Use This Leadership Lifeline to Save Your Followers

A lifeline is defined as "a rope or line used for life-saving, typically one thrown to rescue someone in difficulties in water or one used by sailors to secure themselves to a boat." Things can happen to us in our lives that give us a similar feeling of sinking or being stuck. If we don’t have some help to secure us, we can begin to feel alone and hopeless.

From time to time, we all need a lifeline thrown to us by others who are showing care and compassion.

Lifebuoy in a stormy blue sea

My Story

Over the last couple of weeks, I have spent most of my time taking a much-needed vacation. In addition to this down time, I scheduled some time for writing and research for a couple of new courses I am teaching. During this time, my interaction with my coaching and training clients is limited to text and phone conversations.

About 10 days into this period, I noticed something quite odd.

I was starting to get a little down. Not an all out depression, but I was noticing something declining in my overall mood. The feeling was like I was sinking. There wasn’t anything bad that had happened to me. In fact, I had just come off a very restful vacation! I had plenty of things that needed to get done.

Nonetheless, there it was. The feeling of not having enough of the connections that are the reason that I love the work I do.

Basic Human Psychology

It is fairly common knowledge amongst psychologists that the feeling of isolation can be a key determinant for a wide range of human ailments, from depression all the way through to premature death!

I know I wasn't totally isolated during that time, but as I sit back and reflect, I sure was feeling lonely.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that there are very few public health initiatives to combat loneliness, even though this state of being is riskier to “health and survival than cigarette smoking or obesity.”

Loneliness a bigger health risk than smoking or being overweight?

I was floored by that! Here is why. My personal physician, in my opinion, is the best in the world.

Seriously, he is an amazing clinician! He is constantly asking about my smoking habits (which I don’t), how much alcohol I am drinking, and how much red meat I am eating. He takes my blood, weighs me on a scale (which is always 3 pounds heavier than any other scale I ever get on), takes my blood pressure, and once a year hooks me up to an EKG. I do routine sonograms of my kidney because 3 years ago I had a small tumor removed. As part of his practice, I even have access to a dietician and an exercise physiologist. He spends no less than 40 minutes with me on every visit. I mean the dude has it going on. I love him!

In spite of all this great care I get, I don’t ever recall being asked about my social life, work life, or my important relationships! Perhaps my physician is assessing all of this without my knowledge by how I present in the office.

My point is not to question how to practice medicine.  Rather, my point is that if loneliness is really a bigger health risk than cigarette smoking and obesity, then perhaps it is something that we as leaders should pay closer attention to. Are there people in our sphere of influence that need a lifeline from time to time?

Impact on Leadership

According to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry February 2015 issue, the economic burden of depression, including workplace costs, direct costs, and suicide-related costs, was estimated to be $210.5 billion in 2010.

Major depression, the disease of dark thoughts, hits 16% of all Americans, who are twice as likely to be diagnosed with it during their lifetimes as they are to be diagnosed with cancer.

So this state of loneliness, which can lead to or be a part of a clinical depression, has an economic business impact, and must not just be seen as a social issue.

A very insightful study was published last October in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Researchers wanted to know the impacts and categories of social contact, or lack of it, that might predict clinical depression. In studying over 11 thousand people over the age of 50 the scientists found that only face-to-face interaction forestalled depression in older adults. Phone calls made a difference to people with a history of mood disorders but not to anyone else. Email and texts had no impact at all.

The lifeline that people need, according to this study, is face-to-face interaction

How often people got together with friends and family—or didn’t—turned out to be key. What’s more, the researchers discovered that the more in-person contact there was in the present, the less likely that depression may occur in the future. Participants who had minimal social contacts had the highest depressive symptom rate, while those who connected with people in person at least three times a week had the lowest.

It would seem that the more people got together in person, the better off they were!

What could we as leaders do to become part of the solution?

I can stop that feeling…Or can I?

Mayoclinic.org has some very simple steps for preventing depression. The 5 I thought most relevant to our discussion are:

• Control your stress

• Increase your resilience

• Boost your self-esteem

• Reach out to family and friends (i.e.. grab a lifeline)

• Get help fast

As leaders, I think we can be intentional with those under our responsibility. Here is how I would adapt the above list for leader-follower interactions.

• Become attuned to what stress looks like for people on your team.

• Meet regularly with followers at least every week to two weeks.

• Prioritize these meetings.

• Spend most of your time listening and asking questions, rather than being in "solve mode."

• Meet in person if at all possible. If not, use video chat like FaceTime or Zoom.

• Give them some assurances that you believe in them.

• Establish a culture that encourages learning from mistakes.

• Do spot check-ins in times of high stress.

• If a teammate seems down, ask about it early.

• Consider frequent mini-sabbaticals as a way to rejuvenate.

Homework

How often are you connecting with those you lead? How intentional are you in making connections? Who on your team seems a little down and needs to know you believe in them? Why not become more intentional in reaching out and touching someone? Who knows, that might just be what is needed to help your team reach peak performance.

How to Eliminate the “F” Word From Your Leadership

I don’t often find myself with a lot of time to watch television, but when I do here is the ritual I go through:

1. Sit in my comfortable easy chair.

2. Turn television on.

3. Press “Guide” button on my Direct TV remote.

4. Punch in the numbers 247, which is TBS.

All of this to see if my favorite show of all time is playing, The Big Bang Theory!

I have fallen in love with The Big Bang Theory. If you don’t know the story line, the characters are all really smart Ph.D types (except Howard, his educational pedigree is that of a lowly astronaut engineer type), whose relationships are all tested primarily by Sheldon Cooper’s regimented and deeply eccentric personality. Sheldon, along with his best friend and roommate, Leonard Hofstadter (for whom there is a written roommate agreement), may be able to easily explain complex issues in physics like quantum string theory, however, basic social situations (especially when it comes to women) confound and elude them.

Man with a cloud instead of his head

Smart Vs. Wise

The Big Bang Theory constantly reminds me that an individual may be smart, but that doesn't always mean they are wise.

I don’t often foray into the political arena in this blog. However, as I watch the political scene unfold in the US, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that the candidates keep trying to portray their level of intelligence. What we need in this country is wisdom along with intellect.

Donald Trump, who claims to have huge intellect (which should be questioned, because wealth is not an indicator of how intelligent someone is), cannot seem to get out of his own way in the legal case involving Trump University.

As a graduate of Yale Law School, I have a hard time questioning Hilary Clinton’s intellect. Although, similar criticism can be given to Clinton in the handling of her private email server. I am sorry, Mrs. Clinton, but the “not knowing” defense as Secretary of State of the United States of America is unfathomable.

When smart people make such huge public blunders, what is actually happening?

Dr. Richard Sternberg draws the conclusion his book A Handbook of Wisdom, that the opposite of smart is stupid, and the opposite of wisdom is foolishness.

The question we often ask of leaders who knew better than to act the way they did is, “How could such a smart person be so stupid?” This question really doesn’t capture the essence of the action.

Donald, how could you be so stupid to ignite racial tension to protect your personal brand?

Hilary, how could you be so stupid to blatantly ignore rules and laws you had working knowledge of?

But according to Dr. Sternberg’s assessment, the candidates are not stupid, they've acted foolishly.

Foolish acts by smart people are not because they lack intellect. The problem with the foolishness has little to do with their cerebral processing, but more to do with deeper issues of character.

While it is easy to get lost in the fictional story of television or the laissez-faire attitude of the American politician, the fact is, we observe really smart people doing really foolish things all the time.

Defining Foolishness

If as a leader you are going to remove the “F” word, then knowing what foolishness looks like might be of value. The leadership literature (thanks to Dr. Sternberg) has identified five different dimensions of foolishness:

• What-me-worry? (unrealistic optimism) - I am so smart and/or powerful it is pointless to worry about outcomes.

• Egocentrism - The interests of the leader are the only ones that are relevant.

• Omniscience - Thinking the leader knows or has access to perfect knowledge.

• Omnipotence - Over-extension of granted power by followers.

• Invulnerability - Complete protection from error or mistake.

If we go back to our candidates for President and examine their actions in light of a foolishness metric, what do you think? Perhaps Mr. Trump suffers from Unrealistic Optimism and Egocentrism, while Mrs. Clinton from Omnipotence and Invulnerability. It would be a totally different campaign if these two candidates recognized these behaviors in themselves and focused on changing them.

Taking the “F” Word Out of Your Leadership

Foolishness is something to be guarded against by all leaders. It has been suggested that the reason leaders commit foolish acts is rooted in how humans see reality. For this, we must examine a couple of different models for how we, as humans, process reality.

True is True and False is False: Some leaders have an ability when they hear true information, the information is accepted as such, and when false information is heard, it is rejected. In this model, the mind of the leader acts in a linear fashion to establish true from false or rational from irrational.

An Extra Step: Another view is that our minds are actually in a state to automatically accept what we hear as true. Yet there is an extra step involved to reject something as not true.

This process of rejection literally takes more energy from us than automatic rejection. It is argued by Dan Gilbert that people may indeed hear something that is untrue or irrational and have the capacity to reject it, but fail to take the actual step of rejecting the untruth.

We have all experienced this, especially when we are emotionally vulnerable, or even physically or mentally exhausted. We know something isn’t true, but we just don’t have the energy to debate it (anyone ever raised a teenager?).

Taking the "F" Word Out of Your Followership

What about the American public? Why do we constantly let our politicians get away with such behaviors? How about we stop blaming the “liberal press” or “Fox News” and put the foolishness meter on ourselves!? Perhaps it is time to stop aligning with individual parties and to start examining the character of the leaders we are electing. Perhaps we need to remove the “F”word from our followership as well. Perhaps we need to put a little more energy into the process, rather than shake our heads and tell ourselves we don’t have enough energy to even think about it.

Homework

Which of the five foolishness dimensions are you at risk for succumbing to as a leader? Why not ask those on your team to give you an evaluation to see if they have ever observed any of these in your leadership.

Gluten Free Leadership

“Americans will buy anything!” That was the comment from my oldest son, Zach, when I forwarded him an article from the Wall Street Journal by Sophie Egan, “Gluten Free Water? A Fad Without A Grain of Sense."

Have you noticed that gluten-free is everywhere. You can not go into the grocery store without being bombarded by it. My bananas had a “gluten-free” sticker on the, for crying out loud! I thought to myself, "No kidding, of course these are gluten free! Everybody knows that!" But perhaps I was missing the point of the sticker.

In the Journal article Sophie quotes the National Institutes of Healths’ claim that only 1% of Americans actually have Celiac disease. In this malady, a serious immune reaction is triggered by gluten which according to The Celiac Disease Foundation is a general name for the proteins found in wheat, rye, and barley. (Hence my reaction about my bananas.) Gluten is the glue that holds foods together. Only about 7% of the population has Celiac disease or a milder form of celiac gluten sensitivity.

Even though the population of celiac gluten sensitivity is small, the market for gluten free products has just exploded and is estimated to hit $15 billion by the end of 2016. The pollster YouGov reports that 60% of adults have bought a gluten-free product and 10% of households contain someone who believes gluten is bad for them. Several surveys have shown that most people don’t even know what gluten is!

According to a recent survey of 1,000 people by Consumer Reports National Research 63% of people thought that following a gluten-free diet would improve physical or mental health. Yet there is little to no research that would support this. In fact according to Alessio Fasano, M.D., director of the Center for Celiac Research at Mass General in Boston, “Unless you have celiac disease or a true gluten sensitivity, there is no clear medical reason to eliminate it”.

In his book, The Gluten Lie, Alan Levinovitz states, "It's terrifying to think that we might not understand ourselves. That we might be mistaken about our own bodies and about the effects of what we put into our bodies on ourselves."

Authenticity Free Leadership?

It is that last quote by Leinovitz that really got me thinking. What if that quote was not about food. What if it was about our leadership? Could it read something like: “It’s terrifying to think we might not understand ourselves. That we might be mistaken about our own LEADERSHIP and about the effects of how we treat ourselves and others."

When I ask the leaders I work with what kind of leader they want to be, I hear two answers more than any other. “Servant Leader” and “Authentic Leader." I thought it might be fun for you to see how well you understand yourself in light of what it means to be an authentic leader. I wonder, do most leaders even know what it means to be an authentic leader?

What is Authentic Leadership?

The leadership literature has worked hard over the past decade to put some thought and definition into what it means to be an authentic leader. The leadership theory Authentic Leadership, at it's core has 4 primary components: self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency.

Self-Awareness refers to the personal consciousness that the leader has about themselves. Some important perceptual knowledge would include behavioral preferences, strengths and weaknesses, emotions, impact on others, motives, goals, core values, principles, and worldview orientation, just to name a few. Since the 1990’s most leadership development experts have espoused that leadership development starts with self-awareness.

Internalized Moral Perspective is a self-regulatory process where the leaders behavior is guided by their internal compass of standards and values. The reason it is self-regulatory is that the leader is guided not by the pressures of the outside world, but by the ethics formed by their worldview.

Balanced Processing also has a self-regulatory component where the leader is open to hearing all sides of an argument or situation before making the final decision. Recognizing and avoiding biases and favoritisms are hallmarks of effective balanced processing.

Relational Transparency is about being open and honest with followers. In the emotional intelligence world, interpersonal relationships are built upon mutual satisfaction by both the leader and the follower. To achieve powerful relationships, openness and candor are vital. This component is about being real about who you are and what you stand for.

How About You?

Now you have some context for what authentic leadership is all about. So, leader, how are you doing when measured against this standard? Is your leadership authenticity-free? Is something being left out of your leadership that is affecting your influence or your health as a leader?

How About A Quiz?

Here is a short quiz to measure your authentic leadership. Answer YES or NO to the following questions (Be honest. If you're not, then it could say something about one or more of the dimensions we are testing…)

1. I can clearly identify my two biggest weaknesses as a leader.

2. My actions always reflect my core values.

3. I am always open to hearing all sides of any argument.

4. I always provide my honest opinion when asked.

5. I can clearly identify my two biggest strengths as a leader.

6. I have my leadership principles written out for others to hold me accountable.

7. I can clearly articulate important biases I have in my decision processes.

8. I always give people the feedback they need, even when it is difficult for me to say it.

9. My behaviors always align to my fundamental worldview positions.

10. I make up my own mind, no matter what my boss or company says I must do.

11. I actively seek out the opinions of others prior to making decisions.

12. When it comes to being in relationship with me, “What you see is what you get."

To score your quiz:

Self-Awareness relates to questions: 1, 5, & 9 . Internalized Moral Perspective relates to questions: 2, 6, & 10. Balanced Processing relates to questions: 3, 7, & 11. Relational Transparency relates to questions: 4, 8, & 12.

How did you do? Most of you will have a hard time answering “yes” to all of these questions. That is the point. For example, if your actions don’t “always" reflect your core values, then what impact is that having on your authentic leadership? This is where all of the “gold” is in doing a reflective exercise. It isn’t what score you got, it is what that score reveals about me and what am I going to do about it?

This quiz could have been on a scale from 1=never to 5=always, with sometimes and most of the time in the middle. But as I thought about it, that might let way too many of you off the hook from really thinking about your leadership being authentic.

So is authentic leadership a dichotomous reality (Yes or No: I am or I am not. Sort of like being pregnant) or is it a goal (More of a process. Like losing 5 pounds)? Is the question even necessary?

Because if it is a dichotomous reality, then how are you doing? Do you need some development? If it is a goal, then how are you doing? Do you need some development?

Homework

Why not become intentional about developing yourself as a leader? Solicit some feedback from those in your area of influence on how you are doing in the 4 components of authentic leadership. Put a plan together and start intentionally becoming the leader you want to be! (Coaches are great resources for this kind of development. Why not find a coach and intentionally work on being a more authentic leader?)

Have a great week!

And The Winner Is...

Congratulations to Cari Nicholson! Cari won a copy of Jan Tilley’s new book, “Eat Well to Be Well,” from last week's blog contest.

Hey, Cari, check out the Yogurt Marinated Grilled Chicken on p. 103! I made it last night on my smoker. Only 170 calories; 7 gms of fat, and 24 gms of protein. It was KILLER good!

If you want to order a copy of Jan’s book you can find it by clicking here.

If you are saying, “Hey, I didn’t know there was a contest last week!”...

First, here is the link to last week's guest blog from Jan Tilley herself! It's a really good one you don’t want to miss it.

Second, don’t fret. We are going to give away another copy of Jan’s book this week! Just leave us your favorite healthy eating tip, either when you travel or when you are home, and we will draw another winner next week!

The Leadership Paradox

Speaking of the winner.

Do you remember the famous paradox story from Greek mythology of Achilles and the tortoise?

Achilles was a warrior character of great strength and speed. If you want a modern day equivalent, think of Usain Bolt who currently holds the title as the fastest man in the world. The tortoise is, well, you know what a tortoise is: slow, steady, and sure.

Imagine a race between Achilles (or Usain) and the tortoise, a sprint like the 100-yard dash. And to make it interesting, we are going to give the tortoise a 50-yard head start.

Who do you think would cross the 100-yard finish line first? Most of you would say that Achilles would easily catch the tortoise and beat him soundly.

Not so fast, says Parmenides, a pre-Socratic scholar, who philosophized that one's senses can lead to results which are false and deceitful.

Parmenides (and his student Zeno) make the claim that for Achilles to beat the tortoise, he first has to catch up to the animal. These ancient philosophers say this can never happen, and here is why:

Suppose when Achilles starts running, the tortoise is at spot X. When Achilles gets to spot X, then the tortoise is at X2. When Achilles gets to X2 then the tortoise is at X3….hence the ancients say that Achilles will never catch the tortoise and the tortoise wins the race.

The Leadership Lesson

What is wrong with the above paradox? Well, there might be several things wrong (there are some quantum physicists who say there might be more truth to the paradox than we give credit, but their thinking goes beyond my feeble brain).

If we only think about one dimension such as distance, then the logic used by Parmenides and Zeno might be true. But we know that a race is more than distance. We have to consider things like strength, speed, motivation, and mental preparation just to name a few. You can not just use one dimension to determine who is going to win a race.

As we think about what goes into leadership, too many of us pick one dimension and focus only on that one item. But just like the race between Achilles and the tortoise, we have to consider more than distance in order to determine a winner.

For example, many folks I work with equate certain leadership styles to leader effectiveness. Leadership is much more than personality; being an ENTJ on the Myers-Briggs or a high “D” on the DiSK. Leadership is so much more than being able to articulate a vision, or being influential, or even having a servants heart.

Maybe it is time for us to get a much broader view of what it takes to be a leader!

Connection to Wellness

Over the past few weeks, we have dedicated these electrons (we used to call them pages, but that just doesn’t feel right anymore) to the idea of wellness.

How might wellness inform our ideas on leadership? This is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately:

• Perhaps spurred on by what is going on in the US political arena.

• Perhaps aroused by some experiences in my past.

• Instigated potentially by some reading I have been doing.

• Propelled by some enlightened conversations I have been having.

Likely a combination of these.

WELLNESS the process you go through as a leader to live a meaningful, purposeful, and intentional existence.

WELLNESS as a metric for leadership in addition to personality, vision, integrity, performance.

The next time you have to select a leader in your organization, why not frame your interview around a wellness framework? Stop asking them about past achievements, or at least expand the horizon of your discussion to topics of:

• How positive and affirming the person is.

• How they view their mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

• How does achieving their potential help others achieve what they want out of life?

One of the problems we have in our society is that we think only on one dimension. We use the winning and losing arguments of performance to gauge success. This is not a metric that is going to serve us well in the long run. Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-competitive, far from it. But focusing only on performance for performances sake can leave us longing as humans.

We still have as a classic example of this phenomena, “The Stock Market Crash of 1929."  In a nut shell, people thought the performance of the market would always go up. To the average investor, stocks were a sure thing. Performance was all that mattered. As we all know, fraudulent companies were formed and money poured into them. Then on October 24, 1929, panic selling ensued as the realization came that the market was nothing more than an overly speculative and inflated bubble.

Performance is only one metric to be studied.

Even if you do not want to change your paradigm, perhaps we might at least consider things in addition to performance. Perhaps we should look beyond results and start looking at what goes into those results. Focus on quality inputs instead of solely looking at outcomes.

Leadership is a holistic discipline. Don’t get caught living in just one dimension where a tortoise could beat Usain Bolt in a 100-yard dash. This logic is doomed to leave you wanting and spending too much time diagnosing what went wrong in your leadership.

Homework: Reflect for yourself on how you are doing on your wellness journey. Use the questions above to ask yourself what you are doing to live a more successful existence. Grade yourself on your emotional, occupational, physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual health. How are you doing?

7 Strategies for Eating Healthy on the Road

[guestpost]Today I would like to welcome my friend, Jan Tilley, to the blog. Jan is a gifted author and dietician, and her new book 'Eat Well to Be Well' is available now. I'm excited to be giving away a few copies of her book on today's blog, so enjoy the post and be sure to comment below for your chance to win![/guestpost] As a dietitian and professional speaker who is very accustomed to traveling for business, I can tell you that eating healthy while traveling may not be easy, but it is not impossible!

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Many of my clients struggle with making healthy choices on the road.  I have a client who entertains customers at dinner several nights a week.  As a part of our counseling, he asked me to go with him to dinner to teach him to make healthy choices at a steakhouse.  What I discovered was that he was making fairly healthy choices but his portions were way out of line.  He started the meal with a large shrimp cocktail, followed by a Caprese salad, a 12-ounce rib eye steak with a loaded baked potato, red wine, and dessert.   None of these were horrible choices, but the overall combined meal exceeded 3000 calories – way more than he needed for the entire day!  For our meal together, I made the following suggestions:  small shrimp cocktail, house salad with dressing on the side, 6 oz. petite filet, steamed vegetables, one glass of red wine, a decaf cappuccino for dessert.  With just a few small changes, he was enjoying a delicious, well-balanced dinner at the same restaurant for less than 700 calories!  To remind him to order wisely, I asked him to repeat to himself as he made his selection from the menu, “the only meal I need to get right is this one, I am only one meal away from success!”

Here are 7 tried and true strategies to help you maneuver the challenges of making healthy food choices on the road:

1. Drink water. The goal is ½ your body weight in ounces. If you weigh 150 pounds, you should aim for about 75 ounces of water a day. This will serve two purposes – it will keep you feeling fuller and it will prevent you from thinking you are hungry when really you are just thirsty!

2. Stick to your normal eating schedule. If you eat breakfast at 7:00 every day at home, then try to stick with that time on the road. Traveling is not an excuse to miss meals and snacks. The goal is to eat about every 3 hours to stay energized for your day. Be sure to pack or purchase healthy foods (think apples, carrots, nuts, jerky) to prevent hunger and maximize productivity.

3. Keep it real! Avoid processed and fast foods that are laden with fat, sugar, salt and a list of chemicals your body doesn’t need and doesn’t know how to process! When faced with making difficult choices on the road, look at the menu to determine which choices are made up of primarily vegetables and lean protein without a lot of high-fat sauces and toppings.

4. Limit or Avoid Alcohol. Alcoholic beverages can be a huge calorie trap! A couple of tips to remember; make lower calorie choices such as a low-calorie mixer, beer, or wine and when consuming alcohol, have one drink followed by one very big glass of water before deciding to have another.

5. Protein is Your Friend! Eating protein stabilizes your blood sugar and keeps you feeling satisfied. Carbohydrates are digested quickly and leave you feeling hungry again very quickly. If you will make it a habit to eat lean protein every 3 hours throughout your day, you will be much less likely to overindulge in the evening.

6. Eat Breakfast. Start your day right with a healthy, protein-rich breakfast. This will prevent making bad choices midmorning when you are starving!

7. Free isn’t FREE! Conventions and events are notorious for providing piles of decadent foods for meals and snacks. It is tempting to load up to keep yourself entertained and awake during meetings, then have some extra to take back to your room for an evening snack. This spells trouble for your waistline!

For more tools on building a healthy you, check out Jan’s new book, Eat Well to Be Well.  Jan is a powerful thought leader in all things health and wellness.  In the book, she translates the most current science-based information into easy to read tips and tools for making healthy choices in how we eat, sleep, exercise, and manage stress.  Eat Well to Be Well is available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores, and on Jan’s website at www.jtawellness.com.  In addition to her knowledge as a medical professional, Jan is quite the foodie.  On her website, you will find thousands of tried and true healthy recipes along with past blogs and health resources.  While visiting the site, be sure to sign up for Jan’s weekly newsletter!

Homework

Get a copy of Jan's book and equip yourself with tools for making healthy choices! I am giving away three copies here on today's blog. If you would like a chance to win one of those copies, leave a comment below sharing your favorite tip for eating healthy while traveling.

Winners will be announced in the comment section, as well as by email, on Friday.

What I am Learning About Choice

Who needs another diet book, right? There are so many on the market, what could possibly be said that hasn’t already been said? That is what I said to myself when my good friend, Jan Tilley, told me she had just written her third book on making good choices with what we eat. Jan’s new book on what it takes for people to “be well” is called “Eat Well to Be Well."

You really want to buy a copy of this book! And I don’t get any royalties for this statement, so I hope you will be curious enough to go out and get a copy. It is $20 that very well could change your life…for good! My thoughts this week come from reading Jan’s book, and I hope you have the same experience when you read it.

food-healthy-vegetables-potatoes

My Revelation

When Jan was telling me she was taking on this project I thought to myself, “I wonder how many diet books have been written?”So I went out on Amazon and found out! There are 171,292 entries for “diet books” and 7,009 that were newly released in the last 90 days!

Talk about a competitive market!

I took Jan's book with me on a trip a few weeks ago and started reading. It really is a great read!

Jan writes not about diets, but about healthy choices. Choices that will sustain you so that “…you have a fighting chance to live a healthy, strong, vibrant life well into old age."

Choice.  An interesting word.

A word that says the decision and the repercussions are mine. I am the one accountable. I am the one responsible. The choice is mine to be healthy.

So that

• If I am working like a dog, and don’t exercise - I chose that!

• If I get angry at someone at work over something that doesn’t matter - I chose that!

• If I skip breakfast and don’t do my best in the morning meeting - I chose that!

• If I had a bad day and take it out on people who matter most to me when I get home - I chose that!

I think it is so easy to believe the lies like:

• My boss is putting so much pressure on me I don’t have time to exercise.

• I deserve to be angry, my rights were violated.

• Breakfast, who has time for that…I am not hungry anyway.

• If you had a day like I had, you would take it home with you too.

Yet we recall... choice.

It is so easy to blame others for my situation:

• The boss

• McDonalds

• Drug Companies

• My spouse

• My kids

• My mother

But really, how long are we in western society going to continue our blame mentality? When will we take ownership for our own choices? Maybe it is time to admit that we are not healthy because we do not want to be.

A Quick Story

A few weeks ago I had a trip that took me to the West Coast, the Mid-West, the deep South, and back to the East Coast. I had several interactions with friends and clients on the journey where the conversation turned to health. Here are bullet summaries of what was said:

• Friend One: “I am 90 days from my doctor putting me on insulin."

• Friend Two: “My doctor needs to up my dose of Lipitor.”

• Friend Three: "I am tired all the time, I just don’t have any energy.“

• Friend Four: “I just don’t feel good about how I look.”

• Friend Five: “My knees hurt so badly I can’t exercise anymore."

• Friend Six: “ I lost 15 pounds on XX diet, but I have put on 25 since I stopped.”

As I was reflecting on those conversations, I had a couple revelations:

• The reason that so many people write diet books is that the market is really big! A lot of people buy them, a lot of people are trying to figure out this health thing, so authors keep writing them!

• I really care about all these people. Why can’t they make the changes they need to make to be healthy?

Change Is An Emotional Choice

In his book “The Heart of Change,” John Kotter says that the core matter of change is about speaking to people's feelings. That any successful change is brought about by helping each other see the problem or solution that influences the emotion and not just the thought. Kotter goes on to say that the single most important notion for change is quite simple, “People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings.“

Something not going your way? Are you not getting the outcome you desire? Have you not exercised in weeks? Are you working your entire vacation?

What needs to change?

According to Koetter, you do not need any more information or data. What you need is for the feeling you are experiencing to be turned from negative to positive. To see the possibility rather than to succumb to the inevitable.

Call To Action

Many of you who read this blog I have met at some point over the course of my life personally. I know some of you personally and many of you by acquaintance. I want you to know that I care about you. I care about your health and I care about your well-being. If you have a change that you need to make, I hope you will consider the emotional aspect of what you need to do. You will never make the change if you are focused on blaming your circumstance or gathering more data.

5 Steps to making Your Incremental Change

• Write it down

• Start today

• Start small

• Get an accountability partner

• Focus on the positive feelings of making the change

• Keep Going. Don’t stop until your change becomes your lifestyle

Many, many thanks to my friend Jan, who’s book really stimulated these thoughts. I hope you found them to be of value in your leadership life.

I really do think you should own a copy of Jan's book. If you haven’t purchased it yet, I am going to ask Jan to guest blog next week so that you can meet her and really think about interacting with what she has to say about healthy choices.

3 Things I Learned About Leadership from My Mom

Last week we committed to dedicating this blog in the month of May to “The Wellness of the Leader." If you are not considering wellness in your development, then you are leaving a big component of your leadership unexamined that is having an impact on your effectiveness. This week's blog really had a profound impact on me personally. Funny how sometimes when I write, I am actually the target audience.

As a staff, we try and plan these blogs out several months in advance. My daughter Gretchen and assistant Brandi have convinced me to be more culturally aware in my writing. Since Mothers Day just passed, I thought I would reflect on the impact my mom had on me as a leader.

Family happiness! Happy mother tenderly embracing his two sons in spring day, warm feelings of the mother, moment of life, happy family on nature

Hence, here are three things I learned about leadership from my mom:

Culture Matters

My mom was all about family. We were together all the time. Not just my parents and siblings, but grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I mean all the time. My mom was a “stay at home mom," and I was with my grandparents every day. The culture of the family mattered. My mom created a family culture that oozed safety and security for us as kids.

My good friends and experts on organization culture Dr. Boyd Johnson and Dr. Mike Linville will undoubtedly support this notion of the importance of culture in organizations. As will my old boss and good friend Tom Considine, who famously agrees with Peter Drucker that "culture eats strategy for lunch."

Culture, Culture, Culture rings through my mind this morning with the same tone that Jan Brady had in the old Brady Bunch episode, complaining that her sister Marsha got all the attention…Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!!! Culture needs to get much more attention in organizations than it currently does.

Edgar Schein, the great organizational culture theorist says that in our Western traditions of human nature, humans are social animals with primary social needs(1). When these humans come together, if they are to survive, a set of rules and regulations will need to be established to make the environment safe for everyone.

I hope you caught the nuance. The rules and regulations are about making the environment safe. This set of rules and regulations is not about making people feel valued or understood, but safe. Why? Because when people feel safe, they are able to perform at maximum capacity. When they feel threatened, then survival mode kicks in, thinking decreases, and the ability for them to hear what the leader has to say goes down.

This is why we say when leaders are trying to make a point or provide feedback, it is important to focus less on what you have to say and more on how the person is receiving it. If the person receiving the feedback feels safe, then there is a greater likelihood that your message will be heard.

My mom created an environment of safety and security (with discipline) that allowed for growth and wellbeing to be nurtured.

Question for Reflection: Are you being intentional, like my mom, about the culture you are creating as a leader?

Leaders Show Up

You can’t delegate presence.  As a leader, you can delegate a lot of things to other people. You can not delegate your physical presence when it is needed by your followers.

In my family, it didn’t matter what you had going on, you showed up for weddings and funerals.  You showed up for birthday parties and baptisms. You went to church every Sunday morning. My parents never missed a sporting event, a theatrical performance, a band concert,  or a Christmas Pageant.

If you want followers to follow you, then you have to show up to what is important to them. Are they making a big presentation, and you are triple booked on your calendar? Show up! Do they have a meeting scheduled with you where they need a decision? Show up! Is there a crisis in their life and they need you to listen? Show up!

What can I say? My mom showed up. This created a feeling of caring and support that allowed for risk taking and freedom.

Question for Reflection: Are you showing up, like my mom, for your followers when they need you most?

Leaders Sacrifice

I grew up in a blue-collar, working class neighborhood in Peoria, Illinois. My parents came from working class parents who worked on assembly lines at Caterpillar and Corn Products. We did not grow up with privilege, status, or great means.  Yet I always had new shoes for basketball tryouts, killer birthday parties (the envy of the neighborhood), and an extra $20 bill in my pocket for gas driving back to college. Mom never seemed to have the newest or best, but I always did.

Followers notice the sacrifices of the leader. They notice when you stay late and help them with a project when you could be off to a social event. They notice when you answer the phone or a text. They notice when you give of yourself to them when you had other options.

What do you think you might get in return for your sacrifice? I would propose commitment, loyalty, and extra effort.

Interestingly, do you know what is missing in a lot of organizations today? I would suggest commitment, loyalty, and extra effort.

I wonder if there is a reason?

The one thing I would add is that mom never expected anything in return. If you expect loyalty, then to me that is a bit coercive. But if you willingly sacrifice as a leader, expecting nothing in return, like my mom, then you may just get the loyalty and commitment you are looking for.

Question for Reflection: Are you sacrificing, like my mom, for your followers and expecting nothing in return?

Thanks Mom for all you taught be about being a leader!

I told you at the beginning that this weeks writing had a profound impact on me. So much so, I just booked a flight to be with my mom on Mother's Day! Can’t wait to be with you mom on this special day.  Happy Mother's Day!

Homework: Consider the reflection questions posed in the article. After you spend some time thinking about them, see if you notice any changes that you need to make in how you are approaching your leadership.

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms out there!

1. Schein, E. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (p. 144).

4 Factors to a Longer and More Successful Leadership Life

"One of my clients had a profound impact on my life this week. What I heard him say is:

"Scott I realized that I have to take care of me. I am at my best when I am taking care of myself. I decided that I am going to do yoga when I get up in the morning, and I am going to exercise at noon. I am going to be conscious of my diet and make good choices about what goes into my body."

When I probed for the reason, he continued,

"There has been a lot of negativity in my life recently, and I am just not going to allow it to get me down any longer. I am going to choose the leader I want to be and not be some weak victim of circumstance."

Absolutely Profound.

Choosing positive self-care over a negative circumstantial life perspective. Thanks to the courage of this story, this month I am dedicating the blog to the idea of wellness. We will discuss ways that you as a leader can take a positive self-care position, rather than be a victim of any negative circumstance.

Businessman holding two papers with happy and angry face each on them

According to the National Wellness Institute, wellness is "an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence."

Four things to notice about wellness:

• It is an active process. It is something you devote energy to making happen. It is intentional on your part as a leader.

• It starts with self-awareness. Are you aware of the moment when health choices present themselves?

• Wellness is a choice. You decide to be well in the moment, or say screw it and become a victim of your circumstance.

• There is an end game. A successful existence. This is your life. You only get one. Why not make it the very best that it can be?

The National Wellness Institute describes six different dimensions for us to consider as we examine our own wellbeing:

• Emotional

• Occupational

• Physical

• Social

• Intellectual

• Spiritual

This week I want to focus on your Emotional Wellbeing as a leader.

The Story

One of my favorite authors is Martin Seligman. As a past president of the American Psychological Association, he has the credibility from a research standpoint that is really meaningful for me. In addition, Martin is a gifted storyteller who can weave a story together and then bring home a point that has real impact and causes me to pause and examine my own life.

One of my favorite stories that Martin tells is in his book Authentic Happiness. He details the stories of two of 180 nuns who are the subjects of an impactful and noteworthy study on longevity and happiness. If you want all the details, you really need to get the book, it is a great read. Here is the bottom line:

• 90% of the most cheerful 25% of the nuns was alive at age 85 vs. only 34% of the least cheerful 25%.

• 54% of the most cheerful quarter was alive at age 94, as opposed to only 11% of the least cheerful.

Studies of longevity are admittedly dicey and very complex from a pure science standpoint. Causality is extremely difficult to make a case for. However, one of the reasons this study is so impactful is that nuns lead very similar life. They eat similar food, they don’t smoke or drink alcohol, they have similar routines. Sure there are some other differences that could account for the results:

• Different levels of intellect

• Different depths of spirituality

• Different outlooks on the future

However, none of these in the research made any difference. The thing that Seligman points out that made a difference in the longevity of the nuns was the amount of positive feelings expressed.

If longevity is at least one measure of a successful existence, then the positive outlook you have on life matters!

Happiness and Emotional Intelligence

In the Emotional Intelligence training that I do as a part of my consulting, one of the attributes we measure is that of Happiness or Wellbeing. In the model we use there are four factors that comprise Wellbeing:

• Self-Regard: Believing in yourself and living according to your values.

• Self-Actualization: A willingness to learn and grow in accordance with your values.

• Interpersonal Relationships: Engaging in mutually satisfying relationships.

• Optimism: The ability to respond, recover, and claim a happy state from disappointments and setbacks in life

There are two important considerations as you evaluate your own level of well-being.

The first is that you display as much of these four attributes as you can. Believe in yourself and live according to your values. Learn and grow in areas that really matter to you. Have friends and ensure that there is reciprocity. Realize that things are not always going to go your way. It isn’t if you are going to have a setback in life it is when. What counts is how you respond.

The second is that you have balance between these attributes. For example, you want to make sure that your self-regard is balanced with your interpersonal relationships. If you have a high level of self-regard and low levels of interpersonal relationships, you could come across as prideful and in it for yourself. If you have low levels of self-regard and high interpersonal relationships, then you could come across as needy and not fun to be around.

As you think about the successful life you want to live as a leader, are you choosing to maximize and balance these 4 attributes of emotional health?

Homework:

Rate yourself on a scale from one (low) to 10 (high) on each of the 4 attributes of well-being. Are you maximizing each attribute? Are all four of the attributes in balance with each other? As you reflect on these, what changes would you need to make to live a long and successful life?

What Leaders Can Learn from a $20 Bill

It is interesting to me to observe the lens in which various people look at decisions.

• Teachers look at how decisions can impact learning

• Speakers look at how decisions can become inspirational

• Historians look at how past decisions affect the future

• Nurses look at how decisions advance human health

• Managers look at how decisions affect the bottom line

As you know, I am a leadership junky and I am constantly observing things with a leadership perspective. I found the following story fascinating to examine using a leadership optic.

harriet-tubman-20

The Story

I was reading about a recent decision made at the US Treasury Department. Secretary Jack Lew has announced that in 2020 Andrew Jackson will be sent to the back of the $20 bill while Harriet Tubman will replace him on the front of the note.

Tubman is best known for transporting slaves via the Underground Railroad after escaping from slavery herself, then becoming a pioneer in the women’s suffrage movement. Born into slavery, she not only raised herself out of bondage, she ran 13 missions to free some 70 friends and family from slavery. She is, without question, one of the most famous civilians in all of American history.

Jackson was the seventh president of the United States. His legacy is both one of the most studied and most controversial. Examples include his own ownership and outright support of slavery, signing into law the “Indian Removal Policy," and becoming the first president to implement the “spoils system,” whereby the person who wins the election puts their friends and family on the government payroll. He is also the first president upon whom both a physical attack was directed and an assassination attempt was made.

The Perspective

• A teacher might share with students what it meant to be a conductor on the underground railroad

• A speaker could use Tubman to inspire an audience to examine how their actions line up with their beliefs

• Georgetown historian Michael Kazin took this perspective on Lew’s decision: “Our money is catching up with our history."

• A nurse may want to examine the headaches and seizures Tubman suffered at the end of her life.

• A manager might want to examine the financial impact of Tubman’s actions for slave owners or freed slaves

However, putting on our leadership glasses, let's look at Tubman’s actions in light of her emotional intelligence.

Linking Leadership to Action

When studying and applying emotional intelligence to our leadership lives, we are often caught up in the impact that OUR emotions have on OUR ability to lead. While this is an important aspect of any leadership model, it is woefully inadequate to focus solely on ourselves.

As leaders, we can not ignore our social responsibility to others. Social responsibility comprises both the desire and the ability to willingly and without restraint contribute to the benefit and well-being of others.

The idea is much deeper than whether you volunteer at your local food bank once a month. Socially responsible leaders have a conscious, deep, and abiding concern for others. Leaders who excel in this ability can resist the temptation to put themselves first, and instead, care and act compassionately toward others.

From the assessment work I do with emotional intelligence, leaders who lack enough social responsibility often have imbalances with their own self-actualization. Leaders who score high on self-actualization without balancing social responsibility will tend to put their own meaning and purpose ahead of others. They have their goals and objectives firmly established, then after all of their safety and security needs are met they will turn to considering the affliction of others. Most often what I hear is, “I work long hours, I have a family, I don’t have time to get involved."

I often wonder if this is what Martin Neimoller, a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps, meant in his famous quote,

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Social Responsibility, a very valuable emotional intelligence trait for leaders to cultivate.

Thank you, Harriet Tubman, for providing such leadership and caring about others, even when it meant risking your own life.

Thank you, Secretary Lew, you got this one right!

Homework

As leaders, we are surrounded by good causes these days where we can express our social responsibility. Your assignment is to examine your own leadership and see if this is an area you need to improve. Examine deeply what may be holding you back. If you see a need, resist your knee jerk reaction to assume someone else will take care of it and instead take action yourself.

3 Leadership MythBusters That Will Shock You

Last month, celebrity scientists Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman wrapped up thirteen years of debunking theories with the grand finale of MythBusters. I'll admit that I wasn't exactly a loyal fan of the show, but I did enjoy a few episodes here and there. It's fascinating to see these scientists take a myth that most people have heard, then test that myth, typically proving it's simply not true. I'm not a scientist, however, I am familiar with many myths in leadership and feel they've run their course in holding leaders back from reaching their full potential.

Facts versus myths

Here are three major misconceptions that leaders commonly believe to be weaknesses, when in fact they are traits and strategies that can be used as your secret weapon to effective leadership:

Myth #1: To retreat is to give up.

The Buster: Retreat is actually a way for a leader to regain clarity of vision and engage their work again more powerfully.  The idea of a retreat comes from an old French word meaning “a step backward.” The word took on a military connotation in the 14th century as the act of withdrawing from action. The reason for withdrawal was to regroup so that you may re-engage the enemy again more powerfully than before. Retreat is a powerful tool for positioning yourself for strength, especially when the state of being overwhelmed or stressed is restricting you from doing your best.

Myth #2: To be vulnerable is to be weak.

The Buster: Stop thinking that you are weak when you open up and share! You’re actually the opposite – you’re incredibly brave to let someone else in. Chances are, when you do, you’ll find someone as desperate as you are to connect on a meaningful level. The Industrial Age leadership principles and the “shut up and just get the job done” mindset are things of the past. Today’s leaders must be more open and transparent with their teams. When you are open, transparent, and clear with your thoughts and your thought processes, I believe you will find a team of people – professional and personal – who are ready to jump in and help you, walk beside you, and strive with you to accomplish great things.

Myth #3: Asking questions jeopardizes your intelligence.

The Buster: People often think that asking questions may put your reputation of high intelligence, or your perception of it, on the line. What's intimidating about asking questions is the uncertainty of the response you'll receive. But what can you do with unanswered questions? Nothing. Imagine what happens when your questions are answered: you receive clarity in a situation, you solve a problem, you understand your relationships better, etc. Ask questions, good questions, and get the answers you need in order to move you forward with your team, projects, and leadership.

Homework:

Retreat. Take an hour and a half out of your work day to evaluate the progress of your projects and do some self-reflection. Be Vulnerable. Be honest with someone about how you are feeling and what you are doing. Do this with someone who already knows you well, who you can trust to help you. Ask Questions. What in your organization or team needs clarification? What questions do you need to ask your leader/mentor, your team, or even yourself? Make a list of questions and take time to ask them this week.

How Do You Answer Questions About Your Leadership Brand?

I recently watched a fascinating interview that the Wall Street Journal recorded with Logan Green, CEO of Lyft. The topic of the interview was “How I Work." While I am admittedly an Uber guy, I have to tell you that I may give Lyft a try the next time I am in need of a car service. I was really impressed (I was going to write "uber impressed," but that just didn’t seem right!) by Logan’s answers to the interview questions.

lyft-convenience-illo-1200x627

Then I got to thinking, why would one interview with a CEO cause me to shift my loyalty?

Was it his personal style? Some of the attributes I noticed were

• He was casual yet attentive.

• He was informal yet focused.

• He smiled and was also serious.

• He was both humble and confident.

Not a bad list for a leader! However, as I reflected I realized that it really wasn’t his personal style that resonated with me. I have seen others with great style and, to put it frankly, in the long run I think style is way over rated.

Was it the questions that were asked? They were questions such as

• Are you a morning person or night owl?

• Tea or Coffee Guy?

• What do you do first thing in the morning?

• What kind of car do you drive?

• In one word, what is one thing that separates Lyft from Uber?

• What is the most important thing you are working on as a leader?

• What is the most distracting thing that happens in your day?

• If you had to take an Uber or a Yellow Taxi which would you choose?

No, it wasn’t the questions that were asked. I have heard them all before.

Was it his answers to the questions? He said things like

• Night Owl

• Anything with caffeine

• I like to get up in the morning and go for a short run. It really helps wake me up and start the day right.

• Nissan Leaf

• We care.

• Communicating better and more frequently.

• I would take the Yellow Taxi any day.

Yes, that was it! It wasn’t necessarily what he said that struck me, but how he said it. His answers were thoughtful and penetrating. They were concise and relevant.

Play A Game

How might you as a leader have the same kind of impact with your followers?  I am going to ask you 6 leadership questions. What you have to do is come up with a concise (one to two words if possible, but no more than a sentence), thoughtful, penetrating, and relevant answer.

Ready? Here we go:

• How would you describe your leadership style?

• How do you practice self-care?

• What is the most impactful change you need to make in your leadership?

• If you had to choose making an ethical decision or maximizing performance, what would you choose?

• What is the most important thing you do in your day?

• What is one “do over” you wish you had in your leadership life?

So, how did you do? Having concise and thoughtful answers to questions like this might take some time for you to develop. Perhaps you want to sit with these and reflect for a while. Perhaps you want to ask your team (or your family) how they might answer these questions for you, then compare their answers to yours.

The point

Leaders must have a balance of self-regard and empathy. If these elements are out of balance you will likely end up with a range of behavior from arrogance to paralysis. People will not want to follow you unless they have to. Being overly empathetic will get in the way of productivity. Reflection is a great way to improve both your self-regard and your empathy. That is really what I took away from the interview with Logan Green. He was both confident and caring. How about you? How do you measure up on this emotional intelligence spectrum?

Homework:

Last week I facilitated our Leadership Principles course for a client of ours. This is a course where participants explore their core values, then link them to their leadership principles across 11 different leadership dimensions such as coaching and hiring. At the end of that workshop, we have the participants write their Leadership Epitaph. An Epitaph is a short (no more than 15 word) description that you would want someone to say about you at the end of your life. Why not work on your Leadership Epitaph? What 15 words would you want people who follow your leadership to say about your leadership after you are gone?

Are You Embarrassed by This Leadership Addiction?

I was struck by something I found fascinating as I attended the Society of Consulting Psychology winter meeting in Orlando. Prior to the introduction of the speaker, the master of ceremony told the crowd, “Feel free during any of the talks and presentations today to stand up and walk around. It is not rude. Our desire is for you to be healthy.”

Wow! That was different. I have never seen or heard that before!

Then my mind started playing mental gymnastics with itself:

• "I don’t like that because I have never heard it before."

• You should be more flexible when you hear new things."

• “I don’t like it because it is rude for the speaker."

• “What a great idea to give people permission to be themselves."

As I was trying to decide if I liked this new approach to audience empowerment or if I found it rude, I realized something about myself...

I am addicted to certainty.

Thinking business woman with glasses looking up on many questions mark isolated on gray wall background

Confidence is the positive feeling of being self-assured. I get this overwhelming feeling of calm when things in my life are unwavering.

Certainty is like a drug. It has the power to give us a feeling of peace even in the midst of chaos. Along with this power comes a numbing effect, telling us that we don’t need to be aware of anything else going on around us. The lie that certainty brings with it is that you can stop learning. You know enough that you no longer need to be open to other ideas. You can shut off any discussion opposed to your position because you are certain.

Leaders need some level of confidence in the vision and direction they are taking followers. So, I am not saying you should be paralyzed by uncertainty. What I am saying is keep asking questions. Use critical thinking skills. Stay curious as an antidote against your certainty addiction.

According to Diane Halpern, a critical thinking expert at Claremont McKenna College, the critical in critical thinking signifies an evaluative component. This evaluation is a constructive component.

Yes, I am now a recovering certainty addict. Like any addict who wants to recover, I started digging into the topic to learn more.

When our brains are engaged with change, their default is to say "no way." The brain wants certainty.

As a result, we end up justifying our stance and fall in love with the assumptions that help us move through life. Certainty, then, is an addiction, because our brains become so accustomed to the way things are for us that we become more rigid in our stances. The instinct is to protect ourselves from that which we do not know.

I don’t want to be uncomfortable with people walking around during a presentation, so I have to protect myself from this idea by rejecting it out of hand. The thing that makes me comfortable is the certainty that I am right.

How do we adapt who we are today to the change that is happening around us?

To be relevant in times of change, we must understand the value we bring. Being open and flexible as a leader becomes paramount to your success. Remaining open and curious as to what is going on around you is the key. Flexibility is an important component in emotional intelligence. According to Steve Stein and Howard Book in their work on emotional intelligence, flexibility is the ability to adjust your emotions, thoughts, and behavior to changing situations and conditions.

Become comfortable with the uncomfortable notion that people walking around during a presentation is okay.

The Challenge

What are you doing as a leader to help commit your organization to an attitude of change? A 2003 study by Accenture Consulting found that 77% of organizational cultures embrace entrepreneurial ideas once they had been tried and proven.

As the leader of your organization, how are you doing with becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable things in your world? How are you fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in your organization? What are you doing to help others in the organization show that their ideas have merit instead of saying, “That will never work here."

Here is a great example my HR friends talk about all the time. The question from organizations goes something like this: "How do we attract millennials and keep them?"

I speak with leaders all the time who want to attract these young and creative professionals. However, after they attract them to the organization they treat them like they are something to be domesticated. Rather than learning from them and paying attention to what they are doing, we struggle to control them.

The world is changing and we cannot continue to apply our old assumptions to the new trends that are taking place. Stop fighting it. Stop resisting it. Start being flexible and resist your urge toward the comfort of certainty.

For example, instead of trying to domesticate millennials, which is the certainty principle, why not become playful with your approach to engaging the talent in your organization?

Breaking The Mold of Certainty

Here are 2 questions I picked up from the Futurist at the presentation on ways to break out of the mold of not changing:

• What is at stake if you do it? What is at stake if you don’t?

• Micro change: Change is hard, so what can we do? Pilot something different, find what you like, and improve upon it.

Homework

Find a place you are really certain about in your leadership. Now, begin to wrestle with the idea of what happens if you do not change. What is at stake if you don’t start looking at it in a different way?

3 Aspects of Healthy Organizational Competition

A businessman crossing out teams on his busted March Madness bracket

A couple weeks ago now, my eldest son challenged our family to fill out a bracket for March Madness. My son suggested that the prize would be that the winning couple (since all the kids are married now) would be exempt from the responsibility of providing a meal when we gather together over the Fourth of July weekend this year. Everyone agreed, and we submitted our brackets by noon early last week before all the games started. (Guess who is in first place at the writing of this blog…:)

My family communicates on a regular basis, but once March Madness was in full gear we were all texting and calling each other to comment on certain game upsets, as well as predicted outcomes for upcoming games. Even my daughter, who did cheerleading and theater in high school, was focused on the "madness," checking the game results and how it affected her bracket by the hour. My wife, who is an ordained minister and hasn’t watched one college game all year, is constantly checking in on the games to see how her predictions are fairing.

This spirited competition motivated our entire family to think strategically about the projected outcome, remain engaged through the entirety of the event, and increased our communication with each other.

Wouldn't it be great if we could apply this same competitive spirit to motivate the teams in our organizations?

Yes, it would be great, and I believe we can! Here are the three things you need to integrate this healthy competitive spirit into your organization's culture:

Identify the Goal and the Vision

Tell your team what it is they are working towards and why. Make it clear and concise so that they could repeat it back to you or explain it well to someone else. Knowing the end goal will give your team direction and motivate them as they strive towards it.

What Not To Do: Assume that once you have communicated a goal or a vision that people in the organization automatically get it! One of the significant works of the leader is to keep repeating and bringing people back to the goal and the vision. Your role is often to prevent straying and distractions from the desired outcomes.

Identify Rules and Measurements

With March Madness, not being able to change your bracket is part of the fun and gamble. However, our workplace shouldn't be a gamble where we role the dice and see what happens, or blindly guess based upon no information. In order to create a healthy competition, there needs to be rules, parameters, and boundaries that the team members are expected to abide by. Fair play will be respected and rewarded as a way to encourage others, allowing them to trust the system created. There should be check-points to allow your team to measure how well they are doing and consider whether their strategy needs to be reevaluated to reach the goal.

What Not To Do: Let people off the hook if they don’t meet the goal. Accountability doesn’t always have to mean retribution, penalty, or punishment, but it should have enough teeth in it so that you build a culture of trust. According to Patrick Lencioni in his "5 Dysfunctions of a Team" work, a lack of accountability is a significant cause of organizational mistrust.

Identify the Reward

Think about how you can reward your team when goals are met. How might the reward motivate them personally as well as collectively? What is the reward and how would it be received by the individual you are rewarding? You don't want to give a reward to someone that you wouldn't want yourself, or perhaps what you would want differs from others. These are just a few things to consider before deciding what the reward will be.

What Not To Do: Make reward a drag. If your people are working long hours, please don’t schedule another team builder that is going to require more of their personal time. If a team builder is important, why not do it at 2pm on Friday? Rewards should be something they enjoy, not something they dread.

HOMEWORK

• Look back at your calendar. How many times have you repeated the goals and visions for your organization this year? Are you assuming because you said it once two years ago that they are connected with it? Just because the goals and visions run around in your head all day, doesn’t mean it reaches the cerebral cortex of others in your organization.

• Assess the level of accountability your team has with each other. Do they hold each other accountable, or is this your role? A high performing team holds each other accountable and doesn’t leave this level of responsibility solely with the leader.

• Reward your team this week. You are almost at the end of the quarter and I bet you can find something that the group is doing really well. Why not reward them? Find something they enjoy and implement the reward this week. Don’t put it off. Schedule it now!

5 Ways to Positively Impact Your Organization’s Culture

There is a lot of conversation in the “blogosphere” these days about the types of cultures leaders can create in organizations. Here are a few examples:

• Learning Culture

• Performance Culture

• Service Culture

• Command & Control Culture

• Customer Centric Culture

• Employee’s First Culture

• Shareholder’s First Culture

Frankly, there are probably thousands of cultures and subcultures that organizations can identify with. Leaders can be left in a state of ambiguity about what is really acceptable in a culture unless organization-wide consensus can be found.

Confusion can lead to inconsistency in strategy implementation or even complete chaos, which can result in paralysis. This fragmentation in organizational culture can leave the strongest subcultures defined by those with the loudest voices, which may not actually be representative of the culture at all.

Perhaps a story can clarify:

Years ago I worked at an organization that had a cultural norm of “respect for people." This norm was carried out in a lot of very positive ways throughout the organization, such as caring and compassion with a death in an employee's family, paternity and maternity leaves, even pay based on performance was weaved into this respectful culture.

In one department, there swooped in a leader who had an agenda. A change in performance standards would take place but only a select few favorites would be told of these new rules in the culture. Low performance ratings were given to people who had traditionally been top performers. The organization became chaotic and fragmented as no one knew what the cultural norms were in order to perform at high levels. All anyone knew was to "please the leader or you are out."

Fast forward 6 months and the entire department had been decimated. The leader had to be replaced. What was once a high performing organization had been completely and utterly destroyed by the actions of one person. One really loud voice was able to take down an entire team, exiting many top performers from the company in the process.

The culture you define as an organizational leader impacts the development of your team members. If they don't feel safe, they definitely won't feel valued as a team member. And if they don't feel valued, then they won't be motivated. When you have unmotivated team members you run the risk of losing them or leaving untapped potential on the table.

So, how do you create a culture that allows your newest team members to feel safe as well as your current colleagues to be motivated? Perhaps it's not something that you DO, but instead what you can BE.

Focus on developing your emotional intelligence. This effort on your part will impact the culture you want to create. As you create this positive culture, the desired behaviors will become part of who you are and not just something that you do occasionally. Think deeply about the kind of culture you are shaping as you lead your team.

Here are 5 things you can become that will positively impact the culture of your organization to give you great results:

Be Self Aware Know and be confident in yourself and your abilities. Understand how you handle your emotions, and how they impress your company. Everyone is watching you to see how you will react. In fact, they may be able to predict your behaviors. Become just as aware of yourself and how you can choose your emotional responses.

Be Assertive Communicate your what, how, and why in a simple, clear, and even repetitive way so that your team understands.

Be Empathetic When I teach seminars on Emotional Intelligence, I often ask the group for a common definition for empathy. The response I get back more than any other is “walking a mile in the other person’s shoes.” I love this definition, but to take it one step further (pun intended), “walking a mile in the other person’s shoes, even when the shoe doesn’t fit." Being empathetic is about being compassionate, caring, listening, and being flexible as needed. I believe strongly that we should not neglect the impact empathy has on shaping the culture of your company. Showing regular empathy will instantly invoke safety and value for your teammates.

Be in Control Not wavering, or changing things based on emotional reactions. When something comes up that invokes an emotional response, remind yourself of the companies mission, and your principles, to be sure that the decisions being made align with your mission. This way your team can feel confident that you won't make changes at the drop of a hat. As they trust you, they can focus on the work they need to do.

Be Optimistic People who are positive are magnetic. We want to be around them and we can be inspired by them. In order to be optimistic, you have to change the way you talk to yourself. What I mean by that is being able to see the best in yourself, see setbacks as learning opportunities, and see obstacles as unique, temporary events that you'll get through. Learn more about this by downloading my eBook, Optimistic Thinking.

Homework

Think about the 5 "Be's" above. Choose one you would want to work on.

To help organize your thoughts, grab a piece of paper, then write and complete the following sentence:

I want to be more ______________, so that my team can feel ______________ and we'll create a culture that is ___________________.

Here are three ways I will be more ____________ this week: 1. 2. 3.

Share what you wrote with a mentor or coach and have them help you with this development. If you can't think of who to share this with, write it in our comments below or contact me directly. I'd love to hear what you have to say and find out how we can help you!

How You Can Win in the Role You're In

[callout]This week I am happy to share this blog space with Gretchen Holcomb. Gretchen is spending a few months fine-tuning some things in our organization before going off to Spain for a year to teach English as a second language. I am excited for her to share with you about her last two months working with our team and learning our organization's culture.[/callout] I love to travel and have been blessed with opportunities to spend time in multiple countries around the world.

In just the last few years, I've enjoyed curry cuisines in India and exploring historical cathedrals throughout Germany and Switzerland. One of the reasons that I travel so often is because I enjoy learning about other cultures. I've experienced different cultures in each country, all unique due to their location, language, history, agriculture, and so much more.

Being so passionate about travel, imagine my excitement when Scott shared with our team that he wanted to discuss the topic of culture on the blog this month! Yet after reading last week's blog, I began to think about how there are many more layers to culture than merely those we generally categorize by country or state. We each belong to overarching cultures, yet we also fit into subcultures that make up who we are and what we believe. These subcultures may be determined by your religion, gender, generation, upbringing, etc., all of which have influenced your behaviors and values.

As our team engaged in conversation about the cultures of organizations, I reflected on my first team meeting with Livingston Consulting Group and the organizational tension "culture shock" that I experienced.

You see, it was a very productive meeting where each team member shared what they were working on, brainstormed collectively what to do moving forward, and each identified our action steps for a project. As the meeting was wrapping up, my mind had already shifted gears towards what I needed to work on and how I would do that. Yet instead of just ending the meeting with assigned tasks to each member, Scott asked each of us to share one thing we learned from the meeting. I was not prepared and felt uncomfortable by what he asked us to do. I simply wasn't adapted to the organization's culture that was deeply invested in the development of the individuals on the team. Talk about a team that practices what they preach!

To overcome this cultural difference that I felt, I did a self-assessment of my emotions that Scott talked me through. Here are some questions I answered for this assessment:

What do I know about myself and my values?

Personally, I am very task oriented and focused. I value punctuality and deadlines for projects as a way to be organized and efficient. I feel that I am at my best and most productive when I complete several tasks and quality projects in a certain time frame.

What do I already know about the culture of my organization?

Each time our team meets, we spend some time sharing our thoughts, ideas, and opinions that may not necessarily be related to our projects and daily tasks. Although LCG appreciates work completion and meeting deadlines, our organization cares about the well-being and development of its employees and clients. There is an overarching vision of working on yourself and your emotional intelligence to be the best you can be.

What can I appreciate about the new culture I find myself in? How will it help me grow?

LCG recognizes work will always be there and will always get done, but the effectiveness and passion behind it is largely dependent upon our attitude and approach toward it. Spending time to reflect on what I'm learning and invest in my development will help me not only improve in my current role, but also position me to take on more leadership responsibilities in the future.

How can I use my strengths and skills to help me adapt to this new culture?

Since I am task oriented, I've challenged myself to write in a journal as a weekly assignment. This allows me to personally spend some focused time of reflection on my development. Sometimes I use Scott's questions as a writing prompt, or write a reflection based on our projects just like this blog post. This practice has helped me feel more comfortable when we share in our meetings, and has even stretched my thought process while I work.

So, what about you? Have you ever assessed yourself and your organization's culture to see how they align or where there is tension? How would you answer the questions above and take action yourself?

HOMEWORK

Find some time this week to answer the questions above in your journal. Ask someone else in your organization how they would answer these questions and start a conversation about culture at your workplace. You might be surprised by others perspective and what you can learn about your team.

Here is a method for helping leaders reduce organizational tension.

Have you ever heard the phrase “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country about of the boy?” You probably have, or at least a variation of it. It's a common saying, because of the truth behind it: We all have a cultural upbringing and background that cannot be easily ignored or changed.

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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?“

Culture is influential and inevitable in shaping every single person in this world.

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, friends. It all has an impact on how you see the world and how you lead.

Last week, I was at a conference speaking about leadership and the impact our emotional intelligence has on performance. Questions about the clash of cultures came up in our group discussions. Some of the participants observed that the culture of their company didn't completely align with their cultural background. The company, for example, values expression of emotion as a way to show vulnerability and authenticity. This created tension as the individual who raised the issue grew up in a family culture that valued performance without emotion, “just the facts." The young lady said when she was a teenager there was no empathizing with how hard a class was, just deliver the “A."

This young lady felt trapped between the successful model she was taught as a young person and the new 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.

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

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 a culture, and even affect a culture with good leadership and team cooperation.

There is a lot that can be learned here 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 there is a 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 can not be tolerated, all sorts of negative consequences are possible. If the stress is managed, then adaptation to the new culture is possible. Learning the emotional intelligence skill of emotional expression, for example, will allow 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 have grown as a leader without having to give up core aspects of who she is as a person.

Our theme for this month is going to focus on organizational culture issues. We look forward to a deeper conversation about the positive outcomes that may be achieved when you use emotional intelligence in any cultural situation.

Homework

Is there some place where you are feeling stress in your organizational leadership? Examine your culture of origin and compare it to your culture of destiny. Is there a place where growing your emotional intelligence could help you see the stress in a different light? Could you gain skills to help you adapt and grow? Look for places of friction in your work and see if it might have something to do with the clash of cultures.

What Great Leaders Do When Bad Things Happen

One thing that can get anyone's fear and anxiety levels up is big organizational changes. A new company President has been named, my department is being reorganized, my job is being eliminated, my company is merging with another organization, my boss just announced she/he is leaving and joining a competitor. All of these changes can have both positive and negative emotional impact. The plans of company leaders, meant with the best intentions for the organization and strategic purpose, can be seen by some as a new beginning and by others as the end of the world.

However, when people hear there is going to be a change, let's face it, the first thought for most of us is, “What about me?"

businessman pulling open blank white curtain covering infographic doodles on old dark brick wall with gray concrete floor

How is this change going to affect my world? Our senses are heightened and we may be nervous about our job being in jeopardy or worried about the restructuring of our team and who we will answer to. When we feel this tension, we tend to respond emotionally.

I recently had a friend whose organization was going through a merge and he noticed some leaders in the company were responding very differently to the situation. Some of the leaders were being more encouraging, trying to help those under their leadership to face the emotion they were feeling.

Last week we talked about what these leaders are actually doing: reframing the fear of those under their leadership into excitement. Is the situation good? Is it all rosy and pollyanna? No, of course not.

Is there pain in a merger? Of course there is, especially when the news first hits. Is it the end of the world? No, I don’t think so. These leaders help those experiencing this emotion to initially calm themselves from the emotional fever pitch they are feeling so that they can begin to turn their fear into excitement.

My friend observed that other leaders in the organization weren't quite as helpful. My guess is these folks fall into one of two camps. The first camp is those who are so worried about themselves that they are no earthly good to those under their leadership. They are self-referential and self-absorbed. They turn their fear into survival of the fittest mode, caring only for themselves and their needs. The other camp just doesn’t know how to express emotion.

Emotional expression, according to Steve Stein and Howard Book, authors of The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success, involves openly expressing feelings both verbally and non-verbally. The way we come across to others can greatly influence their opinion of us. Emotional expression is a skill, and some leaders lack this ability. When things go bad and everybody knows it, leaders need to have the skill to express the emotion that fits the circumstance in order to have authenticity and credibility.

So what do you do when changes like these happen in your organization?

Maybe the most important thing to remember is that the only person who can control you is you, so you can choose what will be the best response. The next important thing to remember is that you can't change anyone else, however, your behavior will influence others as they watch what you do and how you do it.

Here's how I would use the CHECK list that I mentioned a couple weeks ago to guide you through a difficult situation like this:

Consider the Situation

• What is happening to the company, leadership, colleagues, and yourself? Write out the situation and be as objective as you can. How could the merge be looked at from a positive perspective? Why is this situation difficult and what would make it better? It's okay to notice the emotions you are feeling, yet be as objective as possible in order to make sure that the vision of the organization aligns with your values and what you hope to accomplish in your career.

Hear from Others

• As a leader, plan a couple of open meetings with your team and employees, allowing them to provide ideas and opinions that they believe would help the merge. Allowing your followers to speak into the situation and listening to them will make them feel more comfortable with the change and set a tone for safety moving forward.

Eliminate Negativity

• Before you make a plan and implement it, it is important that you have a confident, optimistic attitude moving forward. This isn't only about your thoughts regarding the situation, but thoughts about yourself and ability to accomplish your goal. Make sure you believe in yourself and remain hopeful in the situation, then live out that positivism in your workplace. Avoid negativity that others are sharing in order to stay focused and on your optimistic track. Your colleagues and leaders will notice this and your personal actions will have a better impact on the situation.

Conduct a Plan

• When making your plan for the outcome you would like to have, think realistically about what you can actually do. Plan to stay connected and available for your leaders and team. If you are a leader, make sure your team knows the plan just as well as you do, so they can feel confident and safe in the direction of the organization, which will motivate them to perform well.

Keep Your Head Up

• You will be one of few that choose to be positive and it will be tempting to fall into the trap of being defensive, complaining, etc. Remind yourself daily of the outcome you are working towards and write it out as part of your to-do list. Focus on one thing you will do daily or weekly to work towards your goal. You will become invaluable to the team as long as you are a team player who is present and willing to work, yet exemplifying leadership through maintaining a positive attitude.

HOMEWORK

Read my blog post about the effectiveness of an open meeting and plan one with your team in the next week or so with only the discussion topic in mind. If you typically don't organize meetings, talk to your leader about the idea of having one and why you feel it would be helpful. Why not even offer to facilitate the meeting? This will show commitment and initiative to your leader and teammates.

What Great Leaders Do When Bad Things Happen

It seemed like a complete disaster. It was a project that our team created, organized, and executed, yet the outcome we received was far from what we desired. Sound familiar? It should, as we’ve all experienced the feeling of failure at one point in our lives. Whether in the workplace, in a sporting event, or other moments in our daily life, this failure can cause many different emotions such as frustration, disappointment, and most of all, fear.

In his new book Originals: How Non-Conformists Move The World, Adam Grant (Wharton’s four-time teacher of the year) gives some practical advice when we face fear. Instead of letting fear drift into anxiety or dread, reframe it into excitement. For example, in a study of people who fear public speaking (listed as one of the biggest fears people experience), the participants were divided into two groups. One group was given these three words: “I am calm." The other group was given three different words: “I am excited."

Which group performed their speeches better?

This one-word difference caused listeners of the talks to rate the “I am excited” group as 17% more persuasive and 15% more confident than the “I am calm” group.

Turning your fear into excitement can energize you to act. If you remain to calm for too long, there is a potential for negative self-talk and anxiety to set in. My hypothesis here is that the old advice of “remain calm” when you are in fear is really, "lower your anxiety and get moving." To remain calm for too long can cause paralysis in times of tension and complexity.

When you face times of tension, stress, and fear, how do you react?

We developed the CHECK list that we wrote about last week to give you a tool that will help you move forward when you are experiencing situations that bring fear.

Consider the Situation

It can be difficult to look at your situation objectively, considering the result of the project didn’t meet your expectations. Ask yourself the following questions to help you reflect and move forward:

• What went well?
• What could be improved?
• What needs to change or be omitted?

Hear from Others

Take it to your team and colleagues. Ask them the questions that you asked yourself above. Create a space that allows them to speak into the situation and feel positive through a process of brainstorming the solutions. Including them will motivate them in moving forward. If your team is stuck, consider bringing a coach into the situation to offer a fresh perspective and facilitate conversations or the planning process.

Eliminate Negativity

It requires a full 360 shift perspective to begin to see failing as a learning opportunity instead of as failure. Ryan Babineaux and John Krumboltz talk about this feeling of failure in their book, Fail Fast, Fail Often: How Losing Can Help You Win. In their research, the authors found that people who are happy and successful spend less time planning and more time acting. Now, there is planning involved prior to action, but what these people do is act on their plan without emotional fear based baggage. These folks get out into their universe to try different things and learn from their mistakes. From their perspective, failing is learning, not failure.

Conduct a Plan

Once you've looked at the situation objectively and heard from others, you can go back to the drawing board and work out a plan for moving forward. As mentioned earlier, try not to dwell in the planning stage. Instead, implement action. Consider adding some check-ups throughout your plan to track the progress along the way. Include someone in these check-ups for accountability.

Keep Your Head Up

Believe in yourself and in your team. Let others see your positive attitude and resilient behavior focused on moving forward. They will follow your lead and look to you for support or motivation. Approach your project from a different angle than before to give it a fresh feel for you and your team.

Homework

Reflect on a project or situation that didn't go the way you planned. Write down what went well and what could have been done differently. Share these thoughts with a colleague or mentor and brainstorm a plan for improvement next time.

What Great Leaders Do When Bad Things Happen

Recently, one of our blog readers reached out to me on Facebook (which I love, so feel free to comment on anything we write) expressing appreciation for my post on “Quick and Easy Ways to Enhance your Leadership." Along with his comment, he also inquired that I write about a topic relevant to a big change happening in his organization. He concluded by saying, “Sure, it is easy to use the tools you mention when things are going well... what happens when things go bad?” Great Question!

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These 6 words led me to reflect on several situations that could be categorized as difficult for leaders to work through: Downsizing, merging, restructuring, relocating, new leadership, project failure, ethical and moral failure, just to name a few.

Basically, anything involving a change that does not give you a positive feeling. These situations don't have to be awful, but they encompass any kind of change that takes you out of your normal routine, which can make them difficult. With all this in mind, I want to do something I have never done before.

Over the next few weeks, we are going to look at some specific difficult situations and learn how to maintain emotional balance through each situation. You see, just because there is change that affects your position, it does NOT require that it affects your emotions in a negative way.

When there has been an ethical breakdown in your company, it doesn’t feel good. Tensions are high and people are on edge emotionally. Realizing the emotion exists and not allowing the negativity to drag you down is the skill. This is emotional resilience. Bad things are going to happen.

How can you as a leader work on your own resilience to be able to lead others to see a brighter day ahead?

The first step in being a resilient leader in times of tension and complexity is to be aware of and manage your emotion. In the most recent issue of Leadership Quarterly, Laura Little, Janaki Gooty, and Michelle Williams take on the topic of "the role of leader emotional management." The authors studied 163 leaders and their followers and concluded that when followers perceive that the leader was managing emotion, focusing on meeting expectations, and creating a future, followers felt better about the leadership being provided. Conversely, when followers perceive that leaders modulate or suppress their emotion, there is a lack of leadership and job satisfaction on the part of the follower.

What can you do as a leader to create better leadership in times of tension and complexity? How can you focus on meeting expectations while creating hope and a future for your followers when times are tough?

Here is a simple acronym that can help you stay in CHECK during difficult situations:

Consider the situation

Take note of what's going on and how it is affecting you, your relationships, and your team. Can you describe the situation clearly and objectively, then identify the emotion it brings up and why? Are your emotions creating false expectations that need to be managed?

Hear from Others

Who are two or three people you trust that can speak into the situation? Identify individuals inside and outside of what's going on that can help you think and act productively as you figure out what to do. Don't spend too much time doing this, or else you become subject to the opinions of too many people and fall into a pit of gossip and negativity, which brings us to our “E."

Eliminate Negativity

This is easier said than done, but so necessary. Pessimism indicates that there's absolutely no hope or no solution to what's going on, and that's just simply not true. Whether it's coming from yourself or from others, be sure that what you are hearing and thinking will be constructive and productive. Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Association tells us we need to develop a “positive explanatory style." This is not “The Power of Positive Thinking” we all have heard about. It is much deeper than this. Seligman says “what you think when you fail is crucial.“ How you explain things to yourself when they don’t go your way is the difference between helplessness and being energized.

Create a plan (organize and carry out)

You've thought about it and talked about it, now it's time to decide what you will do about it. Start with the outcome you hope to have and work backward, documenting the steps you need to take to reach that outcome. The key here is to describe what success looks like to you before you implement the plan.

Keep Your Head Up - Stay consistent, present, and motivated

We know it's not going to be easy, but no matter what happens you have the ability to take a deep breath, stay positive, and keep going. What are some things you can do to remove yourself from what's going on, clear your head, and rejuvenate yourself to stay in the game? Consider following my guide for a quick, personal leadership retreat.

HOMEWORK

Think about this acronym and how you can apply to a difficult situation you are facing. Write CHECK on a post-it note and stick it somewhere you can see it as a reminder of this process and how you can apply it to anything going on in your life that is causing tension for you and your organization.

Stay tuned in the weeks to come as we use our CHECK list in some specific situations that will help you better apply it to your leadership life.

Win or Lose, Emotional Intelligence Matters

After the Super Bowl on Sunday night, the quarterbacks from each team were bombarded by the media with questions. For Peyton Manning, it was all about whether he would cap his career on a high note. For Cam Newton, the questions reflected his fresh defeat. Whether you're a rookie like Newton, or a seasoned veteran like Manning, it is important to think through how we will respond emotionally whether we win or lose. Let's look a little closer at both players and think through what we can learn from them.

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Let's Start with Manning

After his win, we heard Manning repeat again and again what he planned to do, which did not involve releasing any clues of retirement. He gave a lot of credit to Coach Tony Dungy who encouraged him not to make any emotional decisions. Note that this advice came before a Super Bowl victory, because either outcome of the game would affect Manning's emotional decisions in the moment.

In the midst of the rush, you risk saying or doing something that you wouldn't when your emotional state is leveled and you are thinking clearly. In Manning's case, he could be feeling pretty good about his victory and desire to do it again. It's important for him to level emotion and take on a posture of humility in the weeks to come.

Now, Newton

I can't help but sympathize with Newton in some ways. It's early in his career and he had a great run this season. Stats and predictions for a victory pointed his way, yet just as he said in his brief interview after the game, “They just played better than us.” From his body language (hood up, eyes down) and his short answers, it was obvious that Newton was emotionally defeated.

No, he probably shouldn't have walked out of his interview, however, I think his emotional response could have been worse. Perhaps for Newton, at this point in his life and early in his career, the best thing he could do to avoid an emotional reaction was to just walk away. This was his immediate reaction. How he lets this loss affect him and his leadership moving forward will be crucial.

What this Means To You as a Leader

Sometimes things are going to go your way and you will win. The question becomes, how are you going to display your victory?

One of they key characteristics that attracts followers to a leader is humility. Winning with grace is a very attractive leadership attribute.

Humility can be disregarded at times because it is misrepresented as lacking toughness and grit. However, in an article in the Military Review, authors Joseph Doty and Dan Gerdes say this is not the case. They describe a humble leader as lacking arrogance, not aggressiveness. Humility can even carry a spiritual tone, since the leaders activities are seen as free of ego and self-aggrandizement. Peyton Manning may have the title of 2x Super Bowl Champion and leader of all-time passing yards, however, his posture of humility over the years is what attracted his fans and followers.

And then there are times when things are not going to go your way and you are going to lose. The question then becomes, how are you going to show grace in defeat?

Nobody likes a sore loser. Just look at what happened to Donald Trump in New Hampshire when he displayed poor character as he spoke about his loss in Iowa last week. His poll numbers started to drop, so much so that the Wall Street Journal says he must change his message to avoid another primary disaster.

The question is not if you are going to have a setback in life. The real question is when are you going to have a setback in life, and how do you respond when you do?

In the emotional intelligence realm, the trait that is needed by leaders is called resiliency. Leaders need to have an ability to recover, to get back to their original form when things do not go their way.

It will be interesting to see how Cam Newton recovers from losing the Super Bowl and how he'll channel this experience to shape his leadership for the next season.

What can you do?

1. Picture yourself in the moment after you succeeded and then again as if you failed. How would you hope you'd react in either circumstance? How do you plan to respond? Do you know yourself well enough to know when you are in control or when you just need to walk away? Think about these things.

2. Ask trusted mentors or coaches for insight. They will consider the situation in a way you may not have based on their past experiences. They will also be honest about how you may react, because they know you well. Make sure you really listen to them and consider what they share.

3. Write out your plan and immediate response whether you win or lose. Think through your stance and posture as well. Stick to this script. This way, you don't risk saying or doing anything you didn't mean.

Homework

Identify the next big moment in your career or in your life. Think about the questions above and write out a plan of action whether you win or lose. We'd love to hear from you, so don't forget to comment below.