As leaders we want individuals on our teams to succeed and as parents we want our children to succeed. When Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, was asked about the similarities between leadership and parenting, he suggested tough love is a critical skill in both contexts. I’ve recreated Grant’s “Tough Love Matrix of Leadership and Parenting” below. Tough love combines two essential elements: caring deeply and setting high expectations

After I graduated from college and settled into professional life, I realized that making friends as an adult wasn’t as easy as making friends as a student. I wanted to expand my social circle, but I wasn’t sure how. Around the same time, I learned about Robert Cialdini’s research on reciprocity in his now classic book Influence . His research found that when someone gives first, they create an obligation in others to reciprocate with a similar behavior, gift, or service. Tha