Bravo! Congratulations! Great job!
There are not enough superlatives to describe this group from McCarran International Airport. Passionate, skilled and heart-filled leaders that are committed to lead the right way and move the culture of the organization forward. They embraced all the learning (nine units), peer coaching and outside reading assignments.
Rock on Leadership Flight 1 graduates!
Leading other leaders. Some people compare it to herding cats. Some people describe the “which way did they go? I must know because I am their leader” paradox. Others will tell you that it is the most frustrating, but yet most rewarding part of the leadership equation.
Dr. Paul Hersey probably best described the phenomenon of leading other leaders in his work on Situational Leadership. Dr. Hersey clearly identified different skill sets related to managing and leading people based on their skill set and based on the particular leadership situation. His groundbreaking work identified some of the possible disconnects when leaders utilize the same skill set to manage leaders as they do when they supervise entry level workers. In his model, when leading leaders, you can no longer be directive, use a cookie cutter approach and overly define the process details and steps.
Of the additional tactics to lead leaders, fuzziness may be the most important. Although we may have perfect clarity on an end result and how it looks and feels, we must allow our emerging leaders the opportunity to add their clarity. This is an extremely important step that transfers ownership of a project or idea. If we fill in all of the details, it will always be our idea and our process. If we allow our subordinate leaders to fill in the details, the process becomes theirs. It also has great impact to stimulate their creative and systemic thinking.
A subset tactic that is closely related to fuzziness is polluting the soup. Some of you have heard this presented in just a little different way but the message is the same. Polluting the soup is leading with your idea and then requesting other suggestions and input. Sounds okay on the surface, but unfortunately, when your idea is articulated, it will greatly diminish the other input from subordinate leaders. The effective leader will utilize the greatly unappreciated skill of keeping quiet and letting the subordinate leader or leaders play the ideas and suggestions.
Prepare for the curiosity of three year olds. If you have a problem in answering questions and responding to the “why” query, you may not be ready to lead other leaders. If your response pattern includes “because I said so”, “because it has always been that way” or even “it is what it is”, you will need to change your approach. New and emerging leaders will question and challenge. Like kids, it is what they do. Brushing it off produces a future eerie silence that replicates the status quo. Answering, as best you can, produces innovative leaders that balance the possibilities with the realities.
The presentation, even subtly, of opportunities to subordinate and emerging leaders is a great way to evaluate talent and even test drive and motivation. When an opportunity is presented, do the leaders run with it or do they require pushing? Do they pick up on the clues and react without any follow-up needed? Do they personalize the project or idea? Do they continually run it back to you for validation or do they shoot for the end result? Lots of questions yet the answers become very telling about the skill set and readiness of the leader that you are guiding.
Feeding opportunities also allows you to see if any of your leaders are willing to get a little dirty. It is very telling when an emerging leader sacrifices comfort and personal vanities in order to achieve the objectives of the opportunity.
Another critical element in leading leaders is allowing them the opportunity to fail. By far and away this is the most challenging facet for many of us. To allow someone the chance to stub their toe is pretty priceless and more valuable than any other type of learning. Even with our experience and depth of knowledge, until they try it their way, they will never be satisfied. It takes a great deal of leadership maturity to allow others to fail and be there to pick them up and restore their desire to achieve.
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.
Unlocking a Heart for Leadership
This is a multi-part series of excerpts from Unlocking a Heart for Leadership, a soon to be released book by Tim Schneider. This book and series examines the powerful methods to add heart based (affective/feeling) approaches to your leadership and life. An unlocked heart is the third facet of full leadership and personal realization.
Laugh, Play and Have Fun
“Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” Michael Jordan
The power of laughter, fun and play as curative for the heart and soul is well documented. And the anecdotal evidence is equally as powerful. When you are laughing, having fun and just generally enjoying yourself, your emotional and physical energy is higher.
Enjoyment also has a tremendous ability to unlock desire to have more fun and an amazing side effect is that it will attract people to you like nothing else. People love to be around the smiling and fun and can’t wait to get away from the grim and downtrodden.
Before we engage more fun, let’s track back and see what happened to it. Because we all started with it and it was encouraged and promoted early on but sadly, we lost it. As children, our parents cooed when we laughed. People even tickled us to evoke that laughter. Everyone loves a giggly baby (the internet is full of them) and that behavior is rewarded and replicated.
As we begin school, play and laughter is programmed into our day. We have play breaks and physical education classes that are designed to produce active fun. Yes, not all memories of PE are great but generally, there was a lot of smiles and play.
Then adulthood crept in and we have been told to “settle down”, “be quiet”, “stop grinning” and then of course, “act professionally”. Somehow being an adult and productive member of society was equated to being joyless and losing our sense of fun and desire to play.
Fast forward to now and we see adults that struggle to identify what they enjoy or the last time they had a frolicking belly laugh. Play is no longer programed and we find it only as we have time. And maybe worse yet, we participate in hyper-competitive or super-physical activities labeled as fun but really lacking any joy beyond survival.
Let’s Find Some Fun
“Creativity is intelligence having fun” Albert Einstein
To really unlock the power of fun, we must acknowledge that our society and workplaces are not very conducive to unbridled fun and the demands on our time and energy are tight so we must make fun programed again. Just like grade school.
Adding the practice of fun to your heart and emotional composition power will require:
1. Create a list of things you really enjoy doing. Nothing you must do or feel accomplished about but that you just really like.
2. Create a list of those things that make you laugh and smile. This can include people, media (movies, television episodes, YouTube videos), books, cartoons and the like.
3. Identify, and journal, the last time you experienced laugh-out-loud joy and the last time you experienced unrestricted fun.
4. Now add a time block of something fun and laugh provoking per day. Give yourself permission to take a laugh break. One of the best spot for this is at mid-day during lunch. Have a cartoon or funny video queued up and give yourself the joy of laughter to keep your day rolling along nicely.
5. Schedule a fun activity each week. Again, nothing that should be done but a block of time devoted to pure enjoyment. This could be adventure, travel, reading, a movie, comedy club trip or just anything that is for your joyful pleasure.
6. Note in your journal both the change in your emotional composition and change in your facial expression.
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.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou
• Effective leadership requires emotional intelligence.
• People will remember how you make them feel.
• Emotions drive attitudes and beliefs. Attitudes and beliefs drive behavior.
By Teresa Lowry
You are ready to debate me, aren’t you? You are saying to yourself: Of course, it’s what I know that matters! Here it is: Your education and your technical expertise will only carry you so far. If you want to be an effective leader you must have good emotional intelligence.
Let’s say you have a cause, mission or issue that is important to you that you are passionate about. Maybe it is Hurricane Relief, Mental Health Reform, Veterans Health Care, Preventing Animal Cruelty. You want people to join you. You need them to follow you and act. You need their time, talent and treasure. How do you as a leader inspire people to show up for you, answer your call and be there when you need them?
Make an Emotional Connection to a Shared Vision
There you are at your headquarters prepared with all the statistics, data and real-life stories about your cause. This is an important step to complete. And yet you are sitting there all alone. Ok, your two best friends showed up. We love our BFF’s and they’ll do anything to help us out. But it’s going to take more than two people to have a meaningful impact.
You want to be a leader on this issue. You want people to follow you. You need people to show up for you. To do this you have to connect with them on an emotional level. It’s not going to be what you know. Your influence as a leader will be based on your emotional intelligence which includes your communication skills and ability to create relationship depth with the people you want to lead.
Leadership is about connecting with people. Your success is going to depend on your ability to connect with and influence people. This is accomplished through building relationships. Lasting relationships require constant communication and emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman in his book “Emotional Intelligence” reminds us that when dealing with people you are not dealing with logic but rather with emotions. The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain. When you communicate you want to make an emotional connection to a shared vision.
Communicate to Inspire Others
Each time you speak, your goal will be to leave your potential team members with a positive feeling and desire to communicate with you again. Communication should be in person. People will remember how you make them feel when you speak with them. Do you leave them feeling inspired and hopeful? Do you leave them feeling understood and important? People migrate to more positive and empathetic people. People stay more connected to positivity. Charisma and charm follow emotional positivity. By managing your emotional composition, you can cultivate charisma. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner gets it when he says “a manager will tell someone what to do and a leader inspires them to do it”. Emotions drive attitudes and beliefs. Attitudes and beliefs drive behavior. Inspire people and you will move them to action on behalf of your shared mission and vision.
It’s Not About You
It goes without saying that you will know the name and some personal information about everyone you hope to have on your team. You should know their connection to your cause. When they tell you their story, listen attentively. Make them feel like the only person in the room. No looking at your phone, laptop or the door. Everyone has a story. Let people tell you why they want to work for your cause. For some of you the challenge will be to listen and not talk about yourself. For others, the challenge will be to open up and share something about yourself and make that heartfelt connection. Emotional intelligence is when you finally realize it’s not all about you. Your connection to your people will be emotional. Let them remember that you made them feel important, understood and optimistic.
Keep Them on the Team with Gratitude
Once you establish the shared connection to your cause and inspire people to follow your lead you want them to stay with you for the long haul. As you continue to share their stories, listen to them and make them feel valued you will see a high degree of success. To keep them showing up will also require large doses of appreciation and gratitude. Praise them. Often and sincerely. “Don’t forget. A person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.” H. Jackson Brown understood this. I think you all ready knew this because you know how good you feel when someone appreciates you.
Now go connect, inspire and lead well. From me to you: Thank you in advance for making the world a better place.
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.
debuts featuring Tim Schneider. After that, we will be breaking some new ground with Relational Intelligence. Aegis Learning is committed to provide useable and valuable information to our customers and friends.
Unlocking a Heart for Leadership
This is a multi-part series of excerpts from Unlocking a Heart for Leadership, a soon to be released book by Tim Schneider. This book and series examines the powerful methods to add heart based (affective/feeling) approaches to your leadership and life. An unlocked heart is the third facet of full leadership and personal realization.
Symptoms Telling Us We Need Heart Work
“The only thing greater than the power of the mind is the courage of the heart” John Nash
Our world gives us plenty of clues when it is necessary and time to work on unlocking emotional and heart power. Some of those clues are right-between-the-eyes blunt force and some are a bit subtler. Examine these and see where you are at and see if there is indeed work to be done to unlock your heart.
• Stuck in a low-level motivation (more on that later in this section)
• Operating from fears (more on that as well)
• Anxiety and edginess
• Frequent use of sarcasm or snarky comments
• Need to be the center of attention often or always
• Lack of focus or persistence with tasks and projects
• Lack of physical energy or a drained feeling
• Avoidance of conflict
• Strained relationships at work or in your personal life
• Procrastination and avoidance
• Reluctance to or fighting of change
• Inability to sustain the use of new skills or approaches
• Low general demeanor or surliness towards work and people at work
• Stressed out
• Negativity and pessimism for the future
• Poor, snappy or edgy verbal tone
• Dour and sour facial expressions
• Lack of genuine human empathy
• Overly judgmental of others
• Isolation from others or activities you enjoy
• Blaming others for challenges and failures
There is also a need to look at the recurring patterns in your life. Things like these point to a need to tap into the energy of your heart and emotions:
• Repeated failures in business or bouncing from one career path to another frequently
• Easily disenfranchised with organizations and people
• Novelty of new things wears off quickly
• Complaints from team members that have similar themes
• Trying to change others to adapt to you
• Trail of relationship casualty and failed interpersonal relationships
None of these are devastating by themselves and we all certainly spend time in these spots from time to time. The one thing to watch for is frequent occurrences of these symptoms and how long they last. When they occur regularly, it is time to unlock the power of your heart.
Motivationally Stuck
Dr. Abraham Maslow’s groundbreaking and baseline work on human motivation describes five levels of needs. This Hierarchy of Needs demonstrated that lower level needs must be satisfied first before higher tier needs can be met. As a person moves up the pyramid of needs, their motivation increases until they reach self-actualization. This stage is the highest level of motivation and all lower level needs, physiological, security, social, and self-esteem are being met. Quite simply, the more needs are being met, the higher the motivation until pinnacle is achieved.
So, what happens when someone is stuck in a lower level plateau and doesn’t rise? Their motivation levels cap off at that level as well. Think of this example:
A person is constantly straining against their resources to make ends meet. There is consistent worry and pessimism about the ability to pay bills and ever live in abundance or have discretionary spending ability.
In this example, being motivationally stuck in physiological needs will have a dramatic impact on this person’s ability to achieve more in life. When constantly worrying about money, opportunity will be passed by, relationships will be strained, self-esteem will suffer and the heart of this person will become tainted on money. Their brain will follow suit and this person will openly obsess about money, accumulation of things, and savings.
One example that we tend to hear a great deal in organizations related to being stuck on security needs:
Someone is always talking about the number of years until the retirement account will pay them what they think they need to survive in their senior years. Rather than looking forward to being able to make a difference, they are counting down to when the retirement savings will allow them some mystical security.
This stuck point can be devastating to effectiveness and has a significant adverse impact on motivations and the desire to change, move forward and thrive. This motivational stuck is all about just surviving another day, week, month or year.
Another example that becomes common:
The person that cannot do anything alone or be alone for more than two seconds. There is constant insecurity about people and a need to be connected to someone or groups of people all the time.
This example points to a deeply unmet social need (Maslow’s third tier) and by not being comfortable alone, they will never be able to achieve comfort with others and truly meaningful relationships.
Looking for Stuck Points
We all get stuck momentarily and there is certainly nothing wrong with twice a month fretting a bit about where paychecks went or spending a bit of time being lonely or even wondering about what the future may bring. All normal little stops for our brain and emotional composition.
Where motivational stuck becomes dangerous is when we spend a bunch of our time and energy there. Look at, and get feedback about what you talk about or even obsess about. Really think about where you are motivationally and strive always to seek the next level on the pyramid.
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.
