Nevada P.O.S.T Acredits Aegis Learning

Nevada Commission on Peace Officer Standards Acredits Aegis Learning

Aegis Learning is pleased to announce the accreditation from the Nevada Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training for our Leadership IMPACT program.

This means that all law enforcement professionals can now receive continuing education credits when they attend this program.  Our other leadership program offerings are currently being reviewed for the same quality certification and we are also seeking accreditation with several other professional agencies.

Thank you to Matt Zobrist for his work in starting this process for Aegis Learning.

At the Intersection of Confidence and Humility

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

Mindful Leadership Balances Humility and Confidence

“A strong woman accepts both compliments and criticism graciously, knowing that it takes both sunshine and rain for a flower to grow”.      Mandy Hale


  1. Effective Leaders must be confident.
  2. Our confidence affects the team’s desire to follow us.
  3. Leaders need humility to learn new skills.
  4. Humility includes seeking input from others, and the ability to apologize.

By Teresa Lowry

When I was growing up, my Uncle Ronnie would tell the same joke every time he came to our house for dinner. It started out with “Did I tell you I received the Most Humble Man award this year? My uncle would then feign indignation and conclude: “But when I accepted the award they took it back!” We would all laugh. Humility can be tricky, if we think we are then we’re not!

When we explore confidence and humility, we may envision the extremes. At one end of the spectrum is Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa models of humility. Let us aspire to something more likely. On the other end of the spectrum there is the extreme side of confidence: arrogance. We want to avoid this at all costs. What effective leaders demonstrate is the graceful balance and blend of confidence and humility. No false bravado or false humility here. Authenticity will get us where we need to go.

Cruising Our Way to Confidence

Confidence is a sense of control and mastery of oneself and the world.

In Leadership IMPACT and all our extended leadership development programs, we provide guidance that confidence is a personal dynamic that’s generated internally but potentially affected by many outside influences. Effective leaders must be confident or at the very least appear confident. Our confidence as a leader will dramatically affect the desire of our team members to follow us.

Past successes, failures, tolerance for risk, experience, and subject matter expertise all impact our confidence. So, does feedback from others. Confidence is also impacted by our resilience and general state of wellbeing. At its core, confidence is the reconciliation of the consequences of failure. Every time we process what could go wrong and then proceed, we are producing confidence.

To enhance the feeling of confidence, remember past successes. Relate current scenarios and challenges to past events when you succeeded in your actions. Another technique to improve confidence is to track, monitor, and report achievements.

To keep confidence from turning into arrogance, follow the simple rule that confidence is unspoken. Confidence is quiet while arrogance is loud and obnoxious. Confidence is a gracious thank you to compliments. Thank you. Period. Similar to apologies. I am sorry. Period.

Confidence allows us to lead during times of uncertainty or ambiguity. It is knowing we can handle and can learn from whatever comes our way.

The Road to Humility

In the Harvard Business Review article “The Best Leaders Are Humble Leaders” by Prime and Salib, May 2014, it was noted that humility is a trait that many successful organizations look for in new hires. Without humility, you are unable to learn. Citing a Catalyst study, they found humility is one of the critical leadership qualities that team members appreciate. The key is learning from corrective feedback and admitting mistakes. When leaders humbly admit they don’t have all the answers they create a space for others to step forward and offer solutions.

A humble leader solicits feedback and asks “How am I doing?” This question should be posed to team members, peers, customers, mentors, and family members. Listen to their feedback and then accept it. Without justification, explanation, and with appreciation. If you have the good fortune to have a truth teller, who without agenda or ulterior motive, is willing to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly, listen to them. And then tell them how grateful you are to have them in your life.

Humility could include seeking input from others, subordinating your own ideas, and avoiding adding value. It definitely includes the ability to apologize, to forgive and be forgiven.

Sometimes when we forget to be humble, life finds ways to remind us. Lessons if you will. We think we are all that as we enter a room and then realize after the big presentation that a zipper is not zipped up, or there is kale in our teeth, or a pink Velcro roller left in the back of our hair. Someone yawned or even fell asleep while we were talking. We lose a promotion, an election, the big game, the partner of our dreams. If we don’t find humility sincerely and honestly it will find us and it’s not pretty.

The Intersection: Meet Me on Authenticity Street

We want to be strong, confident leaders. We want to know that in a time of challenge or crisis we can and will rise to the occasion. Each success, as well as lessons learned from each failure, will give us the confidence we need to lead our team.

What will ultimately connect us to the people on our team will be our humility. It is in our moments of vulnerability when we let our guard down that we forge an emotional bond. The intersection of confidence and humility is authenticity. We would not be in a leadership position without a set of skills we can feel good about, and at the same time, we can be humbled regularly by what we have yet to learn or master. When we take our experience, skills and knowledge and show by example that we will take care of our team while demonstrating humility we are at our most authentic as a leader. It is a nice place to be. Even if you can’t accept any awards for it.

Teresa Lowry is a passionate advocate for learning, growth and generating real organizational change.
Fueling that passion are exceptional communication abilities, a great training room presence and the ability to connect with people successfully in mentoring and coaching. Personally, Teresa enjoys serving on several community boards, volunteering with non-profit community groups and, along with her husband, you will find her in the gym every morning working out and training for distance and obstacle races.

Celebrating Leaders-City of Las Vegas

Incredible Group of Leaders. Bravo!

There are not enough superlatives to go around for the group of leaders from the City of Las Vegas that recently (July, 2017) completed Leadership SUCCESS.  The transformation and openness of this team was amazing and Aegis Learning was honored to be there with them.

Their program including nine learning units, peer coaching, outside reading and reports of skills mastered.  Congratulations to all of them and we look forward to hearing about your continued success.

The Aegis App for Android is Here!

Access All of Our Great Content (Much of Which is Free) in One Great Place.

The Aegis Learning App for Android devices is here and now you can access all of our learning content (videos, articles, follow-up tools, podcasts and more) in one convenient place.

This user friendly application comes without any advertisements, upsells or other useless material and is focused solely on providing you with the tools you need to continue to grow and develop.  Did we also mention that it is completely FREE!.

We anticipate the release of the IOS (for iPads, iPhones and Mac) shortly.

Special thanks to Polly Walker from Aegis Learning for her tireless efforts in making this new development a reality.

Check out the features or download the app HERE.

A Couple of Notes About Our Testimonials

The testimonials that Aegis Learning uses and shares are different.  And we are quite proud of those differences.

First, our testimonals are from real people and we use their name.  If you would like the contact information for them, please contact us.

Secondly, but not certainly less important, our testimonials are from projects in which we have actually performed the work.  We can, and will, articulate and describe the project, context and subject for you.

You may also notice the pictures we use on this website and in our social media are from actual projects with real customers.   Ones that will gladly tell you about the impact and value we delivered for them.

Please take a moment and see what our customers say about us and the Aegis Edge.

Testimonials

 

 

July, 2017 Aegis CARES Event-Las Vegas Rescue Mission

Helping to Make Our Community and World a Better Place

The Las Vegas Rescue Mission was the site of our July service event.  Joining the Aegis Learning team was Dave Newton, Renee Newton, Cari Zobrist, Teresa Lattin and Robert Rippee.

#powerof1

Aegis Cares

Join our Facebook group to receive updates and to participate in Aegis Cares campaigns and events.

Expand Leadership Through Volunteering

Aegis Cares

"We make a living by what we get, but make a life by what we give"
Winston Churchill

Enhance Leadership with Volunteering

  1. Discover Your Points of Passion and Connection.
  2. Use and Practice Leadership Skills.
  3. Enhance Your Value Through Volunteering.

Recently,  a 2015 “Forbes” article (Horoszowski,M. 29 March, 2015. Forbes.com) resurfaced on various social media sights, highlighting the benefits of volunteering. Despite its age, the message still rings true. Reading this article got me thinking about how volunteering can also expand our leadership skills, and may provide us with a real-life laboratory to test out new skills and competencies in order to hen transfer them back to the workplace.

We all know that a critical leadership skill is time management; if you cannot manage yourself, then you surely cannot lead others. So if “volunteering makes you feel like you have more time” then I’m in! (and from personal experience, as counterintuitive as it sounds, this is true!) ….so how is it possible to pack in more than 24 hours in a day and still manage to balance all the demands of career / family / self-care and now volunteering? The answer is by appearing to be in control and not allowing stress to take over your life. Also if you are working for a cause that is truly your passion, then it is not “stressful” rather it is truly a joy.

So find your passion. Whatever that may be; volunteer with your kid’s PTA. Volunteer at the local soup kitchen; take the kids and have them serve the homeless on a holiday. Join a Church committee on whatever topic is of interest. Spend time at the local animal shelter. Become active in your professional association and mentor a promising protégée or teach a class. Hold a FUNraiser and walk or run for ___(insert your favorite charity here) ____ . Whatever your area of interest, these groups welcome new volunteers; and if you are already part of a non-profit or charity organization, then get more involved by joining the leadership team. Whatever it is, find your passion. You may say “I don’t have time to volunteer” that’s true, none of us do; however, time management is as simple as managing priorities; we make time for those things that are a priority.

Practice leadership skills that you may not have an opportunity to apply in the workplace. Maybe you are an independent contributor and do not have any direct reports or no longer manage a process. First, you need to reassess your value and realize that you are more important than you may realize. Take on some new responsibilities in a volunteer capacity; but be careful, you may even learn a new skill set along the way. Even if you’ve never been a “supervisor,” you may find yourself in a “leadership” role and have to be the boss for the first time ever. An interesting dynamic with volunteers is that like you, no one is compensated to be there, and your leadership skills may really be put to the test.

Volunteers working together all share the same core “cause” or passion in common, whatever that is; keep the strategic goal in focus. This is similar to the workplace, the primary difference being the paycheck and individual’s motivation. In a volunteer setting, there is a high degree of certainty that everyone is there because they want to help, rather than to earn a wage. Everyone is working together towards the same ultimate goal and leadership can and should use that to “rally the troops” when necessary. Keep in mind that volunteer leadership is driven by communication, influence, and relationships, not power and fear. Try this same approach in the workplace; it works!

Still not convinced? Some other great reasons to volunteer are to use this setting as a “proving ground” even if just to yourself, to practice and perfect your leadership skills; for example, challenge yourself to speak in public, or work on a project that will teach you a new skill set; what have you got to lose?. Then those skills are transferrable to the workplace. And at the same time you are giving back to the community, expanding your network (i.e. influence) meeting net people, our and might just enjoy yourself.

(And by the way, it looks great on a resume)

As chief learning officer for Aegis Learning, Linda Florence is an advocate for continued education and quality professional growth.

Linda is a talented facilitator and coach and passionate about the causes she support locally and nationally.

Quality Focused Leadership

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

Little Things Matter. Quality is Often the Sum of Little Things.

Do little things matter? Do style and format matter? Does the packaging affect the quality of a product? Does grammar matter?

The easy answer to those is yes, yes, they do.

Little things matter but they never will trump the overall delivery of a project, product or service. Think for a moment about proposal for a system change that will have a million-dollar positive impact on the organization, make people’s life easier and help you deliver much better service to your customer. The core content of this proposal is solid. The numbers are right.

But, there is a typo on page 4. The wrong form of the word there is used. There are really no interesting graphics to appeal to visual people. The paragraphs are too long and ramble. The style makes the proposal hard to look at and read. Nothing interesting or sexy or appealing in this document.

Will that have an impact? Absolutely it will. Intuitively, this strikes many of you as wrong but unfortunately, style, details and presentation quality matter. It explains why neatly packaged name brands consistently outsell the same product sold generically.

Effective leaders need to strike a balance between overall effectiveness and attention to quality. When this balance is out of whack, there are two possible outcomes. If effectiveness trumps quality, poorly appearing items will appear and adversely impact the image of the organization. If there is overemphasis on quality, opportunities and market share will be lost. This balance is not a nice neat little 50/50 split either. It depends on the nature of your product or service, core values and corporate culture.

For a leader to have a quality focus, you must engage in a couple of key strategies. Firstly, you must clearly articulate your expectations. Tell your team what you expect and what you will clearly kick back to them as unacceptable. Provide them with examples of high quality and examples of poor quality. Provide them with templates of documents and standards that you view as quality work.

The second strategy becomes a matter of great judgment for leaders. A quality focused leader must not be afraid to return a piece of work to its author or architect when it does not meet the stated standard of quality. Far too many leaders “clean up” or edit projects prior to final delivery rather that have the originator make the changes. Unfortunately, that sends the message poor work is fine, because the leader will always fix it up. It will also condition your team members to continue to supply you with inferior quality work.

Where this becomes a matter of judgment and challenge is when quality abuts a deadline. I would love to produce more quality but the deadline is this afternoon. Many times, this creates a significant compromise in the quality of work.

To validate your judgment, you need to know your organization’s values. Is there more emphasis placed on speed or quality. Where is there higher impact, a missed deadline or poor quality? You must make this decision. You may also have to have a courageous conversation and tell someone a deadline will be missed because the quality was not acceptable. Certainly, not an easy conversation, but a necessary conversation none the less.

One final note about quality. As you model both your tolerance for quality and quality of your own efforts, your team will follow that example.

Tim Schneider is the founder of Aegis Learning and has been working with teams and leaders for 25 years.   He generates results, impact and his sole focus is your success.

He is the author of The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership and Beyond Engagement and a widely sought speaker, training facilitator and individual development coach.