My thoughts lately have continued to be focused around finding the lessons, leaning into this opportunity we have to learn, reflect, and move forward with purpose – to prepare, to transition, to reinvent ourselves, to scrap old, broken ways of being that are holding us back from being our best selves. I will admit, in March and April, I spent some time in denial, particularly on the professional front. I was just beginning to gain momentum with my coaching and consulting business I had worked so hard to build up the courage to start and launch, and I had a tough time admitting to myself, my work would need to pause and I would need to pivot.  Thankfully, my sense of resilience and hope set in, both built from life experiences and hardships overcome.

I began to look at this time of uncertainty and chaos as a time to get quiet and listen, to reflect and learn. I decided to focus on my academic endeavors, my personal growth, and my kids, and to prepare for the unknown future.  I started to feel hopeful that in this time of treading water – of suffering, disappointment, fear, sadness, anger, conflict, confusion, and unrest – this forced slow down and slow breaking – that we might find new answers, new ways of being, new ways of connecting with our humanity and our fellow humans.  I have begun to hope that we may have the courage to reinvent, to scrap broken systems of injustice, to not simply renovate or patch, but to simply begin afresh, to build new ways forward.

I have been inspired by the resilience of others, by the creativity and connectivity that has come forth, by the encouraging words of a neighbor and the kindness of a stranger.  I have been inspired by the opportunities for expansion and by the people taking opportunities to progress, develop, and shift.  I have been reinvigorated by the extra time we’ve spent in nature and living more simply with fewer things to distract us like the hustle and bustle of filling our kids’ time with summer camps and activities.

When people mention “getting back to normal” I cringe. I sincerely hope we do not simply return to life as it was, that returning to our old ways is not our goal. Rather, I hope that we fully lean into our human capacity to learn, expand, adapt, and rise to the challenge with the courage to create something different and better than what we knew before. I hope we take this time to sit in the mess and learn from the past.  Of course, sorting through the messes of life involves facing hard truths, limiting beliefs, painful triggers, and doing the work to process them and prevent them from continuing to hold us back – this is all hard and often painful work. I hope we choose to rise, to do the hard work, and to look for the treasures in the mess in order to thoughtfully and carefully build something more beautiful, equitable, and true.

 

Quote(s) I am sitting with, pondering and finding inspiration:

“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
~ Eden Phillpotts

“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.  Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
~ Paulo Coelho

As I watch my own children grow, and I reflect on my own work to return to the essence of my being, to unbecome in order to be who I was always meant to be, I think often of how I can help them simply become.  I think about how I can help them hold onto their inner light and self-knowledge, their truth, confidence, and wonder.  Or at least I think about how their journey may be different if they aren’t striving to become who others think they should be, but simply working towards becoming the best versions of their true and authentic selves.

Podcast I’m Listening to:

Coaching for Leaders Episode #479: Leadership Lies We Tell Ourselves, with Emily Leathers

Emily is an executive coach and software engineering manager. She has led teams and advised other managers for years. She’s seen the difference a truly passionate leader and manager can make for their team and the world around them. Like a lot of managers and coaches, she’s had a front-row seat to the patterns that cause a lot of leaders to overwork and overstress. She is the author of the guide The 7 Leadership Lies and she’s the host of the Emotional Leadership podcast. She’s also a member of the Coaching for Leaders Academy.

In this conversation, we discuss some of the common lies that leaders tend to tell themselves that lead to frustration and impostor syndrome. Then, we explore better ways to frame these beliefs, to lead with more confidence and effectiveness.

Key Points:
Lie #1: I’m supposed to do everything I, my manager, or my team can think of.
Truth: A leader’s job is about prioritization – and that means prioritizing how we spend our own time as well.
Lie #2: There’s a timeline.
Truth: There is no rush. Work gets much easier when we turn off the unneeded sense of emergency. Prioritization is the aim.
Lie #3: Emotions don’t belong at work.
Truth: Every action we take is driven by an emotion. You are going to experience emotions at work – that or you’ll be staring at a wall all day without a single thought in your mind. Turning them off isn’t an option. Learning to allow your emotions and use them to your advantage is critical for your success as a leader.
Lie #4: I’m supposed to have an answer for any problem or question a team member asks.
Truth: A manager’s role is to help your team solve problems, not to solve problems for your team.

Resources Mentioned:

• The 7 Leadership Lies
• Anger + Allowing Strong Emotions with Vivien Yang (Emotional Leadership podcast)

Related Episodes:

• How to Build Psychological Safety, with Amy Edmondson (episode 404)
• What to Do With Your Feelings, with Lori Gottlieb (episode 438)

The Way to Be More Coach-Like, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 458)

Book I am Reading:

The Emotionally Intelligent Manager: How to Develop and Use the Four Key Emotional Skills of Leadership by David R. Caruso and Peter Salovey

We have long been taught that emotions should be felt and expressed in carefully controlled ways, and then only in certain environments and at certain times. This is especially true when at work, particularly when managing others. It is considered terribly unprofessional to express emotion while on the job, and many of us believe that our biggest mistakes and regrets are due to our reactions at those times when our emotions get the better of us.

David R. Caruso and Peter Salovey believe that this view of emotion is not correct. The emotion centers of the brain, they argue, are not relegated to a secondary place in our thinking and reasoning, but instead are an integral part of what it means to think, reason, and to be intelligent. In The Emotionally Intelligent Manager, they show that emotion is not just important, but absolutely necessary for us to make good decisions, take action to solve problems, cope with change, and succeed. The authors detail a practical four-part hierarchy of emotional skills: identifying emotions, using emotions to facilitate thinking, understanding emotions, and managing emotions―and show how we can measure, learn, and develop each skill and employ them in an integrated way to solve our most difficult work-related problems.

Please check out my latest blog posts on Lessons from the Run, Part 1: Mile 18 – Endurance, and Lessons from the Run, Part 2: Resilience, and stay tuned for the next addition Lessons of the Run, Part 3: Rest, as well as my upcoming blog post on My Vision: The Power of EQ to Create Change!  If you missed my June edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday, you can find it here, on my blog as well. As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!

Photo by McKenna Phillips on Unsplash

When I took my first course in Emotional Intelligence, I was asked to tell and own my story, my history, my past, the moments and people and events that had served to shape me and make me who I am.  I was terrified the truth would isolate me, but I summoned the courage and owned the good, the bad and what I deemed, ‘the ugly’.  What I found was human connection in those dark moments of pain and suffering, and what I finally felt was acceptance and understanding. 

I have been thinking a great deal about this phenomenon, that the moments we hide and find embarrassing or shameful are often the moments that connect us as human beings, not on the surface but at the core.  In our humanity, we are connected by our sadness and anger and shame and fear.  In our suffering, we are united. As I learned this lesson, I became more open about sharing my tender moments, my struggles, my fear and my pain, and rather than judgment, I found acceptance, support and a great network of humans inherently alike in our human story, our humanity. I have never ceased to be grateful for the moments when I show up authentically and share deeply and am met with the same gratitude and authenticity.  In the relationships where I have shown up with vulnerability, the connection has been strengthened.  My friendships and relationships now consist of trust, depth, commitment and reciprocity. We are more alike than we are different and yet we focus so much time and energy on the differences.  When will we begin to see and own our humanity and our inherent value as human beings?

What is your story?  Who and what have shaped you into who you are, the values and beliefs you hold, what you fear, what you hide, what you show to the world? What connects you to humanity? How might you show up differently? What pieces of yourself might you find the courage to show and how might this connect you with others? How might things begin to change if you dare to offer the world the authentic you? How might your relationships benefit if you have the courage to be vulnerable and true? How might things change if you dare to see the humanity in others?

Photo by Laura Dewilde on Unsplash

Quote I am sitting with, pondering and finding inspiration:

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
~ James Baldwin

When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. But when our hearts expand, we have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

Podcast I’m Listening to:

HBR IdeaCast

Great Leaders Use Tough Love to Improve Performance

Frances Frei, professor at Harvard Business School, says that trust, empathy – and even a bit of tough love – are all essential ingredients to strong leadership in today’s world. Successful managers focus on the effect they have on others, not themselves. They also define a strategy and create a culture that drives employee behavior in their absence. Frei is the coauthor, along with Anne Morriss, of the book “Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You” as well as the HBR article “Begin with Trust.”

My notes and highlights:

• Strategy and culture are important at the team level, too, and both are too often not fully utilized.
• Elevate, expand capacities, empower those around you so there’s leadership even in your absence
• Pay attention to your impact
• Trust is the starting point and is reliant upon three actionable components
  • Authenticity – be authentic as a leader and create the conditions for people to be authentic – safe, welcome, celebrated for authenticity.  Pay attention to what triggers most authentic version of you and others to show up.
  • Logic – establish credibility and careful communication.  Communication is made up of substance and style – style is often where things go wrong.  Start with the point then give supporting evidence.  Don’t talk about things you don’t know well.
  • Empathy – most important piece in time of crisis!  Have to be present to needs of others, not self-distracted. Everyone is self-distracted right now.  Put your own oxygen mask on first, be aware of distraction, and choose to hold meetings and one-on-ones when you can be present.
• Love – In order to bring out the best in others, you need to set really high standards AND also have deep devotion to your employee’s success.  Display this intense devotion to their success without lowering standards.
• Carol Dweck (Mindset, highlighted below) says there are two ways to parent.  You can prepare the path for the boy or prepare the boy for the path.  This goes for employees, too.  Prepare the boy for the path, to thrive even in your absence.

Staying Agile Beyond a Crisis

Darrell Rigby, partner at Bain & Company, says many firms have rapidly adopted agile principles to react to the coronavirus crisis. Namely, they’ve been ditching bureaucratic planning processes and instead fast-tracking ideas, holding focused meetings, and empowering decisions at lower levels of the organization. He argues that C-suite leaders should keep this newfound organizational nimbleness for good and explains how they can. With Sarah Elk and Steve Berez, Rigby wrote the HBR article “The Agile C-Suite” and the new book “Doing Agile Right: Transformation Without Chaos.”

My notes and highlights:

• Agile – a mindset and a method for improving innovation through deep customer collaboration and adaptive testing and learning.
• Maintaining our newfound agility as we return to the workplace is essential and can be done.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Book I am Reading:

Revisiting Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset—those who believe that abilities are fixed—are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset—those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.

In this edition, Dweck offers new insights into her now famous and broadly embraced concept. She introduces a phenomenon she calls false growth mindset and guides people toward adopting a deeper, truer growth mindset. She also expands the mindset concept beyond the individual, applying it to the cultures of groups and organizations. With the right mindset, you can motivate those you lead, teach, and love—to transform their lives and your own.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Please check out my latest blog posts on Lessons from the Run, Part 1: Mile 18 – Endurance, and Lessons from the Run, Part 2: Resilience, and stay tuned for the next addition Lessons of the Run, Part 3: Rest, as well as my upcoming blog post on My Vision: The Power of EQ to Create Change!  As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!