I’m attending a leadership workshop next month, and part of the preparation materials is providing advice to an earlier version of myself on lessons I would have appreciated knowing or having reinforced as I was assuming new responsibilities.

Here’s a modified version of my write-up.

1) Get comfortable holding yourself and others accountable for commitments. Make your commitments smartly and encourage your direct reports to do the same. Count on the fact that there’s going to be some resistance to that accountability. Be patient and helpful, to a point.

2) Help the business get more comfortable with agile processes by encouraging teams to push back on commitments they can’t own or are insufficiently defined.

3) Get over discomfort with providing constructive feedback to your peers, managers and direct reports. Take a step back from frustrating situations, distill the feedback to its critical essence and give it. In some cases it won’t work, in others, it will be welcome and overdue.

4) Understand and acknowledge the status quo, but don’t accept it. It wasn’t always the status quo and health means moving. Get comfortable with being unsettled and coach others on the same.

5) Time’s precious. If things seem like they’re too easy, it’s probably a good time to make a hard effort on something near and dear because that time will not always be there.

6) Counsel others on balancing “fire fighting” and “forest management” mentalities. They are complimentary but not the same thing and, too often, one takes precedence over the other (usually fire fighting).

7) Consult with others frequently and proactively, but don’t accept inaction. Buy-in is important. So is follow-through.

8) Examine and refine your practice frequently. What are you avoiding doing and why? What would need to be different to keep work at work? How are you going to get it there? What’s been tingling at the back of your mind, but you haven’t yet been able to tease into words?

9) Eat right, sleep well, exercise. It all really, really helps.

10) Never forget to say thank you to the people who work on your behalf.