Does Your Culture of Origin Affect Your Leadership?

A while ago, I was at a conference speaking about leadership and how our Emotional Intelligence impacts performance. In the group discussion, questions surfaced regarding the clash of cultures. One participant observed the culture of her company did not align with her cultural background. Her company valued expression of emotion as a way to show vulnerability and authenticity, but this created tension as it was the opposite of her family culture which valued performance without emotion. “Just the facts," the young lady said. No empathy was expressed with difficult classes as she was growing up. “Just deliver the ‘A’ grade.”

This young woman felt trapped between the performance model she was taught as a youth and the new professional culture of empathy and connectedness. I have to tell you, the tension in the room was palpable and the struggle for learning to navigate this dynamic seemed unyielding.

The culture we grew up in is a foundational part of who we are and provides much of our leadership frame. The culture we are exposed to as infants, children, and young adults forms the values, beliefs, and social norms we carry around as adults today. This cultural development is so integral to who we are that it can cause us to behave in ways that we see as entirely normal, but others may look at and say, “What planet did you come from?“ How can one deal with the stress of valuing their culture of origin, yet pressing into a different culture that requires an increase in Emotional Intelligence?

As a group, we discussed how the impact of our formative culture has on our professional behavior. This is not something easily changed without full awareness and willing intention. In fact, it may not be a full-on change that is needed, but skill in navigating between the two cultural dynamics. This is a real value for the discipline of Emotional Intelligence.

According to Michael Polanyi (my favorite science philosopher), “…as human beings, we must inevitably see the universe from a center lying within ourselves and speak about it in terms of a human language shaped by the exigencies of human intercourse.” Everything we do as leaders is culturally situated by our entire human experience: race, sex, economic class, family of origin, family dynamics, teachers, coaches, and friends. It all has an impact on how you see the world and how you lead. Culture is influential and inevitable in shaping every single person in this world.

Emotional Intelligence encompasses your ability to create space in a situation and make a behavioral choice rather than acting impulsively. Being Emotionally Intelligent equips you to assess the cultural tension, adapt to an unfamiliar way of life, and even affect an environment with good leadership and team cooperation.

Much can be learned from Young Yun Kim’s cross-cultural adaptation theory of "stress-adapt-grow." For example, the higher a leader's Emotional Intelligence, the more equipped they are to recognize the impact that the cultural stress is having on them. Self-awareness to understand the difference allows the leader to be able to feel the stress and deal with it rather than ignore it and let it mount.

If stress mounts to a point that cannot be tolerated, all sorts of negative consequences are possible. If stress is managed, then adaptation to the new culture is possible. Learning the Emotional Intelligence skill of healthy emotional expression will empower this young leader to value both her culture of origin and her culture of destiny. When she adapts, she can grow to a place where she can feel less stress about the cultural differences. She will grow as a leader without having to give up core elements of who she is as a person.

What would help you see the tension between your culture of origin and culture of destiny in a different light? Look for places of friction in your work and see if it might have something to do with the clash of cultures. If there is potential for improvement in Emotional Intelligence take some healthy strides toward understanding the differences between the cultures and grow as a leader.

10 C's Checklist to Decide if You Have an Effective Team (Part 2)

Last week, I opened the conversation about Effective Teams and challenged you to think critically about your own team. If you missed the first 5 C’s Checklist, click here to get caught up.

As promised, here are the remaining 5 C’s:
...And don’t forget to click the free download at the end!

6. Competent members.  Every team has to have people with enough skill and intellect to get the job done. Notice this does not say you need Perfect People, or The Smartest People, or The Best Looking People. You need people who can get the job done that align with the vision. This competence extends to a lesson I learned when I was about 4 years old. Everybody wants to play with the nice kid in the sandbox. Nobody wants to play with the arrogant, egotistical, narcissistic bully in the sandbox. All our adult lives we have been told this lie; that our organization is a zero-sum game. Which comes from an attitude of scarcity. The reason we organize as humans is that we can do more if we have each other. Stop threatening to take your sand bucket and go home if you don’t get your way. Start being nice to people, relax…go have lunch. Start behaving like you are part of an abundant world and that there is enough around for us all to eat like kings.

7. Coaching for results with a high standard of excellence. Coaching is a word that is getting a lot of play these days. It can mean anything from being directive and telling a person exactly what you want them to do (think football coach), to very supportive and delegating tasks without fear of being let down, and everything in between. In this idea of coaching, the coach bases their direction style on the needs of the person being coached. Yet keeping a high standard of excellence is key, not a matter of style. For me, coaching is all about helping the person see around a corner they are getting ready to turn and they have no idea what awaits them. There are times when the coach knows exactly what is going to happen to the individual and can help them prepare for what is coming next. There are other times when neither the coach nor the teammate knows what is around the bend. This is where the coach can get curious and at least brainstorm with the person what to expect and how to best handle whatever comes at them. The reason I like coaching so much is that it really helps to get rid of blame in organizations and focus more on opportunities that exist.

8. Confidence among members. Not one of us holds all the answers. In today’s complex organizations this is just not possible. We need to be able to ask each other questions and then listen to what the person has to say. This give and take, where one person is curious about something and then shows the ability to focus and pay attention and listen to the response, is a real key to team performance. If we are interacting like this, then I know that I can count on you to be there when it matters. Life is not perfect, things happen. If we run our teams knowing that someone has our backs when we fail, then others are more likely to reciprocate the deed when we might need it most. It is only on a team that is confident and comfortable that risks can be taken. As humans, we crave safety and security. Taking a risk isn’t safe, it is often scary and unpredictable. Knowing that you are there to support me if I fall helps me to be able to take my first step. High performing teams have confidence in each other.

9. Commitment to unity. I used to frame my thoughts around team strength using a skill model. My thinking went something like, “The team is only as strong as its weakest link.” I have to admit I was heavily influenced in my early management life by Jack Welch who had a model of ranking teammates from A (best) to (D) worst. Jack said to reward the A’s and get rid of the D’s. I have really changed my thinking on this over the last 20 years. Getting rid of people does not create unity. It only causes fear that “I might be next.” How I see team unity now is more around the philosophy of "a team is only as good as the least committed member.” I also believe it is up to the leader to create this level of commitment and to foster a spirit of “We are going to win or we are going to lose, that much I know. I also know whether we win or whether we lose we are going to do it together.”

10. Collaborative environment. No working environment is perfect. Everyone gets their feelings hurt from time to time. The worst thing that can happen on a team is that silos form and an “us versus them” mentality is created. Organizations are so complex that it is imperative that the culture remains collaborative even in the face of conflict. A spirit of collaboration says I care as much about your goals and the organization as you care about mine. I want you to win. I want you to succeed. I want you to be able to be the very best version of yourself that you can be. If I can help you with your goals and your goals are linked to the organization obtaining its vision and I truly believe in the vision, then why wouldn’t I help you? The enemy here is selfish ambition. We have to put away our own selfishness and arrogance and realize that these are going to leave us and everyone short of what they are trying to achieve. An effective team collaborates.

So, those are my top 10 C's to decide if you have an effective team.  Why not sit down and reflect on this list and really think through how your team is doing? Where are the places that you exceed expectations and are cause for celebration? Where are the gaps that need to be shored up?

If I came in and observed your team for a day, what would I find? If we used this checklist as a 1 (low) to 5 (high) scale how would your group fare? The other question that comes to mind is what if you rated your team and then I rated your team, would there be any differences? Sometimes leaders need outside perspective to see if what they are really seeing and experiencing is valid.

Care to take the challenge? If so, click HERE for a free printable download of this checklist. Use this with your team and let me know what you discover.

10 C's Checklist to Decide If You Have an Effective Team (Part 1)

Many years ago when I led my own sales team, I rarely thought deeply about what it took for a team to be effective. Honestly, I thought that if you worked hard and held people accountable to do what they said they were going to do, then that was enough. However, most of the teams I am working with today have people who work really hard, and yet they struggle.

Working with teams has caused me to stop and reflect on the subject of their effectiveness in an organization. Some have leaders who are willing to hold the team accountable, and yet they just don’t seem to be performing. They seem to be leaving things on the table that could really help them achieve at a high level.

I took some time to dig into the literature to see what I could find on topics like high performing teams, trust, goal setting, and the like. I have linked this with some of my recent experiences. Next week, I’ll include a free download with the remainder of my checklist, but for now, here are the first 5 C’s of my thoughts on high performing teams.

1. Clarity of purpose. Teams need to see the link between the overall vision, the mission of the organization, and the tactical implementation plans. Put your vision all over the place. If you are a leader, talk about it every day with everyone you meet. If you think you are being repetitive and people will get bored…fear not. Frankly, I would prefer boredom, yet headed in the right direction, than excited and clueless about where they are going. Shout your vision from the roof-top and put it where everyone can see it. Remind your folks of it in the morning when they come to work, and in the evening when they go home. Talk about it in your 5-minute huddles as you start the day, in your hour-long staff meetings, and at your leadership retreats. Never lose frequency on communicating the vision of where you are taking people in your organization.

2. Co-created goals. After you plaster your vision everywhere, put up tactical goal boards. Goals are what people should be held accountable for in organizations. Meet them and celebrate like crazy. See yourself falling short and do an early correction. If you wait too long, you may be leaving no possible way you will hit them. Every office and cubicle should have a goal board so that whoever comes into the workspace can clearly see what is being worked on and what the person is accountable to produce. My high school basketball coach used to do this with free-throw shooting. We had a board in the locker room and after practice, we had to shoot free throws, write our percentage goal, and then our actual number made. If you consistently hit your goal then the percentage went up. The only way to know this was to keep score. I have a goal score sheet in my coaching and consulting practice that I look at every Monday with my assistant, Brandi. She is responsible for holding me accountable for my percentage of progress to my goals. Hopefully, you have someone on your team that you are talking with on a regular basis about your goals and how you are doing toward them.

3. Comfort with vulnerability. By vulnerable I mean a willingness to admit weakness and mistakes. Become confident in sharing what you struggle with. If you are a conflict avoider, then admit it and ask folks to help you with it. If you have an ego or a temper…just know we all have something. Admit your shortcomings and ask folks who are really skilled at empathy, or have a calm presence, to help you along. What I DO NOT mean by vulnerable is using your weakness as an excuse to behave poorly. Let’s face it since all of us have shortcomings, none of us care that much what yours are. Weaknesses are not excuses for character flaws to be accepted, but opportunities for connecting with others from which to learn and grow.

4. Common enemy. I think this one relates back to the visioning component. What I have found is that even people who would describe themselves as noncompetitive love to win. My lovely wife would describe herself as a noncompetitive personality. However, I can assure you that if you get her in a game of “Quirkle” she will try and destroy you as fast as she can (in a loving and kind sort of way, of course). Look, if people naturally want to compete, why not give them a target to compete against. Stop fighting with each other over who has the best idea or is getting the biggest bonus or the most funding. Remember the game you are playing.  To all my friends in healthcare out there, stop worrying about who has the most department resources and go cure cancer…please!

5. Cultural integrity. Last week I did an Organization Culture assessment for a group who is integrating two very different cultures. I was reminded during my presentation of the famous quote by management guru Peter Drucker, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast!” For me, any leader who is forming a culture based on honesty and trust is really focused on the right thing. Recall that trust is made up of both a cognitive and affective component. Cognitive trust is basically procedural fairness; can folks count on you to do what you say you are going to do? Affective trust is the emotional connection we feel that stems from care and compassion. A culture, no matter the stereotype; be it family oriented or more entrepreneurial, will live successfully if it is built on a foundation of integrity. It will not always be easy, but it will always be consistent and people will feel valued.

How is your team doing with these first 5 C’s? Don’t forget, next week I’ll give my final 5 C’s to decide if you have an effective team, plus a free download.

4 Ways to Avoid Being an Instapot Leader

Last week I encouraged leaders to think about how receiving feedback can be an opportunity to capitalize on personal growth. If you want to go back and review the post, or if you missed it entirely, you can click here and get caught up.

Utilizing feedback doesn’t get enough attention in organizations. Most of the emphasis is placed on making sure leaders have feedback. Ok. Great. We are spending money making sure they have the information, but how are we investing and supporting them in processing the gift they receive?

In organizations, we treat feedback like getting an Instapot for Christmas. This complicated pressure cooking device has more buttons than my TV remote control (which I don’t know all those buttons either). The instructions on the Instapot are so complicated and overwhelming, there is genuine fear of blowing spaghetti sauce all over the living room if you press the wrong button!

Receiving feedback from organizations could be compared to the fear of pressing the wrong button on the Instapot. All of this data comes in and you hold the instructions in your hands not quite sure what to do with it. You may struggle with being completely overwhelmed, or even feeling paralyzed if the proper processing support is not provided. All of this feedback is well-intentioned, but is it helpful if the leader doesn’t get the chance to really take the time to understand what the feedback is saying?

When working with clients who are getting organizational feedback, there are four key elements that will help them process the information:

1. Ownership:  How emotionally dependent or independent are they on what others are saying? Are they trying to fit in and be like everyone else? Or are they in control, and not overwhelmed by the emotion they are feeling from the feedback? A leader with ownership can tolerate people not liking them or agreeing with everything they say.

2. Empathetic Understanding: Are they able to see the feedback from the perspective it was given? They don’t have to agree with it, but can they contextualize it? The goal isn’t to fix everything right away, but to understand the feedback and take some steps toward processing change.

3. Rigid Stance: The polar ends of this spectrum are performance and relationship. On one end, the leader focuses so heavily on tasks that they cannot see relationships are damaged. On the other end, the leader is so focused on relationship nothing ever gets done.This usually shows as justification for whatever behavior the feedback has uncovered.

4. Self-Regard: How well does the person know themselves, their strengths, and their weaknesses? Are they attuned to their natural gifts and using them to achieve their calling in life? Do they understand their position and are they working to strengthen their organizational voice? If not, they are more than likely on the other end of the spectrum, which is a lack of acknowledging strengths and using victim voice.

As we use the gift of feedback in organizations, we should also work with our leaders on how to process the gift. We need to help them contextualize and get the full breadth of the feedback before we run to an action plan to fix anything. Most of the time, nothing is really broken. In my experience, most development work comes from overplayed strengths. While the changes might seem monumental, the person receiving feedback is more-or-less experimenting with slight modifications and practicing their newfound insights.

Do you know someone who has recently received feedback or are you in the process of giving feedback? Helping them process feedback will go a long way to revealing the gift of becoming the person they desire to be.

3 Minute Read to Improve Your Leadership Resolution for 2018

Happy New Year! I know many of you are still on vacation so I promise to keep this one short and to the point. 

Many of us begin thinking today what we will resolve to do (or not do) in 2018.  

A resolution, in fact, is just this, "a firm decision to do or not do something."

Like you, In the past I have made many types of New Years Resolutions:

• Personal: Eat right, exercise more and lose 10 pounds.

• Professional: Increase sales by 20% by becoming more customer-centric.

• Family: Become a better listener when talking with my wife.

• Spiritual: Read through the Bible in a year.

All good stuff. I am sure many of you are making resolutions and talking with your friends and family about them even today.

I thought I might challenge you to add a category this year. In addition to your personal, professional, family, and spiritual resolutions to think about a resolution to improve your leadership.

Leadership

Here are 10 Ideas to help you start to think about what you could resolve to change in 2018 when it comes to your leadership. I pulled this list from some of our more popular blog posts this year and have included a link to some of them just in case you want to read more on a few of these subjects.

1. Reflect on Being a Great Leader and what is keeping you from being great. Who among us doesn’t want to be seen as a great leader? And yet so many of us have some barrier that we just don’t want to see or do anything about. (Do You Make These Leadership Mistakes)

2. Work on your values before your vision. Define what is important to you as you begin to sculpt your vision for yourself and your followers.

3. Spend less time working and more time thinking. This idea runs counter-culture to our “doing” mentality. Perhaps you need to work less and think more to enhance your ability to lead. (Solve This Riddle and Challenge Your Leadership Perspective.)

4. If you were a brand (like Kleenex or Toyota,) what would your value proposition be?

5. Who in your organization do you need to network with? (Who Else Wants to Develop as a Leader?)

6. What piece of FeedForward advice do you need to seek out? In our organizations, we are so good at feedback. We just love telling people what we observed them doing. Why not start a culture of FeedForward? Perhaps we could all get a little better at offering some solutions in addition to what we see in others that we don’t like. (What advice would you give this first time leader)

7. What cycle of negative thinking will you break this year?

8. How are you resting in the middle of your workday? Studies are showing how important rest is for leaders to maintain their effectiveness. How are you cycling your work to maximize your performance?

9. Take your emotional intelligence temperature. Are you able to choose how you react or are you “slave” to your knee-jerk reactions?

10. Whatever change you make, put a plan in place to sustain it.

I am looking forward to being with you on your leadership journey. If there are subjects you would like tackled on these pages just drop me a line. I am happy to do the research and then write about what interests you.

My prayer for you is that you have a productive and effective year as a leader.

Blessings to you and your families.

PS: If you know someone who might be interested in growing as a leader in 2018, why not forward them this blog and have them sign up? It's free and easy, and we guarantee they will get tons of value.

Solve this Riddle and Challenge Your Leadership Perspective

Alert! There is a free gift offer at the end of this post, but you have to read the entire post to get the free gift. Not really. You could go to the end and get the offer code, CLICK HERE and just get your free gift. But then you would miss a really cool riddle and some salient leadership stuff that might help you be more productive. 

Here is the riddle:

Three travelers were on a journey when they checked into a cut-rate hotel. The clerk at the desk told them there was only one room left and the price was $30 for the night.  Exhausted, the travelers took the room and each gave the clerk a $10 bill.  The next morning the hotel manager was reviewing the guest list and noticed that the night clerk had actually overcharged the travelers for the room. The published room rate was $25, and having just been to a leadership workshop on Building Character In Leaders, he asked the Bellhop to get five $1 bills out of the drawer and to refund the travelers the $5 difference. On the way to the travelers' room, the Bellhop realized that five is not easily divisible by three and not having been to the Building Character in Leaders workshop decided to give each of the travelers $1 and stick the remaining $2 in his pocket.

Now, you realize that $9 times three travelers is $27 plus the two dollars that the Bellhop put in his pocket equals $29.

Question: Where did the other dollar go?

Reflection is such an important part of leadership.

As organizational leaders, we find ourselves in the midst of some pretty busy times these days.  "Crazy busy” is actually what Dan called it in a workshop I led yesterday. The end of the year finds us trying to cram a lot of activity into not-so-much space. On the personal side, there are holiday parties, kids' school programs, last minute travel preparations, and gift purchase fill our minds. On the business side, there are year-end performance reviews to complete, development planning discussions to have, and planning meetings to hit the ground running in January.

 It just feels like there is not enough time to get everything in, let alone find space for personal reflection.

In fact, many of you might say, “Come on, man, there is no way I have time to rest and reflect!  I’ll do that down the road...”

And then you realize you won’t. 

Because January will be just as crazy as December and February just like the two months that preceded it.

So What Is A Leader to Do?

This is a question I get asked a lot in my executive coaching practice.  “I have so much that I need to do, I don’t have time to do anything else.” and then the question comes…”So, Scott what should I do about this?”  And you can see the trap we fall into.  We think that doing something is going to get us out of the crazy.  

Now I am not going to discount things like better planning, and prioritizing important over urgent work.  There are some productivity hacks that might help some folks.  But most of the leaders I work with are “hacked out” of productivity. Everything they are working on is important. So now what.

Here is my advice:  Work less and think more.

I recently ran across a two-year study out of Sweden that experimented with a 6 hour work day instead of a traditional 8 hour day for nurses at a care facility in Gothenburg. Here are some of the researchers' conclusions regarding the nurses who worked fewer hours:

• They were less tired

• less sick

• had more energy coming home

• increased time to do activities

• got an average of 7 hours of sleep a day versus less than 6 hours a day for nurses working traditional hours.

• even their blood pressure was lower than the average for all professional women in Sweeden.

So maybe you can’t get your supervisor to agree to a 6 hour work week. I get it. 

The question becomes, what can you do?

Try This Simple Step

The assumptions you are using to create your reality can’t all be valid if you can’t get everything done in the allotted time. You are telling yourself that all this craziness is normal and this is the cycle of thinking you need to break. 

But you don’t even have time to think about how to change. You are right! You don’t have the time!

You have to make the time! And I am going to give you a free gift that you can use when you make the time.

More on that in just a minute, but first the answer to the riddle: 

Answer to The Refunding The Travelers Riddle

Have you figured it out? 

If you follow the math as I originally laid it out there is a $1 that seems to be missing.

But that is because I gave you a faulty assumption.  

Each of the travelers indeed would get a $1 refund and the Bellhop put the $2 in his pocket. 

You do not add the $2 from the bellman, you subtract it from the total.  So 9 times $3 refunded reduces the price of the room to $27 dollars and when you subtract the $2 the bellman kept you get the $25 price of the room.

Faulty assumptions are at the root of many leadership issues.

What Faulty Assumptions Are You Making?

I wish I had some pixy dust or a magic wand to help you answer the above question. I don’t

But what I do have is a free gift that might be of value.

I have written The Minimalist Guide to a 4-Hour Personal Leadership Retreat and it is yours absolutely free if you CLICK HERE and enter this promo code below when you checkout:

MerryChristmas

It is my gift to you. While I don’t have the answer to what leadership assumptions you are making that are not serving you well right now, you do. You just have not MADE the time to think about what they are.

The Minimalist Guide was developed so that when you MAKE time for yourself to reflect on your personal leadership, you will have some structure to help you along the way.

If you decide to take the challenge and make some time for yourself and use the guide, drop me a note and let me know what you learned. I love hearing from you. I promise if you send me a note, I will read it and reply to it personally. 

Have You Heard the One About the Turtle on the Fence Post....?

I was on the phone the other day with an old friend who is retiring from his job of 30 years, but who is too young to just fish and play golf. We were talking about what it is like to be in business for yourself. As the conversation went along, he said to me “Do you know the story of the turtle on the fence post?"

So, this story has been around for a long time, and yet, as I was thinking about the relationship to coaching and leadership it really struck me as impactful. As both coaches and leaders, we get mental pictures of how we are seeing the world. One very important task we all have is to be able to ask the right questions in order to get our clients and teams to broaden their perspectives when obstacles arise. Being open to perspective is the key to understanding and a sure sign you are at a minimum being empathic.

The story goes that a father and his daughter were driving along the road in West Texas. The road was long and straight and there was nothing but concrete, blue sky, and fence posts to look at. It seems like they had driven for hours to the point where all they saw was fence post….fence post…..fence post. If you have driven in West Texas you know what this can be like.  

Fencepost…fencepost….fencepost...

Fencepost…fencepost…fencepost with a turtle on it….fencepost…

Then the young girl turned to her dad and said, “Did you see that turtle on the fencepost? I wonder how it got there!”

The father, seeing the teachable moment, pulls the truck off the side of the road, turns to his daughter and says, “The question isn’t how the turtle got there. The question really is WHO put the turtle there.”

Leadership Application

As leaders, so many times we see it as our job to have all the answers. We can have this insatiable desire for information or for knowledge. We fall into the trap of thinking that the person with the information is the one who has the power in a relationship.  

While it is foolish to discount the importance of having information, I have come to believe that it is the person who has the right question that really sets the tone and the agenda in the organization.

In the little story about the turtle on the fence post, the daughter had the information. She was able to observe what was going on in her world. She even asked a question which is really cool. She did not assume she could explain the quite unnatural phenomena.

In front of her was a turtle on a fence post...

• unnatural

• interesting

• alluring

• intriguing

All of these natural responses to seeing a turtle on a fence post.  

The little girl should even get credit for doing more than just saying, “Look there is a turtle on a fence post,” and then turning back to her phone to continue to mindlessly scroll through her Facebook page.

She asks a question of her dad, in fact, a good question, a reasonable question.  “How did the turtle get there?”

But the father knew that in this case, the answer to the question lay deeper in “who put the turtle on the fence post.”

4 Strategies for Leaders to think more critically

As I was thinking about the story of the turtle on the fence post and how it might apply to leadership, four main things came to mind.

1. Be careful not to rush to judgement

This is a real trap for the experienced leader. A young person brings a problem into the office and rather than ask for understanding or context the wise sage says, "I have seen this 100 times in all my years…."

While having experience is important, as leaders we must be cautious in playing the experience card. Experience can give the impression of certainty. Certainty brings with it an idea of mitigation of risk. "I have seen this before and this is what will work."

The problem with certainty is that there is no room for creativity or curiosity. There is no room for learning for that young leader. There is no place for them to develop their own set of experiences so they have things to judge against in the future.

1. Be open and curious in your questioning.

The main point here is for the leader to work hard to be unbiased and to be really genuine. We have to have our curiosity meter set on maximum as well as our genuine interest be on helping the other person.  

1. Co-create Reality

Leaders who are skilled at critical thinking have an ability to co-create reality with those they are working with. Develop the ability to come up with questions for which you have no answer.  These types of questions will help to create the reality that you and your followers are experiencing.

As you think about the turtle on the fence post, remember that the father knew that there is no way the turtle could get there on its own. There was some assistance that was needed.  “How” the turtle got there was not going to get the conversation much further.  “I don’t know” is about the only answer you could expect to get. In this case, the person who might come into your office might be left with well, let me see if I can go find some reasons for turtles to be on a fence post and I will get back to you.

But the father circumvented this by changing the question.  By changing the question, the little girl now can co-create the reality with her father and a teachable moment comes about.  As the question changes from “how” to “who," the leader is able to set the agenda and the follower is able to enter into this reality as a co-creator of what can be versus just describing what is.

1. think WHO as much as you think HOW

Almost once a week I find myself in a conversation with someone looking for a new job.  

Their questions often go something like:

“I am thinking about looking for this new job and was wondering if you could take a look at my resume.”

My standard reply has become, “Who do you know there? Who do you know in the industry?” 

Call me old school, but it is the person hiring who gets me the job, not my resume. How you got to the interview and all of your great experience IS NOT getting you the job that you desire. I guarantee it is the hiring manager who is going to bring you on the team.

What about you guys? Any tips you might have that improves your critical thinking?

5 Performance Killers We All Face and How to Deal with Them

My wife and I were faced with a tough decision a few months ago. 

Now, you have to understand that I have the cutest granddaughter in the world. I know some of you out there have grandkids too, but let me tell you something right now…not one of them is cuter than mine.

The problem is that we live in Florida and she lives in Ohio. I think you see the issue now. Grandma and I just don’t get enough quality time with that cute little bundle of joy. When she says, “Come on, Grandpa, let's go play with toys…” my heart melts like butter in a skillet.

So, we were talking with some friends about our problem and they said, “Why don’t you just move to Columbus?”

Fair question. Here is my response:

1. Don’t want to move

2. Hate winter

Then our friend said, "Why don’t you live in Ohio in the summer and winter in Florida."

My knee-jerk reaction was, “I am not old enough to be a snowbird." However, the more I thought about it and the more we talked the more it sounded kind of cool.

So, we decided to buy a small, inexpensive little condo in Ohio. We talked to my financial team who convinced me that because interest rates are low I should borrow some of the money for the condo. This sent me into a bit of an emotional “fight or flight” moment. I really don’t like borrowing money. It is the invasiveness of the process that just turns my stomach: I actually got an email from one of the lenders asking to validate my accounts to prove I was not a money launderer or terrorist. 

Intellectually, I get it. This is the world we live in, but now I have to prove I am  not one of these things for someone to do business with me. When I questioned the banker he blamed it on the Feds.

And some of you still think having the government in healthcare is a good idea. Really?

That is when I realized I have some performance anxieties.  Nothing I need to see a psychiatrist about (at least I don’t think it is that bad,) but there are times when my performance is not as good as it could be. 

When my financial advisor said that I should get a small mortgage on the condo, my flight or flight kicked in, so I did what any good coach would tell their client to do, and sat down to journal my feelings. I also did some research on this idea of emotional distraction and performance.

My Journaling Results

So the first thing I did was to sit down and document what I was feeling. This was not difficult and I came up with this list in under five minutes. It was amazing to me when I sat down and just wrote it out what happened.

1. Not smart enough. I had this overwhelming feeling like the bankers and loan people would ask me questions that I wouldn’t know the answer to.

2. Weakness. What if this was a bad decision and someone criticized it along the way?

3. Rejection. What if they said I didn’t qualify?

4. Asking for help. The more people who know I am taking out this loan, the more people who could see me as incompetent. After all, Kim and I have really avoided debt for most of our marriage.

5. Power gradient. I felt like I had to do everything I could to please the lender so they would approve me.

The Research

In 2002 Kaiser and Kaplan did some research on distortions in performance caused by what they called “sensitivities." These sensitivities are things that have happened to us in our past that now affect how we perform in the present. What they describe in their research that I didn’t realize in my journaling is that there is an underperforming and an overperforming reaction. 

So for example, if a leader gets into a situation where they feel “Intellectually Inadequate” or what I termed “not smart enough," if they respond by “doing too little” they might not contribute in meetings, but if they “overdo it” they might work extreme hours to over compensate for the inadequate feeling.

How About You?

Think about a decision you are going to make soon or a place where your performance is not where you want it. Pay attention to how you are feeling. Do you feel:

1. Not smart enough

2. Weak

3. Rejected

4. Dependent

5. Powerless

If you have these feelings, are you overcompensating or under compensating? Some of these feelings might run very deep and the cause can stem back to your childhood. 

Sitting down with a journal and analyzing your feeling and understanding them might help you be able to overcome any compensation you are experiencing and put a plan in place to overcome the anxiety.

By the way, I was able to answer all the lenders' questions. It was not that difficult of a process and we should close on our condo this week. I can tell you one thing, being close to my grand baby is going to make any performance anxiety I was dealing with totally worth it.

How to Navigate Change Without Frustration

       People are suffering in Puerto Rico this week and may be without power for months, reports are saying. Recovery will be hard, but it is a challenge that Puerto Rican Governor Rossello is determined to take on. "God is with us; we are stronger than any hurricane. Together we will rise again." So as we keep these many people in our thoughts and prayers this week, I thought it would be good for us to reflect on ourselves and the people we both lead and interact with.

Gov. Rossello's empowering words give me so much hope for Puerto Rico, and got me thinking: that statement reflects a pragmatist's approach to change.  Now, I don't know Gov. Rossello personally, but for the sake of argument let's say, based on this statement, that pragmatism is his change style.

"Scott, what on earth is a 'change style?'"

I'm so glad you asked. Your change style is the type of approach you naturally bend toward when leading others in the midst of great change. These are the three change styles based upon the  Change Style Assessment  that I often use with my clients. 

Pragmatists: These people approach change by exploring existing structures within a situation, and operate as mediators and catalystsfor change within that structure. Thy prefer change that best serves the function. Thy can often appear reasonable, practical and flexible but also noncommittal. Gov. Rossello is ready for Puerto Rico to "rise again," to become what she was before this storm, he knows his system has worked before, and is ready to use it. 

Conservers: These people accept existing structures around them, but unlike pragmatists, prefer to keep existing systems and structures in place. They would rather see gradual changes happen. While they might seem cautious and inflexible at times, they are not afraid to ask the hard questions. This might be someone such as President Calvin Coolidge. He is an often overlooked president because he was seen as too cautious and inflexible to enact any real change. However, his slow-moving approach allowed him to see the big picture when it came to things like the economy, and he became the only president to leave office with no national deficit. 

Originators: These people are original thinkers who will challenge existing structures from the very beginning. They actually enjoy risk and uncertainty, quick and radical change. Sometimes they can come off as unorganized and undisciplined. An example of an originator would be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who challenged the broken social structure and took risky steps that led to radical, beautiful change. 

What is the value of Knowing your Change Style?

Who among us is not in the middle of some kind of change? Change is all around us. Here are some that I have noticed this last week just in my little corner of the world:

• My grocery store changed where my favorite frozen yogurt treat is found in the freezer case. Seems like every time I go into the grocery, something has moved.

• My favorite brand of frozen protein waffles changed their packaging and I almost couldn’t find them on the shelf.

• My workout routine is changing more and more as my wife and I prepare for our very first back to back half-marathons. One on October 14 the other on Oct 21!

• I have started to do more online teaching, beginning with some of the assessments we certify leaders and coaches to use in their organizations and practices.

Since things in both our personal and professional lives are constantly changing, I think it is good for us to understand how we approach change. I tend to be more of an originator and get a lot of satisfaction out of rearranging things to see if I can make them better. However, I also know that if I am not aware of a change, I can easily get frustrated, like I was when I couldn’t find my frozen waffles because the package is different.

Knowing about yourself or your clients and how they approach change can be very valuable. Think about a conserver style leader who is asked to lead a new systems initiative in their organization. If the leader is aware of their change style, then they can better manage the processes. Left unaware, frustration and doubt can hold the best leaders frozen in their tracks.

What is your change style?

Take this fun quiz below to get an idea of which style might be yours. If you are coaching someone through change, we have an assessment tool available for you to use to find our their change style that will allow you to help them grow in their approach to change. 

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6 Influence Strategies You Need to Lead

I had this really cool thought while on the treadmill the other day. Now, I have to tell you, being on a treadmill is not my favorite thing in the world. However, it has become an important part of my workout routine as my wife and I train for our next half-marathon in October. 

So I am jogging along at about a 4.7 miles per hour on the treadmill. My trainer calls this my base pace. That means that it is a pace I could theoretically keep up for 30 minutes or more if I had to do it. So I am jogging along at my comfortable 4.7 pace and my trainer Cynthia says, "Okay, everybody I want you to establish a new base. I want everyone to go 0.1mph faster." 

What! Get me out of my comfort zone? Are you kidding me?  

But you know what I did. I took my speed up 0.1mph

That's when I had the thought: Cynthia has influence over me. Here is this petite female trainer giving me instruction over a microphone with 36 other people in a class at 6:15 in the morning, and what do I do? Exactly what she said to do. Why did I do that?

It is because Cynthia has influence over me.

Because I work for myself, I am able to make my own schedule when I am not traveling for training, and therefore could theoretically go to the gym whenever I please, but I don't. Why? Because even though I have a flexible schedule, I choose to go to the gym when I know there will be a trainer working who I like. This may sound like just a personal preference of mine, but it's more than that, and this kind of behavior probably shows up more in your life than you realize. My trainers’ likability and the friendship they show me along with their expertise in physical fitness that can make me a better runner makes me want to learn more from them. Likability and authority are actually keys for influencing others. 

As I was thinking about Cynthia’s influence over me in that moment it reminded me of what Robert Cialdini talks about in his book "Influence.” Cialdini has identified 6 influencing strategies that people use with each other.

Here is a summary of those strategies.

Influencing Strategies

Reciprocation: This is the idea that we do things in return for each other. Always share your strengths to help others, and return the favor when they do the same, even if your reciprocation is just a "thank you very much for your time." Let the kindness always end with you. 

Scarcity: "The rule of the rare," you can have influence when things like time and budget are scarce to be found. Help those around you see the urgency and the resources that are available. This type of influence must be used with integrity. When used wrongly it can hurt people and cost you your influence. The scarcity in the situation must be real. Don't create a deadline that you don't intend to stick to or fail to mention some possible solutions in order to create the appearance of scarcity.

Authority: This type of influence doesn't have to do with positional power like the word may suggest, but reverential power. Showing that you have the right data, an expert perspective will influence others. When you're the expert though, don't stop listening to others or you will lose your influence. If you walk in the room thinking you are the one with all the answers your expertise will not be heard. 

Commitment: This is the starting point of influence. If you are an influential leader, then those you lead will generally be committed rather than merely compliant. If you ask them to do something that's going to cost them some sacrifice you may see if they are committed or compliant. If they're committed they will do it with enthusiasm,  if not they may not do the task at all or they may do it begrudgingly. If you find they are compliant with your influence, reflect on how open you have been with them about your larger vision for the future of your work together. To gain commitment you must show them where they're going. 

Likability: As I mentioned earlier, building a friendship to build influence is important. Likability matters. A phrase I hear sometimes from clients is "I don't care about being liked, I just want to be respected." If that is you, I challenge you to take caution with that thought. When you are liked, you can gain as much influence as when you are respected. 

Consensus: "People-proof over people-power."  As you gain rapport with others and show that you have valuable knowledge, it will increase the success and value in others. It will be because of what you delivered, and this makes you more influential. 

Personalize One of These Strategies

Think about something you are trying to get done, maybe a change you are trying to get made, or a goal you are trying to help a team to reach.  Think through the influencing strategies above and identify the one you would like to try to implement to help you achieve your goal.

We all have different personalities that leave us with our own strengths and weaknesses, but for others to benefit from our influence, we must grow and adapt to better lead with influence in many types of relationships and situations. What kind of influence do you see on this list that comes the most naturally to you? The least? Leave a comment and let's chat about it!

Are You Interviewing for This Critical Attribute?

If you are a leader who has hiring responsibility or are interviewing for a new role yourself, here is something to keep at the top of your mind.

I saw an interesting article in the New York Times the other day claiming that for every career there is an opposite career, requiring completely opposite skills. For instance, if you are a kindergarten teacher, your opposite career is a physicist. Teaching kindergarten is all about developing young minds. Physics is about using logic, math, and reasoning to solve problems. Different skills are needed for these different kinds of work outcomes. Here you can see the top set of skills needed for these two careers side by side. 

The opposite job of a kindergarten teacher is a physicist.

Skills Kindergarten Teachers Use Most            Skills Physicist Use Most

1. Coaching & developing others Physics

2. Learning strategies Mathematics

3. Developing & building teams Number facility

4. Training & teaching others Information ordering

5. Philosophy & theology Logical Reasoning

I thought this was really interesting on a couple of fronts. First, it fascinates me that, thanks to the tax money you provide the US government, the Department of Labor actually keeps data on this kind of information. While I never want to be critical about things I don’t know much about, I do have to scratch my head and ask if my tax dollars could have gone into the free market rather than pay for what seems on the surface to be a useless analysis of data collected.

Once I got past my inner critic it was kind of fun to think about the differences between being a writer and a mobile home installer: creative communication skill versus spatial thinking and manual dexterity. 

While it is a bit of a “blinding glimpse of the obvious” that the work of a physicist (thanks, Big Bang Theory for cluing me into this one) is very different from that of a kindergarten teacher. What becomes interesting are the assumptions we make about what it takes to be successful in different organizational roles.

3 Components of workplace success

Raw Intellect. There is a well-established link, with little to no debate, between the importance of overall intelligence and success in the workplace. It goes without saying that for any job that exists in an organization a certain amount of intellect is required to be able to accomplish the tasks that the organization is paying for. If you teach kindergarten you may not need to be able to do advanced calculus or understand how statistics applies to quantum theory but you need to be able to master education philosophies and advanced learning strategies. 

For most of the roles in our organizations, we don’t measure the minimum level of intellect is needed for job success on any kind of scale. We have some idea through education processes that if someone graduated from a school that has a  qualified welding program, most likely the person has the intellect to do the job. This is one reason that education matters so much, even if young people have no idea what they want to do after graduation, stay in school and get your degree you will just have more opportunities to choose from.

Skills and Talents. The second component for workplace success that gets the most scrutiny in interview processes are the behavior abilities the person displays. Back in my sales management days in the pharmaceutical industry, I spent many a day interviewing potential candidates trying to decipher if they had the skills needed to be successful on my team. We looked for people who could verbally articulate in a concise manner and who could solve problems on the spot. Paramount to sales success was the person's desire to learn complex ideas and then explain them simply. 

Behavior-based interviewing has become so popular over the years, focusing on a candidate's job experience gives some clue as to their ability to be able to perform similar task types in different roles. If a specialist in supply chain management knows how to use a pivot table then the use of this skill could be applied to any other role where pivot tables are important for job success.

And yet I can remember going through interviews with candidates from very good schools (had enough intellect) who had what seemed to have good transferable skills (in my case: sales experience) and think, “this person is not a good fit for my team." 

How is is that the person can be smart enough, and have the skills, but not be a good fit?

Emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a set of emotional and social skills that people engage to know themselves better, have better relationships, and make better decisions.  Data from the World Economic Forum suggests that over one-third of the job skills that exist today will NOT be needed in the next ten years. And a new set of competencies that don't make the list today will end up on the list instead. 

In their book The EQ Edge, Steve Stein and Howard Book provide some examples of the emotional and social skills needed for different types of roles, including jobs like account executives and teachers and customer service professionals. For example, if you need to fill a customer facing role that includes sales and customer support components, you might know the type of education, skills, and talents you are looking for in a candidate, but do you know what emotional and social skills the person needs in order to increase their level of success?

Case study

Here is how I have been helping my clients think through these types of situations. Let’s use the above scenario as a case study. 

You have been hired as a consultant to help a client understand the types of candidates they need to hire for a new customer support role they are creating, which includes sales and customer service components.

Here are some steps you can use to think through the kind of people you might need to fill these roles:

Step 1. Define the Role-most of my clients have a good job description so this one is easy.

Step 2. Define what success looks like. How will your new hire know they are doing the job well?

Step 3. What kind of education level does the person need to have to be successful? Do they need an MBA from a top 10 school or a bachelors degree from any accredited institution?

Step 4. What are the skills and talents that the person has to have to meet the minimum level of success we are expecting?

For this role you might be looking for skills and talents like:

1. Ability to collaborate and partner

2. Self-motivation

3. Creative problem-solving

4. Result oriented

5. Inspiring and influencing

Step 5. What are the emotional and social functioning abilities a person is going to need to align with the skills and talents they possess? We think about this as being the “how” they go about doing the skill.

                          Skill                                          Emotional Intelligence Ability

1. Ability to collaborate and partner Interpersonal relationships

2. Self-motivation Self-actualization

3. Creative problem-solving Reality testing

4. Result oriented Optimism

5. Inspiring and influencing Empathy

Final Thought

If you are a hiring manager or a candidate looking for your next role, you have probably spent a lot of time on considering education, skills, and talents, but have you spent enough time thinking through the impact that emotional intelligence plays in success?

This Rocked My Leadership World

Are you watching for critical inflection points in your leadership life?

I can certainly tell you that in my own life this last week I had two distinct events cause independent revelations that have come together to wake me up and help me to realize that I need to make a change in how I lead.

And I need to make the change NOW!

Story #1

The first event happened as I listened to a presentation by best selling author Stephen Arterburn. Stephen was a guest lecturer at Concordia University Irvine, one of the schools I adjunct faculty with. The presentation was about the creation of a marriage love plan and how to keep your marriage relationship vibrant, exciting, and alive. 

Here are the notes from the outline I made from mine and my student Jared Moorad's notes, as well as my reaction to each of them as it relates to my own marriage: 

1. Play and Have Fun together-Kim and I have a ball together. The other night our power went out and we lost our internet, TV, air conditioning, and lights. Kim said, “Hey, let's play a game." So we sat on the couch and used her iPad to play Quirkel. For those of you who care about performance, she kicked my tail, and it was still fun. CHECK! Stephen, we do this one.

2. Enjoy laughter and humor in the relationship. This to me means that I can laugh at her and she can laugh at me and we can laugh at ourselves. Those of you who know me know I am a pretty easy target to laugh at. CHECK! Got this one too.

3. Savor food together. I am headed home tonight and we will go to one of our local favorite eating places. I think many couples do this, but the point here isn’t to eat out, but to really savor the food. Allow the meal to become part of the conversation. Notice the flavors and talk about the feelings and notice the joy you get when this happens. CHECK! OK, Stephen, I am feeling a little cocky here….

4. Enjoy beauty together (art galleries, nature, and creation). While we are not big art gallery people, we do enjoy going to the more famous ones when in places like NYC, Chicago, Paris, or Madrid. We love God’s creation and spending time just walking through the woods or sitting on our back porch drinking coffee and looking at the nature preserve behind our house. So Yeah, Stephen, CHECK, perhaps one that could use a little more intentionality, but CHECK none the less!

5. Intentionally create a lifestyle that leads to longevity. Look, tomorrow is never promised. But if I get a tomorrow I want to share it with Kim. My brother and I have had conversations about this over the years. The woman I have is the one I want to grow old with. This means that we eat healthily and exercise together. CHECK!

6. Create beauty and adventure together. Do it on purpose. Okay, so this one challenged me a bit with the "beauty" piece, but Kim and I certainly adventure together. In October we are running our first back to back half-marathons. On the second Saturday in October we will run the Grand Canyon half and then the following Saturday we will run the Lake Powell half-marathon. I think this counts as an adventure, so CHECK!

7. Experience the sexual and the sacred. Okay, so this one is none of your business. But Stephen put it in, so I thought I would at least add it to the list and let your mind wander in your own relationship.

As I went through this list I thought, Dude, you are 7 for 7. Nice work at creating a marriage love plan. You are amazing! You are doing something the world renowned author Stephen Arterburn says you should be doing…..

Then it hit me. This was my evaluation of my “performance” at executing my marriage love plan.  I wonder what Kim would say….

Then it hit me again a little harder and with a little more sting: What if she doesn’t feel the same way? Do I have the wrong plan? Am I really doing as good as I think I am doing? 

All of this fear and negativity just started to creep in. The good feeling I had about the marriage love plan execution went right out the window and the negative self talk started: Maybe your not doing as good as you think you are. Maybe Kim feels different.  Should I ask her or just pretend she feels the same and keep living whatever fantasy world I want to live in?

Story #2

I was sitting with a coaching client recently who received feedback through a tool we use called Emotional Intelligence 360 Feedback. Using this tool, my client's supervisor, peers, direct reports and family provide input as to how they see this person behave across 15 distinct competencies. This data can then be compared to what the client thinks of his own behavior looks like and if he wants to make a change then he can put a plan together to make that desired change.  In the coaching world, pretty basic stuff.

Overall, the client was really pleased with the results, but one area stood out to him as having a big difference between how he saw himself and how others saw him. 

The EI trait called Optimism needs development in his life. Optimism is equivalent to resilience. It is how we respond to setbacks in life. It is our ability to remain hopeful in the face of adversity.  

He thought he was really, really good at this. The people giving him feedback thought differently. There was a huge gap between his self-perception and others' perception of the way he handles adversity. 

Talking about it, he said to me, “You know, I thought I was pretty good at this. I thought I had this thing together, but maybe I don’t."

Then the negative self-talk started, “Maybe I am not as good as I think I am." “These people who really know me think a lot differently than I do.” “I can’t ignore this but I really don’t know what to do….”

The Inflection Point

Well, I think you can probably see the inflection point.  All of a sudden I am sitting and coaching my client and I really feel like I am coaching myself. The thing I am being paid to help him see is exactly the same thing I am experiencing in my own life.

Does this ever happen to you? It is just a reminder to me that we are all on this journey of life together. The more we share and seek to understand each other the more human we feel. And the more human we feel, the more we realize none of us are perfect and we all need to take some time and laugh a little at each other.

I can tell you this, the meal Kim and I savor tonight will have at least 7 questions for us to ponder together...

Bon Appetite!

Are You Being Intentional with This Aspect of Leadership?

How many things can you think of that are better than knowing you have other caring, credible, and wise people who believe in you?

There is a real sense of value and self-worth gained when other people acknowledge who you are and not what you do. 

I don’t want to minimize performance in organizations, but in many ways, it is just that: performing. And if I have learned one thing about performing, it is that you are only as good as your last show, and the audience expects more and more from you on stage. Let your performance slip too much and you can find yourself sitting on the outside looking in. 

Which is why I would like to zero in on the topic of self-perception.  However, not mine and not yours. I would like you to think about a person in your organization who needs to know that you value them and that you see potential in them. Sure, they might have some things to work on, but who among us doesn’t.

Let's think about someone in your organization in whom you see some leadership potential that needs your care and your nurturing.  This is a person who if they just got the sense that you believed in them could, on their own, take your organization, department, or team to another level of performance.  

Here is my premise: If you are not investing in developing and nurturing the leadership in your organization you will someday wind up with a rudderless ship.

For years we have been sold the message that to fill a position we must look for certain skill-related criteria in workers.  While I am sure skills are important to do a job, they say little about a person's ability to lead in your organization.  I have several clients right now who are faced with the reality of wanting to promote a talented person to the next level of leadership only to look one level below and realize that there is no one to promote into the vacancy that will be created.  The people at that lower level down all have the skill to do their jobs, they just don’t have the ability to be promoted and lead a team or a department. The entire promotion process comes to a halt because no one has either invested in the talent to groom them for the next level, or the person was hired for their skill to work in the role with no thought at all about if they could some day work two or three levels higher in the organization.

Look no one has a crystal ball. We don’t know how people are going to perform. We don’t know how they are going to adapt to more responsibility or interact with others as tension and pressure increase.  I don’t think anyone in the organization is asking us to be Las Vegas odds makers on these people.

But just because you can predict the next CEO from your sales organization, or the next Lead Pastor from your youth group doesn’t mean that you can completely abdicate your responsibility.  

Think About the Investment

The question for all of us is who are we taking the time to invest in?

The investment you make in others, just like the investment you make in your 401K or IRA is a strategy.  It takes a deposit every month and then month after month and year after year. If you don’t invest enough in your retirement then you will end up short when you are ready to retire. According to the Employee Research Institute, the average American at age 65-69 has only $212,812. According to Bankrate’s investment calculator if the average person started at age 20 and invested $5,500/yr at 7% they would have $1.57 million at age 65.  

This is a difference of $1.35 million. Now you can say that some of that might be due to income and so forth but I don’t believe it. I think it has to do with not being intentional when it comes to saving and investing for a time we all know is inevitable. What is says to me is that we as Americans don’t have a retirement strategy. We live for the moment.

Link to Leadership

I think many of us approach developing leaders in our organizations the same way we approach investing for retirement.  We know it is a good idea. We know we need to do it. We just don’t have the discipline to make it happen.

Before you read any more, I would like for you to STOP: Take out a pen and a pad and write the name of a  person who you need to be thinking about and intentionally developing.

After identifying the person you want to invest in you need to ask yourself, what do I do to invest with them? Why not assess what their personal level of self-perception is? Self-Perception in the emotional intelligence world determines how in touch the leader is with their feelings, and how good they feel about themselves. Success in the area of self-perception means you are confident in pursuing your life’s goals.

Here is a little quiz to get you thinking about the level of self-perception your intentional investment candidate possesses. 

"Speaking" of Leadership

This past weekend I was honored to speak at the Exalt Conference that was put on by a coach training organization called Lark's Song  (If any of you are interested in becoming a certified coach you should check out this program. All I can say is: quality people doing quality coaching work.)

Being an extrovert's extrovert, if I am not taking care of myself 36 hours before the event, I will either run out of energy before I get on stage or during my talk. So, I thought I would put down some thoughts on how I practice “self-care” prior to speaking at an event or just preparing for a full day of training (I will say, the better I know the material, the more I may sway from these ideas.)

Scott’s Rules for Self-Care Prior To Public Speaking

The day before/the morning of:

1. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. I drink at least 100 ounces of water (half my body weight in ounces) the day prior, and the day of the event. If I am giving the first talk at 8 or 9am, then I will probably only get in 16 to 24 ounces. Hydrating prevents my body from pulling energy from other sources. It is also important to flush any cortisol-related to stress from my body.

2. Eat right. That means balancing carbs and proteins and limiting my fat intake. I have reflux from time to time that is totally dietarily-triggered. So, I need to make sure I am getting both the protein I need for strength, and the carbs I need for energy.

3. One last look. I like to go over my talk one last time prior to going to bed. I make sure my presentation delivers the message I want within the time given, and the stories I am using make sense.

4. Sleep. Even if I am with a client at dinner, I try my best to be in bed early. A good night's sleep is so important for a number of reasons. In a 2014 article in Sleep Science, author Mindy Friedman concludes, "Sleep deprivation results in objective changes in effort including reductions in the speed of task completion, work rates and the number of solutions attempted. A preference for lower effort tasks, less challenging non-academic tasks and the selection of only high priority tasks have been observed.”

5. Morning routine. When I wake up the next day, after my devotion and meditation time, I open my presentation and go over it one more time. I find this combination of good rest the night before and revisiting my presentation in the morning vital to my preparation. I don’t cloud my thoughts with TV or news. I might glance at a headline so I am current, but I don’t bog myself down with items that I can’t concern myself with prior to a talk.

15 minute Warning

1. Opening Visualization. I write out my opening 3 minutes. I then visualize myself stepping onstage, smiling, and delivering the first 3 minutes. I find if I rehearse and memorize my first 3 minutes I am able to get into an unstoppable flow.

2. Use the restroom. About 10-15 minutes prior to going on stage I use the facilities for two reasons. I have drunk 200 ounces of water over the past 36 hours, and I want to do one final appearance check. I know I am not much to look at, but I want to make sure my shirt is tucked in and my fly is zipped up. This is just a last minute quality check.  (Hint: If you are already mic’ed up make sure the power is off so that if your sound is live everyone in the “house” will not hear you.)

3. Find a mirror. This one is all about me pumping myself up. Sometimes there is a mirror in the green room or restroom. So after I make sure I look presentable, I look myself in the mirror and say:

   1. You are a child of God

   2.  You are using your unique giftedness

   3. Have some fun out there.

4. Take deep breaths. About 3 minutes before my music is queued I try to take about 10 deep, yoga style breaths. Often even those around me will not know I am doing this. This breathing both calms me and centers me on my topic.

5. Smile. My goal is to be smiling and relaxed before I go on. I want everyone around me to be relaxed. If they are relaxed then I am relaxed. If there are tense people, I try and avoid them. I want nothing but positive energy and smiles prior to going on stage.

These are just some things I have noticed the last few times I presented. I would be interested in hearing from you. What do you do prior to making a presentation that allows you to be successful?
 

Read to Lead

Since writing these articles for the past couple of years, I have found it so interesting to find which posts get the most comments. To my amazement, some of the most popular musings are when I talk about what I am reading. I am heading out on a two-week vacation tomorrow, so I thought I would share a short list of some of the better books I have read since Christmas and what I am taking with me on vacation.

Since Christmas

• A Man Called Ove (Fredrick Backman) I think my favorite book this year is this fictional story of a man who could have lived next door to me as a kid. This book is so well written that you experience what it means to be a simple man who oozes authenticity. The emotion in the book is amazing. Seeing the growth that a human can experience while not changing the core of who they are is one of my biggest enjoyments from this work.

• The Road to Character (David Brooks) I absolutely love to read anything by David Brooks. He has such a magical way of weaving intelligent observation into historical characters that are interesting and thought-provoking. Brooks covers topics like struggle, dignity, ordered love, and self-examination in this book. While he only covers 10 ideas, they are unexpected ideas for a book on character. I think this is why I liked it so much. I really felt stretched while reading this book.

• Mountains Beyond Mountains (Tracy Kidder) I love biography of leaders who are making it happen in the world and this book fits that bill to the “T”. This is the quest of Dr. Paul Farmer. Kidder does a masterful job of showing the communication of Dr. Farmer's soul. I was challenged by this book because Dr. Farmer really views humanity as one nation. His love for man, his relentless pursuit of alleviating poverty and suffering made me step back and ask myself how I could have more of an impact in my world. This is a must read.

• Ask Me (William Stafford) This is book of poetry that William Stafford’s daughter pulled together from thousands of poems he has written. I guess you could call it his 100 most impactful poems. To be honest, poetry really stretches me. I don’t always get it, but I know that it is a good exercise for me as I work on improving my emotional self-awareness. As I read poetry I am working hard on trying to understand the emotion behind what Stafford is trying to say.

• A Truck Full of Money (Tracy Kidder) This is another book by Tracy Kidder, the biography of the man who is responsible for the wildly successful travel website Kayak.com, Paul English. This is a good read if you want to understand what goes on in the mind of an entrepreneur. The title has such an interesting origin, too. A friend who started many companies with Paul once said he always wanted to be close to Paul because he just knew that with his brilliance he was bound to get hit by "a truck full of money." A fun read for those wanting to be more entrepreneurial in their own life.

• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli) Okay, so don’t be freaked out by the title. This book is so well done. It is only 81 pages long and summarizes the 7 most important facets of physics, like quanta, particles, and black holes. I think books like these are so important for leaders because they stretch our thinking and connect us to bigger ideas. I always learn something that informs my coaching practice when I read anything like this. For example, as humans, we are both observers of reality and creators of reality at the same time. As a leader, can I separate myself from the action and be an integral part of the action at the same time? How does this inform things like the values I bring to my organization or the value in listening to others on my team? I know it is a stretch, but why read a book that already tells you what you know? Why not read one that extends your mind?

• 40 Day Journey with Parker Palmer (Parker Palmer) I used this book as a devotion/meditation tool. I found Palmer to be deep in his thoughts. I was challenged to expand my thinking. This is an excellent tool for any leader who wants to expand their thinking, especially as it relates to self-development and social justice.

Taking on Vacation

Not sure I will get through all these, but here is my reading list:

• The Way It Is (William Stafford...again) Hey look, I know I need to read more poetry and I like Stafford’s approach.

• My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She Is Sorry (Frederick Backman) This is my fiction read for vacation. It is by the same author as A Man Called Ove and I loved that book so much I just had to try another by Backman.

• The Power of The Other (Dr. Henry Cloud) This is my read for coaching skills improvement. It is by one of my favorite authors in the coaching space, Dr. Henry Cloud.

• Neuroscience and the Soul (Gregg A. Ten Elshof) This is my metaphysical-stretch-me-out-of-my-mind book. Over the past 6 months I have been on a quest to describe the human soul. Maybe I will blog on that some day. When asking people to define the soul I have received some fascinating answers. This book is an intellectual debate between those who believe in the soul and a group of scientist who say there is no neurological basis for this part of the human. I am really fascinated to see how the argument forms and what results.

So, that's my list. If you decide to pick any of these up, I would love to know what you think. Also, if you are reading something cool, let me know. I love books and would love to know what you are reading.

That's it. I am now officially on vacation. I am so excited to rest and recharge my batteries.

How to Use Child's Play to Find Giftedness in Your Leadership

No matter what reason we were hired to coach, one topic that most of us in executive coaching will hear clients bring up is vocation.

As clients go through some of the deep work that coaching often entails, they start to question the choices they have made that landed them in their current careers. When I ask leaders how they came to be in their current job I often hear things like:

• It was my next logical step for promotion.

• My boss thought it would be good for me to get experience in this area.

• There was an opening, I interviewed, and here I am!

• I always had an interest in ____________. (fill in the blank…science, math, the arts, dance, music)

Because my role as a coach is to help people explore the choices they have made and the choices they see in front of them, I rarely offer advice about what clients should do. I am asked all the time, "If you were me, what would you do?" Most of the time I say, “I am not you. I have not had your experiences. I don’t have your skills. I don’t have your unique giftedness. So I can’t tell you what to do."

About a month ago that exact scenario happened.  ”Scott, if you were me, what would you do?" was the question posed. I did my little duck-and-weave maneuver described above and helped the client think through options they saw in front of them, as well as presented some other options that may not have naturally occurred in the conversation, and all was well. This is how it usually goes. Then, the session ends and the client goes on to make decisions and from time to time they keep me posted along the way.

As I finished my time with that client, I spent some time reflecting. This is something I do a lot after a coaching session. I like to think about things like:

• What kind of energy did the client show up with?

• What words did they use?

• Where did the conversation lead?

• What issues were brought to the surface?

• Did we get closer to achieving whatever goal has been set?

• What was my energy?

• What words, stories, analogies did I use?

• If I was the client, would I have valued the time I spent with me?

While in this reflective mood I remembered the client asking what I would do if faced with their vocational choice. I thought a lot about what I said and the words I chose...and then the thought hit me: I wonder if the client understood what I meant by pointing out their unique giftedness? I am sure he understood that I meant that he had unique experiences and skills, but unique giftedness is a term many may be unfamiliar with. In fact, it is a term I use often and even I wasn’t sure I knew exactly what I meant!

So I did what comes naturally to me, I started studying.

Unique Giftedness

As it turns out, the idea behind unique giftedness has been explored in some detail over the last decade or more by career counselors and those interested in vocation. Its genesis and thesis are derived from what is known as depth psychology. Clinical psychologists use depth psychology to explore the unconscious mind. By paying attention to things like dreams, slips-of-the-tongue, sarcastic humor, spontaneous humor, and meaningful coincidences, clinical psychologists are able to chart an exploration of the unconscious mind.

Depth psychologists probe areas of the mind looking to help their patients unlock the unconscious or discover things that have been trampled over and subdued from the past. While most people thinking about vocation don’t need to explore any repressed memories, career counselors have starting using some depth psychology techniques to help those they work with explore their giftedness. It turns out that as we progress through life some of us may find ourselves in a job or career that has us scratching our heads wondering, “how in the world did I get here?"

Using this vocational depth psychology approach, people are encouraged to explore career, not from their credentials, their job title, or any organizational function they are attached to, but instead explore vocation by asking the question “What are my leading gifts and abilities?”

While there are several techniques I found for uncovering answers to this question, the one I found most intriguing is called The Childhood Autobiography. It is a simple exercise where you write your own biography of what it was like for you growing up as a kid. Then you search for things within your autobiography that point to what you really loved as a child. These first loves and interests are the sparks for your unique giftedness.

Childhood Autobiography

I was really fascinated by this idea of childhood autobiography and how it could link me to unique giftedness, so I thought I would give it a try.

Here are the questions I used to help me write mine, and here is a link to my childhood autobiography if you are interested. (it's only a page or so, but I did find it very informative in exploring my unique giftedness.

• What are the earliest memories you have from your childhood?

• How did you spend your time as a kid?

• What kinds of things brought you pleasure?

• Are there things you tried to avoid?

• What kind of people did you really enjoy being around?

• What kind of people annoyed you?

My next step was to read through my childhood autobiography to see if I could pick up any unique giftedness.

Any you know what… I did!

I found out that my vocation really isn’t about skills, talents, or even intellect.  My big discovery was that it does not matter what vocation I choose if I am able to have fun and be curious. I could be happy and find fulfillment in many vocations.

Homework

Why not create your own Childhood Autobiography? You can use my questions above to explore this for yourself. If you do learn anything fun in this process, drop me a line. I would love to hear about any impact this little exercise had on you.

Are You Having This Kind of Fun as You Lead?

Spoiler Alert…There is a free offer at the end of this blog so if you like free stuff make sure you read through it. Hey, who doesn’t like free stuff?

I am traveling home after a great day yesterday with a very energetic group of young leaders. We spent the day discovering how our core values influence how we show up as leaders, how they inform our fundamental leadership principles, and ultimately how we want to be viewed as a leader by those we have impacted over the course of our career.

 It was a really impactful day!I know the course really had an impact on those who attended because of the comments they shared at the end of the day. However, I was personally impacted by the beginning of the day.

As is pretty common when a group of people doesn’t know each other, the leader of the organization asked each participant to take a moment and share their name role in the organization, where they live, and the most fun thing they did the past 7 days. It was really cool hearing 30 people introduce themselves and share what was fun for them. The stories were as diverse as the people in the room. Some went mountain biking, others went on dates with their kids, still, others had been to a concert or civic event. I wish I had space to list all 30 of them because I was just thinking what fascinating lives these folks live.

How about you? What is the most fun thing you have done in the last 7 days?

I have to admit it was fun just thinking about it. So, then, after about 15 minutes, everyone in the room had shared, and the leader introduced me as the facilitator for the day’s program, “Developing Your Leadership Story”.

I stood there smiling at them all, and before I said a word, I tried to make eye contact with each one of them. After about a 5 second pause I said,

“So what do you need to know about me that will help make your learning safe?”

Immediately someone in the audience responds, “Scott, what did you do fun in the past 7 days?” I thought, Yes! I am so glad they asked me that first instead of my education background or something boring like that. But then I had a choice to make because I had done two really cool things over the past 7 days!

• My wife and I completed our first Dri-Tri at our Orange Theory Gym. It is a “Triathlon” of sorts where a team of three people compete in three events and then the total time to complete it is recorded.  My wife Kim took the toughest segment, completing a total of 300-floor exercises (40 pushups,40 squat taps, 20 Burpees, 80 step-ups, 40 crunches, 80 running man exercises.) Our friend Alecia did a 5K on the treadmill, and my contribution was a 2000 meter row.  It was fun to compete against 9 other teams, most of whom were at least 20 years younger than us. Kim and I really enjoy interacting with these folks at our gym and learning about their lives. 
   
• My second choice was nothing but pure joy as well.  After the Dri-Tri, Kim and I went to Walmart (trust me that isn’t the fun part) to go Easter basket shopping for our granddaughter. We had a ball going through and picking out items, thinking about her, and what she likes to do. She is only 18 months old but already likes to color and use stickers, and loves Minnie Mouse. Kim and I must have spent at least an hour in Walmart just thinking about our precious granddaughter and what might make her happy. The experience was pure joy…and I really don’t like Walmart all that much.

What a choice! No bad option, but I had to pick one. I chose the Dri-Tri and had a lot of fun telling them about the experience.

But that meant the other great experience got left on the proverbial “editing floor,”

Until now.

So, since I didn’t get to tell the “Shopping For Easter Basket” story until now, I would like to do to make up for that loss. But how? I called my team, and my assistant, Brandi, said,“Why don’t we let our readers hunt for an Easter Basket on our new website?” I thought it was a great idea.

So, we are giving away TWO $25 Amazon cards for you to put in your Easter Basket!

Our Rationale

We are launching 3 new leadership assessment certification courses that I have been blogging about over the last 3 weeks.

Using Leadership Assessments with a Virtual Team

What Do Leaders Want From Their Followers?

What is Your Change Style?

We’re launching our new website to celebrate these new certification opportunities. This new site will contain all of our services, including the new assessment certifications.

How Do You Win?

• Go to www.DrScottLivingston.com
• Click around the site and search for the Easter Basket icons. There are two of them.
• Once you find one, click on it and give us some basic information (Name and email)
• We will randomly select one winner from each Easter Basket and send you an email so we can get your prize to you!

Leadership Link

By now some of you might be saying, “So Scott, what does this have to do with leadership?” I read your blog to get an insight or tidbit regarding some aspect of leadership and this blog seems to be talking about nothing but having fun and giving prizes.

And that’s the point.

Let’s put some fun back into leadership.

Happy Easter!

What Do Followers Want From Their Leaders?

I have been thinking a lot recently about the dynamic relationship between leaders and followers. Primarily, my thoughts have centered around the fundamental concept of what it means for someone to lead me and what words best describe me as a follower, what I want a leader to contribute to my life. I don’t expect that what I am about to share will rock your world in any way. In fact, prior to reading on. why don’t you answer these questions for yourself, and then compare your thoughts to mine?

• What does it mean for someone to lead me?

• What word or words best describe what I want a leader to contribute to my life?

Let me tackle the second question first:

Contribution

As I spent some time contemplating what I want a leader to contribute to my life, these four things came to mind:

• Trust in the vision they are creating. I think there is an inherent assumption that if I am going to allow someone to lead me in some way, then I am going to invest my time, talent, and/or my resources working toward whatever picture of the future they have. For me, if I am allowing someone to have influence over my life in any substantial way, I have to have some assurance that they are credible and have access to the knowledge and skill to get us moving toward our desired future state.

• Hope that the future is safe and abundant. While risk is inherent in any leader-follower relationship, I do think the Hippocratic Oath has merit not only in medicine but in leadership: First, do no harm. Resilience and optimism are both integral parts of the faith that we all put in leaders that have influence over us. We do not expect them to be perfect. It is reassuring that as we journey we will do it together and watch out for each other.

• Love me for who I am and how I was created. I am not talking about romantic love, but a brotherly love. A kind of love that recognizes the influence a leader has over me and yet respects my value and recognizes how I fit into the organization. No matter what happens this leader will have my back and I have theirs. This love values my strengths and accepts my weaknesses, a love that shows compassion.

How about you? What words did you come up with that you want a leader to contribute to your life?

As I reflected and examined the question above I noticed that in each of the descriptions I wrote another word kept surfacing that is a perfect one-word description of what it means for someone to lead me:

Influence

Influence is the sum of positive (I choose to focus on positive rather than coercive) behaviors that you as a leader exhibit that have an impact on the choices I have as a follower.

As a leader, you have a vision you are trying to implement, and an idea for how to get there. As a follower of yours, I recognize that you have some kind of authority over me. You don’t need to flaunt it. You have some idea about the direction you want all of us to go. You recognize that we have choices and hence you must be adept at getting your vision clearly articulated. You must be skilled at getting your thoughts and ideas integrated and communicated into the social structure of the organization. Influence is the idea that I “buy in” to your thoughts and ideas and am choosing to come along with you. As time moves on you continue to have some degree of power over my choices in the form of increasing my faith, knowledge, experience, and my integration into the community you are leading. As leaders, we must never forget that while it may seem desperate at times for some followers, they do have a choice whether to remain under your leadership or not.

Influence is the idea that I “buy in” to your thoughts and ideas and am choosing to come along with you. As time moves on you continue to have some degree of power over my choices in the form of increasing my faith, knowledge, experience, and my integration into the community you are leading. As leaders, we must never forget that while it may seem desperate at times for some followers, they do have a choice whether to remain under your leadership or not. As a follower of yours, I really desire to align myself with the social norms you create. You don’t need to degrade me in public. As your follower, I know you are going to do things for me and expect things in return. Share what you expect and then work with me to see if I can hit your expectation.

What Is Your Influencing Style?

As you might have guessed, psychologists have been studying this idea of influence for almost 100 years. While some of the terms have evolved, the ideas supporting the original make-up of what it means to influence have remained fairly constant.

Using an Influencing Styles Inventory Assessment leaders can discover the style they prefer to use most often, the benefits of that style, and some of the traps that overuse or misuse can cause.

Click here to download a free example of an Influencing Style Assessment

This Influencing Style Assessment gives leaders the opportunity to obtain a certification to use with followers in their organization. This certification gives leaders and coaches a tool to find ideas and strategies for those in those in their sphere of influence to make them more effective.

Using The Influence Style Indicator

Angela is a new member of my team who is responsible for our marketing and social media efforts (you are reading this article, thanks to the hard work of Angela to get it out over many different media platforms.)  I asked Angela to take the assessment and answer some questions about the Influence Style Indicator so you could learn more about it

Angela, How easy was this assessment to take and how long did it take you to complete it?

It was very easy, I received an email with a link directly to the assessment, and I completed it in about 15 minutes.

What is one thing that you learned about yourself from the assessment that you didn’t already know?

I learned that it does not come naturally to inspire others when I am trying to influence, and I actually learned that I was wrong about what I thought it meant to inspire others with my influence.

How do you see using this assessment as you influence others on our team?

I want to be more inspiring when influencing our team. The assessment showed me what it means to inspire with influence, which brings unity to a team. I was given many practical examples for how to inspire in a constructive way that moves things forward. I learned that even though the style of influence I most often tend to use is in making rational appeals for why my leadership should be followed, I really feel that inspiration is something I'd like to work into my influence style. I would love to be someone who leads others in ways that make them feel hopeful about not only my leadership but also their personal well-being.

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to be more influential as a leader in their organization?

After taking this assessment, I would tell someone who wants to be more influential that they should really listen to themselves more closely when they are presenting their opinion on anything, not just in the workplace. Good influence is not just self-aware but requires a thoughtful care that often comes out through our words. There are many ways to influence, negative and positive, and when we are trying to influence others to go along with our plans, we can get so caught up in wanting to get our way that we do not stop to think about the best way to go about making that happen, and how to behave if that does not happen.

If you are interested in learning more about this assessment and how it can be valuable to your organization or your practice as a coach we would love to connect with you. 

Using Leadership Assessments with a Virtual Team

This article is the first in a four-part series for those who develop leaders to have more confidence and credibility.

Over the past 9 months at Livingston Consulting Group, we have been working on something pretty cool that I think many of you might find interesting, and possibly applicable to the leadership work that you do.

Here is Our Story

It all started with some conversations I was having with both my coaching clients and a few of the university students I teach in leadership development and executive coaching. At the end of my classes, I would get at least 3 emails from students saying something like, “I am getting a great education and will have a firm foundation for the direction I want my life to go. However, I feel like I am lacking the tools and resources to be successful.”

After having many phone conversations with these students about coaching, which often involved questions of process and procedure, coaching skill, sales and marketing, and practical development tools, I quickly saw needs and desires for leaders of all types:

• those who coach others

• those who shepherd others

• those who counsel others

• those who train others

• those who consult with others

• those who facilitate groups of others

The main message I heard as I talked with students and clients alike is that they desire to increase their credibility with those they serve. However, budgets are tightening, travel is becoming more restricted, virtual meetings are becoming a reality, and yet the leaders I talk with still lack quality tools to develop their followers.

Fast-forward to October of 2016: I am meeting with my virtual team (Brandi lives in Tampa, Angela lives in NYC, Michelle lives in Grand Rapids, Gretchen lives in Madrid, and Madison lives in Indianapolis,) and we are discussing Clayton Christensen’s book Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice. In the book, Christensen outlines his "theory of jobs" that details how organizations should decipher what job it is that they actually do for their customers.

As we are discussing this book, someone on the team asked, "So, what job are our customers really asking us to do?"

This was an easier question to answer in regards to the training and executive coaching that I do. But when it came to providing tools and resources to those who develop others we felt like…we were missing the boat.

So we worked on it.

And we decided that our mission and the job we perform is: to provide confidence and credibility to those who develop others.

The Next Step

I will not bore you will the details of launching this new endeavor, but the real highlight is that we will be offering certification in 4 new leadership assessments starting in April of 2017! Over the next few weeks, I will be giving you a peak into what these tools can do for you as a leader, as someone who develops leaders, or someone who is interested in becoming a leader.

Emerging Leader Profile 360

This week I will be highlighting an assessment called Emerging Leader Profile 360 Feedback (ELP 360.)

This assessment is an electronic 360-degree assessment for those in an organization who are showing leadership promise and want a development plan that takes them toward this vision. This tool allows their superiors, peers, and subordinates to give the emerging leader competency-based quantitative and qualitative feedback.

Click here to download a free sample of the Emerging Leader 360 Report!

Brandi’s Experience

Brandi has been on my team for about 18 months now. She is responsible for all of our internal operations. While she has been in leadership roles in the past, the experience she had was not as positive as one would hope. So we decided to provide her with the ELP 360 as she is quickly emerging as a real leader on our team.

I asked Brandi a few questions that I thought you might enjoy her response to:

What was your overall impression of the Emerging Leader Profile 360?

I was pleasantly surprised by the comprehensive evaluation of my leadership that the Emerging Leader Profile 360 provided. Not only was the feedback I received from my manager, peers, and direct reports insightful and helpful, but I also found the self-evaluation to be incredibly valuable as it forced me to slow down and really think about how I interact with my work responsibilities, my colleagues, our clients, etc.

How did you initially feel when I approached you about taking the Emerging Leader Profile 360?

When I was approached about taking the Emerging Leader Profile 360 I was both excited and a bit nervous. Self-evaluation of my leadership is one thing, but to open myself up to the evaluation of others on my team was a bit intimidating. Feedback is often the catalyst for growth, so I was grateful to have the opportunity to learn about my leadership from the perspective of those who work closely with me on a day to day basis.

What is the most significant thing you learned about yourself from this feedback?

The most significant thing I learned about myself from this feedback has to do with my confidence as a leader. Both my self-evaluation and the feedback I received showed that I tend to “panic” when confronted or challenged by others. In the workplace, there will inevitably be times of unavoidable confrontation. As a leader, it is important that I develop the confidence necessary to express my thoughts in a healthy way, even in challenging times, rather than shutting down or avoiding the conflict entirely.

How do you see this feedback accelerating your leadership abilities?

The insight from the 360 feedback has given me clarity around a few key areas where I can focus on maximizing my strengths as well as developing areas where improvement is needed. The feedback I received has given me a fresh and energized perspective and I look forward to the ways I will grow and develop my leadership as a result of this experience.

Brandi, thank you for your transparency in sharing what you learned about yourself and this process.

How about you, leader?

Do you need to have confidence and credibility with those you develop? If so stay tuned, we have more stories coming over the next few weeks, and in April you will be able to register to get certified in these exciting leader development tools!