Stormy Transition? Here’s What to do in the Meantime

Last week we talked about stormy transitions and what the space between looks like before and after. Here’s the LINK if you missed it. This week I’m going to dive deeper in how to work through stormy transitions such as grief and loss.

A storm we can all identify with is living with loss. Let’s face it, loss is really hard. Most of us in the United States do not take enough time to grieve the loss of a loved one, let alone the loss of a job or significant relationship. Many of us are so performance-based that we get caught up in doing something rather than just being with our grief and loss. I am guilty of this myself. My battle cry is often, “Just do something and you will not notice all the pain!” But I am here to plead with you to not do this. If you are experiencing loss, take the time you need to replenish, revitalize, and heal yourself.

I have experienced both the loss of my father and the loss of a job that I really loved. I was fortunate to be able to walk through these times with some wise people who gave me what turned out to be excellent advice. They taught me how to just be, and to not focus on doing…anything.

Here are three things I did during my time of loss. In other words, here’s what to do in your meantime.

1. Allow friends to minister to your soul. Loss often cuts us very deep, to the core of who we are as people. Loss can feel very lonely and isolating. Do not let it be a time when you set yourself apart from others.  Find friends who care about you and will listen to you. Friends who will let you take your time and heal as you need to experience it. Someone who will not try and solve, but just be there with you and listen.

2. Journal your thoughts and feelings. Buy a nice leather journal and a pen that feels good to write with and take the time to put on paper what you are thinking and feeling at the time. There is no right or wrong and this is a judgment free zone. I also want to encourage you to find a friend and read your journal out loud. Explore the meanings and the feelings you are having. This will create a sense of purpose, belonging and compassion.

3. Find a soft place to land. As you are in transition do some exploring. Play with some things that you have always wanted to try. For me I had always wanted to write a book, so I did. I self-published a book on coaching with emotional intelligence. It felt really good to be able to achieve a life goal during this transition. Soft places to land can make transitions both easier and less shocking on your system.

If you are in either a mini-transition or a full-on-life-altering-transition, please, take your time. Allow others to help. Do not go through the experience alone. You will be OK, in fact you may end up being much better off. You may get to accomplish something you only dreamed of.

Go ahead and climb in your cocoon. Sit in it and grow. Then come out and change the world.

I hope you enjoy the support. If you know of someone going through transition, why not send them the blog and encourage them to sign up. I would greatly appreciate it.

Are You Intentional About This?

An old friend recently called me and told me about her work. Her company really values leadership and sees it as a competitive advantage in the marketplace, but they view personal development as the individual's responsibility. Much like how they expect my friend to dress business casual when she comes to work, but they are not going to take her shopping.

You may work in an organization that takes a more proactive approach and provides classes to attend or gives you a budget to spend on yourself for your own development. You may even work in an organization that doesn't care about your development at all, they just want the job done.

No matter what type of organization you work with, planning your own development as a leader is paramount to your improvement. We can not simply hope that we will improve or leave our development to chance.

So, what exactly does development look like? Development is about:

• Growth as a person

• Finding a new skill

• Advancing yourself

• Creating something new and exciting

• Breaking out of the routine so that you become the person YOU desire to be

Perhaps you want to improve your position or your skills, yet you just are hoping that it will happen. Hope is a poor outcome predictor. Instead of hoping something will happen we need to intentionally engage others in our development.

HERE’S AN EXAMPLE

You are conversing with a peer while waiting for a meeting to start. You say, "Hey, I am trying to speak less in meetings, but when I do speak, I am going to try to have more influence. My goal is to draw others to my ideas, rather than beat them into submission with my words. Could you observe me over the next few months and give me some feedback on how I am doing?" Admitting we need to develop something brings us face to face with the reality that if we do not make a change we will be stuck where we are for a long time. This takes courage and vulnerability.

Being intentional with your development allows you to go to other leaders, and even followers of yours, asking them to partner with you in the creation of the more advanced you. This may be scary, but so is skydiving, or running your first half-marathon, or going on your first date. Scary in an exhilarating sort of way. It demonstrates a healthy and respectful fear.

Sharing an aspect of your leadership development plan allows three important things to occur:

1. You are declaring that leading is important to you.

2. You are showing humility.

3. You are saying to others that stagnation is NOT OK with you.

If you are collecting feedback by involving others in your development I want to encourage you to pay attention to the accompanying emotion. Are you feeling sad or encouraged? Are you motivated or discouraged? No matter the emotion you are feeling, focus on what is being said and how you can use it to improve your leadership.

So, how are you involving others in your personal development? I’d love to hear your comments around the topic of intentionally developing yourself as a leader.

5 Questions to Assess Your Social Responsibility

The competency of social responsibility asks if there is anything emotionally holding you back from serving others. Social responsibility is a desire, an ability, and a volition. When I bring this topic up with clients the response I usually get is that I am giving them a “guilt trip."

Is it healthy to be the focus of your own life and the center of your universe? My guess is that none of us want to feel this way. However, the busier we become, the more self-absorbed we seem to get and the flow of our leadership lives suffers.

My point here is not to make you feel bad about your level of social responsibility, but rather to get you thinking about how are you balancing your selfish ambition. Most of us as leaders are trying to find a flow between work, family, recreation, and faith. Where does service fit in for you? If you dedicate too much to any one of these areas, the flow becomes restricted in other places.

Will you take action as a leader even though you might not benefit personally? Do you have a sense of accepting others and using your talents as a leader for the good of society and not only yourself? I don’t know how that hits you, but it actually stings a little for me. Of course, we have the skill. Yes, most of us in our hearts want to. The question is, what is holding us back from acting?

Because we are not the center of the universe, competencies such as social responsibility are vital in any model for leadership. If you read this blog on any regular basis you know that one of the best leadership models, uses emotional intelligence.

One such model for emotional intelligence that incorporates this idea of social responsibility is the EQ-i 2.0 by Reuven Bar-On. According to the EQ-i 2.0, emotional intelligence is defined in the user’s manual as, “a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.”

Most of the time when I speak to folks about emotional intelligence, their thoughts immediately turn inward to our personal emotion. Or perhaps they turn to a difficult relationship, a place where we are struggling relationally in our lives. Very few of us relate our emotional intelligence to our social consciousness.

Steve Stein and Howard Book, in their book on emotional intelligence called The EQ Edge, describe social responsibility as "A desire and ability to willingly contribute to society, your social group, and generally to the welfare of others."

Are you willing to test your desire and ability to willingly contribute to society?

If so, here are five questions you can ask yourself to assess your own level of social responsibility:

1. What community organizations am I currently involved in outside of my paid vocation? (Involved means regularly serving, not that your name is merely on a list).

2. What active role am I currently playing to make the organization better?

3. What did I do this week to lend a hand to someone who could use it?

4. How many examples can I cite in the last month where I was sensitive to the needs of friends, co-workers, or my boss?

5. Do I participate in charitable events?

We are never successful on our own. Real success comes from our work as a contributing member of a team or society. Having a caring and compassionate heart is a great balance for high levels of self-regard, that if left unchecked, could fall into arrogance.

After you take the assessment, talk to your spouse, significant other, coach, or a complete stranger about how you are doing. Do you have any changes you need to make to become more socially conscious? Your leadership depends on it.