The Essence of Leadership

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A leader is a person you will follow to a place you wouldn't go by yourself.

Being Human

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Compassion

Compassion moves us beyond empathy to stand in another person's shoes. And, the elegantly provocative poems of Nayyirah Waheed invite us into the depths of Being Human, where our vast capacity for compassion awaits our arrival.

you broken the ocean in half to be here.

only to meet nothing that wants you.

- immigrant 

Are Your Expectations Blowing You Off Course?

Photo by James Connolly on Unsplash

Navigating other people's expectations can be challenging. Patience and persistence in clarifying exactly what another person's expectations are and reaching mutual agreement about them takes focus, effort, and often serious communication skills. Yet like most leadership and business best practices, ultimately your success depends on how well you understand the true nature of your own expectations.

Knowing the needs your expectations are attempting to meet can keep you from being blown off course by your own hidden agendas. So as I share in the audio below, give yourself some space and time to...

Gratitude Vitamins

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Dragonfly Leadership

Subtle Natural Power

Dragonflies are very ancient, estimated to have been on earth for over 180 million years. Their jewel-like bright coloring takes time to develop, reflecting the idea that with maturity your own true leadership colors emerge. Their fast flight and aerial feats—flying up to 30 miles an hour, and twisting, turning and changing direction in an instant, and even flying backwards—engage them in constant change.

As a leader in today's world how often do you experience the need to move, metaphorically speaking, like a dragonfly with alarity, precision, and ease? What practices enable your leadership to be dragonfly resilient?

A closer look at the natural yet subtle power of dragonflies could provide you with some leadership insights.

Dragonflies inhabit two realms—air and water. The significance for you as a leader is that these dragonfly domains offer a balance of mental clarity and emotional intelligence. 

A simple practice can strengthen your leadership, mentally and emotionally. When confronted by sudden unwelcomed change, breathe deeply—bringing air into your body and a sense of spaciousness into your mind. If it's available, drink some water to give yourself a moment to think.

This conscious practice also gives you a chance to tune into your feelings and self-regulate them. Like dragonfly, use air and water to see ways to navigate unexpected change and respond to it initially. Notice the shifts you are making to lead yourself and your team toward the new goal or in the new direction.

Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive. ~Jamais Cascio

Your Environment's Impact

Energy Drains

It's possible to be overworked and underutilized. 

This isn't readily apparent because our attempts to adjust and keep moving forward limit our focus and deplete our energy even more. And, we end up operating with diminished capacity without realizing it. 

I see this all the time with leaders and their teams. It's as if you have waited a little too long to put oxygen masks on yourself and your brain is more stared for oxygen than they know.

Of course, there is a remedy - like 'pure oxygen' - for this creeping deprivation of energy and resilience. 

Resilence Reset

When the best in you is cultivated by your leader and work culture, you bring a keener sense of focus, commitment and endurance to the challenges you face. In productive yet challenging environments you feel safe enough to experiment and make mistakes. Individual and collective/team contributions are supported and recognized. So progress and results end up being more remarkable than you ever imagined possible. 

If this thriving environment is not available in the culture where you work, find simple yet consistent ways to give genuine encouragement, recognition and appreciation to yourself and your team. Whenever possible, walk in nature to experience a natural energy reset. Notice how much more resilent you feel. And, notice the positive impact your attitudinal and behavioral shifts in the environment have on individual and team engagement, performance and results. 

Trust Not Knowing

What Stops You

That indecision which haunts you. The not knowing that worries you. The second guessing that stops you. Ease away from that doubt and fear. Because... it's time now to be kind and compassionate with yourself. Even though you don't know yet what you think you need to know to move forward, pause that thought. Instead, consciously choose to take 1 next step. Allow that next step to reveal the one that follows it. Step-by- step be brave enough to voyage beyond your known frontiers to where unknown yet self-fulfilling transformation patiently awaits your arrival. Courage comes from the heart. So let your heart lead you.

Your Courage Companions

Never underestimate the power of your curiosity and wonder.

They help you regain a natural sense of yourself - calming and centering you within to step into undiscovered territory. Emboldened, you begin to find a way forward, navigating volatile, unpredictable, chaotic and ambiguous challenges.

Are Your Expectations Part of the Problem?

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Practical Travel Wisdom

In this photo I'm standing in front an ancient Venetian fountain in Zadar, Croatia just a ferry ride across the Adriatic from Italy. It was a great trip, but very different from what I expected to experience when I planned it. So I had to make daily adjustments to differences that, although not terrible, differed significantly from my expectations and what I wanted to experience.

Normally, when I travel I keep my expectations much more open-ended. That way I step into the unknown with curiosity and a genuine sense of exploration and discovery. This time I returned to Croatia with more of an agenda. Even though my natural flexibility enabled me to "go with the flow" of changes I experienced, I was very conscious of the extra energy it took to manage my expectations along the way. Next time, when I return to Croatia, I'll make sure my expectations are set in their normal travel mode. That will free me to have an even better time there, and elsewhere.

Travel requires us to manage our expectations so they don't become part of the problem that confronts us. Clearly, we cannot control flight delays or cancellations, the availability of food and comfort at airports, or when hotel accommodations fall short of website descriptions. What we can control, however, is what we expect from these experiences and how we make adjustments when they don't measure up to our expectations. 

Travel invites us to explore and discover ways to navigate the unknown and deal effectively with unexpected change. When we adapt, we see ways to become part of the solution we seek.

A Useful 'Playful Practice'

For years, I have relied on a useful practice I call "shifting to neutral." Deciding to remain calm and not react to potentially irritating disruptions helps me navigate with relative ease a mirage of domestic and international security checkpoints, long lines at ticket counters and customs, unexpected flight delays, and unfamiliar airports.

This quiet practice of "shifting to neutral" also could help you regain a sense of inner balance—emotionally and mentally—in business, leadership and life. It starts with recognizing what you can and cannot control. Then, when a person or situation begins to upset you, you immediately disconnect from that irritating or disappointing energy by imagining yourself pulling the cable and plug (through which that negative energy is moving toward you) out of its power source. This drains off the energy—dissipating its effect on you. It frees you to remain calm, centered and clear. 

Practice "shifting to neutral" and notice whether it works for you. Like my clients, discover how this simple 'playful practice' helps you to maintain a sense of inner balance even when dealing with difficult people or situations. That way, navigating change becomes less of an energy drain and more manageable.

In these radically challenging times, I think you will agree these skills are invaluable—whether you are traveling or not.

Sync with Your Success

Right Timing

Funny thing about "right timing." It has a way of not showing up when you think it should. Instead you find yourself waiting with impatience and anxiety in "the in-between" - a space between what has already happened and what has not happened yet.

What if this space where nothing seems to be happening is present for you to pause and catch up with yourself? What if it is an invitation to see without being in constant motion where you are now, given the months, weeks and days it has taken you to get there.

"The in-between" is a place where you can pause, breathe in, see, appreciate and savor what you achieved during this leg of your journey in business, leadership and life. Looking back at the distance you have traveled, you lean into and embody more deeply your professional and personal growth. Who you are now has more room to be self-expressed.

Such is the beauty and the power of patiently allowing "the in-between" to reveal its riches to you.

"What you seek is seeking you." -Rumi

The Beauty of What We'll Never Know

In his engaging TED Talk Pico Iyer reminds us that transformation comes when we are not in charge and don't know what comes next. Travel has taught him that the opposite of knowledge isn't ignorance; it's wonder. As a life long traveler, I agree. For the first law of travel is also a law of life.

"You're only as strong as your readiness to surrender."
 

Is Endless Information Turning You Into A Circular Thinker?

How You Think Determines How You Lead

Critical thinking is essential to making good decisions. It engages you in learning what works, what doesn't work, and what would work better.

Critical thinking tests your willingness to consider different points of view. It asks you to question assumptions and examine expectations - whether  obvious, subtle, unexpressed, understated, or 'undiscovered territory'. 

Knowing whether you're a linear, lateral, or circular thinker helps you navigate the uncertainty leaders experience when discerning the best possible decision to make.

YOUR BRAIN IDENTITY

Which of the following characteristics of linear, lateral, or circular thinkers best describes you? Be candid. Select one...

Linear Thinkers (left-brain dominant)

  • Prefer a logical, sequential structured (step-by-step) progression
  • Focus on details - organizing, planning, and doing things in precise order
  • Define meaningful categories, streamlines and systemizes options

Lateral Thinkers (right-brain dominant)

  • Prefer to look at the big picture and understand concepts
  • Focus on what is being overlooked - challenging assumptions
  • See novel cross-connections that form creative alternatives

Circular Thinkers (right & left-brain co-dominant)

  • Prefer to scan all information - big picture and details
  • Focus on all possibilities - everything being done and thought
  • Circle around different possibilities and indirectly land on solutions

WHOLE BRAIN THINKING

Numerous techniques and tools have been designed to improve linear and lateral thinking. Yet there doesn't appear to be much of anything available to assist circular thinkers, even though circular thinking has the potential to access more of the human brain.

The Medicine Wheel in Native American Tradition spontaneously came to mind when a client described her natural, yet frustratingly unproductive, circular thinking process. Karen (name changed for client confidentiality) works with people in different cultures and traditions. She was very receptive to a modern day practice that would connect her way of reaching decisions with a centuries-old approach to whole brain thinking. 

A CIRCULAR THINKING DECISION MODEL

In Native American culture the Medicine Wheel consists primarily of 4 directions - East, South, West and North - with a center point. The simplicity of it as a Circular Thinking Decision Model is a function of these 5 basic parameters.

Travel this circle from East to North as many times as it takes for you to address whatever is present in each direction. Let the challenges and opportunities engage you in new ways of seeing and thinking about what is possible. Allow what get revealed in the circle to lead you to the best possible decision. 

HOW TO USE THIS TOOL

Take a blank piece of paper. Fill it with a large circle. On it write the 4 directions. Then begin your journey from East to North - jotting down your responses to the decision making points in each direction. The points listed below align with the energy resident in each direction of the Medicine Wheel.

Center (focal point) - Decision You Need to Make

  • Clarify the decision you need to make
    • Where are you now?
    • What needs to change or be better?
  • Describe desired future and intended results
    • What options exist?
    • What opportunities exist - seen and unseen?
  • Write down your ideal outcome
    • What would need to happen to reach that outcome?
    • What crucial factors influence or impact your decision?

East (right side of circle) - Resources Available to Make a Good Decision

  • Expertise
  • Experience
  • Information
  • People: Team / Staff / Partners / Collaborators
  • Finances

South (bottom of circle) - What Decision Maker Brings

  • Skills
  • Talents
  • Resources
  • Natural gifts

West (left side of circle) - What You Need to Make a Smart Decision

  • Question assumptions and expectations
  • Ask different types of questions
  • See possibilities that emerge

North (top of circle) - What Decision Wants to Be Made

  • New insights
  • Deeper understanding
  • Greater knowing and wisdom

Test this circular thinking decision making tool by moving through all 4 directions of the Medicine Wheel. Notice the clarity you experience. See how this traditional wisdom practice engages you in transformative critical thinking — empowering you to make smarter decisions.