal message. It certainly stands out from the mundane marketing messages they see on a daily basis.

Rather than sticking with a complete email campaign, you could use a direct mail piece to encourage your prospect to check out an ebook or other offer you’ve created.

You could also provide them with a case study from a business similar to theirs and include compelling stats. The key is to help educate them on how to address whatever problems they’re trying to solve.

Further down the funnel, once a lead is more familiar with your brand, you might host an event they’d find useful. Invitees often perceive physical event invitations as more personal — just as an invitation to a wedding or large birthday party is likely to feel more genuine when you find it in your mailbox rather than your inbox.

Drive event attendance and track your offline efforts effectively by putting a QR code on the invite that motivates invitees to register online.

Direct mail is particularly useful when you’re trying to target a specific geo-location, age bracket, or household income level. It comes back to meeting your customers where they are. If you’re running a campaign on a local level, generate buzz in your community by sending out a visually compelling piece of direct mail that neighbors are apt to discuss.

Keys to Direct Mail Marketing Success

1) Focus on the trackability of your campaigns.

You should already be using a marketing automation solution to track your typical inbound efforts. In order to make the most of your direct mail efforts, you must also track these campaigns to decipher what’s working and what’s not.

Without tracking — a function of driving recipients online – you won’t have a true understanding of what pieces are resonating with your prospects (and what topics they’re actually interested in). 

2) Keep it visual.

Remember what the last long, descriptive brochure you read said? Me neither. Lean away from long sentences and blocks of text. Instead, spark your recipient’s interest with a beautiful image that’s relevant to the content or event you’re offering.

3) Provide a clear next step.

It’s best to limit yourself to one CTA per piece of direct mail — and make it obvious. It’ll limit confusion and make it easier for you to evaluate the piece’s ROI.

4) Target people who are checking their mail (and particularly the ones who are hard to reach online).

It won’t matter how compelling the image or copy on your postcard are if your recipients aren’t seeing it. Consider setting up automation to send physical mailers to recipients that have expressed interest in your company, but haven’t responded to digital outreach after a certain amount of time.

5) Always tie it back to online efforts.

The only way you’ll truly know how direct mail is influencing your bottom line is to track everything. Your mailers should have unique codes or phone numbers with unique extensions.

Prospects should go to landing pages that track their journey and trigger next steps in your marketing automation or sales process. Make sure you’re setting yourself up to prove the effectiveness of your campaign.

Remember, providing information to prospects when they’re ready is a foundational principle of inbound marketing.

If you can automate sending the right information at the right time, you’ll be primed to turn leads into customers.

Marketers commonly paint direct mail with an outbound brush, but classic mail can be an effective marketing tool with the right approach. With creativity and a targeted approach, you have the chance to speak to your prospects in a personalized and genuine way.

 

Two threads on Hacker News recently have shed light on the utter failures of leadership in tech. The first was an honest question: “Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?” The second was in response to an article, “Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies.”

These threads read like the Inept Executive Handbook  –  failures to address cultural issues, ignorance of the reality of day-to-day life for their employees, mishandling of everything from HR complaints to stock options.

My intention isn’t to be unnecessarily hard on executives, all humans are prone to error, but executives are at the greatest risk of believing a single version of reality  —  our own. I know it’s hard to believe, but yes, we often get it wrong.

And if you’re relying on your open door policy to keep a pulse on things? I’m sorry, but you’re just not doing enough.

The executive title is a funny thing. The higher you ascend in an organization the more isolated you tend to become. It starts getting harder and harder to get a true picture of how effective you are at leading a team.

Executives, if you want the actual truth, you need to stop assuming people will show up to tell you, you’re going to have to work for it. Why? Well we’re all subject to the idiosyncrasies of human behavior. As a senior leader, you invariably get isolated from an honest assessment of your behaviors. The main reason it happens is fear.

The people in the best position to provide leaders with honest feedback on what’s working and what’s not have the most to lose by providing that feedback.

Even in the most progressive and supportive environments people are reluctant to provide honest feedback on their leaders  —  self-preservation is an exceptionally strong motivator.

We’re trying something a little different at HubSpot to ensure our senior leaders know exactly what they’re doing that’s having a positive impact and what’s not. That’s where I come in. My job at HubSpot is to be the person that tells executives the things others won’t or can’t.

Yes, it’s a weird role.

I want to share this process because I believe it’s time for executives to stop expecting that someone will speak up if something needs to change. It’s time for executives to get serious about honest feedback.

My 3 Step Process for Honest Executive Feedback

1) Identify a broad set of people surrounding the leader in question and conduct in-depth feedback interviews with them.

To get a comprehensive set of feedback I will interview an average of 18 people that interact with the executive being reviewed. I break the interviewees into the following groups:

• Direct reports/Team Members  —  not much explanation need on this one
• Peers  —  these are people operating at the same level as the executive being reviewed and have a working relationship with that person
• Associates  —  these are people that the executive works with cross-functionally to get work done
• Manager  —  that’s pretty clear
• Self  —  yup, that’s right, the executive does a self-assessment answering the same questions as everyone else

For each person giving feedback I will conduct a 30-minute interview and capture their sentiments through handwritten notes. As soon as an interview ends I take a half hour and transcribe my notes into a master document that will ultimately contain notes from all the interviews for a particular 360.

I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Woah, that’s really inefficient … you should just take notes on your computer or better yet record the interviews”.

You’d think so.

But, what I’ve found is that nothing reduces the level of candor quite like typing (no eye contact), and the reminder that an audio record of the conversation will live on. So, old school pen and paper it is.

2) Compile the interview findings into a 360-feedback report for the executive.

When all the interviews are complete and the notes have been transcribed into a master notes document, I read the notes multiple times to draw out key feedback findings and capture them in a separate document that will become the Executive 360 Feedback Report. To qualify as a “finding,” an issues needs to have been mentioned by at least 5 different people  —  this is all about uncovering the signal in the feedback noise.

Then I match up the quotes from each feedback interview with the appropriate finding I listed in the feedback report, and finally, write an overall summary of that finding to add clarity and context to the supporting quotes.

The feedback findings are presented in 4 sections:

1. The first section covers Strengths/Positive impacts.
2. The second covers What Gets in Your Way/ Negative Impacts.
3. The third section is Stop/Start/Continue which contains all of the specific advice interviewees provided when I asked them “If you could give [Leader]specific advice to be more effective, what would you tell them to stop doing? What would you tell them to start doing? What would you tell them to continue doing because it’s working?”
4. The fourth section is the Self-Assessment. As I mentioned above, the leader receiving the 360 feedback is asked the same questions as the people I interviewed. Their self-perceptions and perspectives are detailed in the report so the executive can compare their own point of view to that of those providing feedback.

My intent is to be as impartial as possible, but I am also filtering the feedback through the lens of HubSpot. There are some behaviors that, in a different organization, would be a strength. The core goal of this program is to provide effective and actionable feedback that is calibrated to the context of the unique attributes of our organization.

3) Share the feedback with the executive and their manager.

This is arguably the hardest part of the process. At HubSpot we consider feedback to be the breakfast of champions; that doesn’t mean it’s always yummy. While The feedback I provide centers on strengths and positive impacts, the part everyone always wants to dig into are the Negative Impacts and What Gets in Your Way.

In every 360, there are inevitably pieces of negative feedback the executive is surprised to learn, finds tough to face, or disagrees with entirely. That’s to be expected. There are some key things I focus the executive on when delivering this feedback to make the experience as palatable as possible.

The first thing I coach executives to consider is how can you derive even more success from your strengths and the behaviors that have a positive impact on the organization and the people around you. I caution people when they consider the Negative Impacts/What Gets in Your Way findings to not jump to the conclusion that “I need to work on all this right away”. As you might suspect, it’s more complicated than that.

When thinking about the things that are having a negative effect or are getting in the way of greater success you must think more broadly than just “I need to work on that”. You need to consider the following:

• Is this negative impact a function of the role I have and no change on my part is going to really affect the sentiment of the finding?
• Is this the result of how I fundamentally behave as a person and making a change in this area will take me years of effort which won’t address the issue right now?
• What if I figure out how to minimize the negative impact the behavior is having rather than trying to change who I am?
• Is this something that I have the capacity to change with relative ease and the change will make a tangible difference in my effectiveness as a manager and leader?

If you’re still with me I want to make something really clear  — the sole purpose of this effort is to make good executives better, by keeping them tuned into the actual reality, not just the reality in their own heads. Getting an Executive 360 isn’t an indicator that things are going poorly for that person. It’s an indicator that there are even greater heights of achievement for that person, and it’s critical they understand what to lean into and what needs work. That’s why the feedback review itself takes a two-part form:

Part One

I conduct a one hour review session with the executive to go over the findings to ensure there is clarity around all the feedback contained in the Executive 360 document. During that conversation, we make some initial judgments together on the strengths to lean into and the negative-impact areas where either making a change would be effective or minimizing the impact of something is the right approach.

Depending on the nature of the feedback and the approaches needed to move forward, we arrive at a conclusion on the level of involvement I might have in helping them take action on the feedback they now have.

Part Two

I conduct a half hour session with the executive’s manager to review the overall findings. In that session, I provide a summary document that only contains the positive and negative findings. This document does not include the quotes for each finding, the Stop, Start, Continue section or the self-review.

Given the highly personal nature of the feedback, it is the recipient’s decision to share the more detailed version of the feedback with their manager. During the session with the executive’s manager, I will also share the general gist of the conversation I had with the executive and any next steps we might have decided.

It is essential for both the manager and the feedback recipient to be aware of the findings since much of the development work that results from the document and the review will be done by the executive and their manager. The 360 itself, while a valuable tool to get clarity into how people perceive an executive’s effectiveness, won’t change behavior.

That’s on the shoulders of the executive to do the hard work of leaning into strengths and developing strategies to address the things that get in their way. My role in that is to provide further coaching at the discretion of the development partnership between the executive and their manager.

As you’ve probably guessed, this level of feedback is a lot of effort and laden with emotional landmines.

Leadership is in the eye of the beholder.

There are a lot of reasons people may choose to follow a leader  — vision, inspiration, power, fear  —  those are just a few. Regardless of people’s motivation to follow, the way you lead will have a significant impact on your ability to drive success in your organization. Often the way you lead is referred to as your leadership style.

The funny thing about your leadership style is that you don’t define it  —  your followers do.

Leadership is in the eye of the beholder. “Wait” you say, “I’m the one leading, so I’m setting my leadership style”. Actually, you are exhibiting the set of behaviors you are using to lead. Your followers, the ones observing and being affected by those behaviors, define your leadership style.

Think of it this way. While one person you lead might see your approach as demanding and blunt; another might see you as decisive with high expectations; yet another might see you as an unreasonable jerk who doesn’t listen.

Who’s right? They all are.

And the best leaders aren’t naive enough to believe that their actions or good intentions are perceived the same way by every person.

So if you want honest feedback on how you’re doing, stop assuming that it’s just going to show up. It’s on you to get out there and uncover the issues — and the opportunities.

Editor’s note: a version of this post first appeared on ThinkGrowth.org.