Title: Mid American Association of State Transportation Officials
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Link out: Click here
Description: Lunch Speaker: Resilience – Increasing Leadership Capacity for High Performance
Start Time: 12:45
Date: 2011-07-20
End Time: 13:30
I taught a resilience workshop recently and a member of the group asked why we read stories about people who act as martyrs and how we hold them up as role models. By holding people who lose balance as the goal, we encourage people to demonstrate behavior that does not support their overall physical, emotional and mental health (resilience). So here are some questions to think about:
Here is a bit of my story. I grew up in a family with a father who worked very hard to support our family. He had a full time job and started a business “on the side”. He also went to graduate school at night. He was a great provider and very dedicated to excellence in his work. I took these patterns on as a young girl. When I went to college, I graduated in 3 years where most of my friends took 4 years to graduate. I then graduated from college and took a job in finance where I worked 60-80 hours/week while attending graduate school.
Fast forward many years, I developed habits and skills in my professional life and at times these were at the expense of time to have fun with friends, enjoying down time and working out. Yet, I continued to gain recognition for my professional success. My personal story to myself was that I am a great employee and business owner because I work so hard. I am very dedicated and provide great service to my clients. I am worthy as a person and employee because I do this. I do not really need to focus on this other stuff – that is for wimps:). In essence, most of my identity revolved around my image of being a good worker rather than a well rounded, healthy person.
Now fast forward again, I started to study material on leadership development and came to realize that I needed to take better care of myself. Self care is not for wimps – it is for people who have the sense to balance personal care and professional success. Personal care can include health and also family, spiritual, and community involvement.
So, to be authentic, I needed to change my story about who I am and how I see the world. I have started working with a wellness coach, working out more often, eating healthier food, drink less coffee, sleep when I am tired, and focusing more on meditation practice. All of this fits together to support my resilience. None of this was new. I knew that I needed to do this stuff all along. What really changed for me was to redefine my personal story from I am the one who is always working and that makes me awesome TO I am balanced and healthy and that allows me to think more clearly and provide more insight. And yet, you may ask, how do I find time to do all of this and still get everything done. I do not have a magic solution but when I started to make it a priority I really struggled with things like turning off my laptop to work out during the evening then go back to check email later or even harder, turning off the laptop for a full day on the weekend. For people who know me, they will laugh. For others, you may think I am a nut for always working.
My point is how do we change our personal stories and also the story we hold up as the model for others.
Enjoy the journey to resilience. I would love to hear stories others experience as you shift your self image.
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Photo credit: cliff1066
To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.
Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.
So, all I have heard on the news today is that Osama Bin Laden was killed. I am struck by a question – what can we DO in our own ordinary lives to move forward in a meaningful way? I understand all of the celebrations and respect the desire to celebrate and yet it seems like we are called to do more. I left my last job on 9/11 and started a business and consequently in some ways a new life. We, the US, declared 2 wars and many people lost their lives during the past 10 years. We lived with the concern of TERROR and the war on terror for 10 year. So my question is, at this moment in time, what can we reclaim what we lost as a society in fear? How do we really honor the men and women who gave their lives or years of their lives to make this moment possible?
A few thoughts:
My underlying premise is peace starts at home. It starts with extending kindness to those in our immediate lives when they are tough to live with. It is hard to imagine world peace if we can not get along in our families, neighborhoods, or workplaces. How do we cultivate the qualities that allow us to make peace with those we chose to spend time with? Our friends? Our spouses? If we can not do this, we have little hope of broader peace.
My commitment is to build a stronger relationship with my immediate family. I am blessed to have parents who are still living and a brother and his family. I will see my brother and niece at the end of the month. I commit to continue to build on our relationship (this is the easy one) and rebuild with others that are not as easy. Who do you want to reconcile with? Is there an area in your life where you can exercise compassion?
Also, a strong message of appreciation for our armed forces and civil servants who work tirelessly to keep us physically safe and protect our way of life and our principles. As we watch democracy spreading through the world – I can not help but think it is because of the years of sacrifice of so many dedicated men and women – some of whom died in service of this very day. I have no way to repay the benefit I gain from your service and I am forever grateful!
Today we have a guest post from Maria Polak, one of our associates and also faculty member at Otterbein University and Franklin University.
Almost every day provides information on external changes to organizations and systems that can affect us in many ways. Market demands in the private sector have already affected those organizations, with resilient organizations adapting to change to stay relevant in the marketplace. External change is now affecting public and nonprofit sectors: From thinking differently about how education is delivered in our schools, to funding constraints in the nonprofit sector, to thinking differently about the interaction of government with its citizens, no sector is immune.
How can you be resilient in the face of external change? A colleague was struggling with the direction of his spiritual needs. It was both an external and an internal change he sensed. Externally, should he stay with the institution of his childhood? That was the easy direction, and staying the course would provide him the security and safety of the known. Internally, it was different. His path wasn’t clear, and after the review and participation in various religious communities, he was able to settle on one different from childhood. He was willing to be open to change and explore options to make that change happen.
In reading about this shift it can sound like a simple transition yet for many people this is one of the most important and difficult decisions they make because spiritual communities may be the longest lasting and most stable in our lives. Many of us have fiends, mentors and teachers that have been involved in our entire lives. The process my friend went through involved a very serious consideration of what he valued, how the church met his current needs and where it did not. Additionally, he considered the impact the loss of that particular community would have on him weighted against the hope that he would build even stronger bonds with the new community that better reflected the person he is becoming.
Directing Mental Perspective is one of four primary categories of resilient leaders listed in the blog post: Building Resilient Leaders – Part 1. Your attitude, beliefs, and assumptions, not just knowledge about the change, are under your control. Rather than be overwhelmed with external changes, actively question or check with yourself about your thinking about the change. Perhaps you have an assumption that change shouldn’t be allowed to happen and strong efforts (your belief) stop the change. This assumption and belief may prevent you from seeing options. With the colleague mentioned above, his willingness to look at alternative spiritual communities (options) freed him to choose the direction he needed to move forward.
Peter Drucker (March-April, 1999) writes about providing options for oneself in a knowledge economy in his Harvard Business Review article, Managing Oneself. He states that “having options will become increasing vital.” Options provide a sense of control and the ability for future action. Think of giving yourself options as the branches of a tree. Each branch provides shade (an option) and the fuller the tree with branches the more options (and the more shade) available. As the tree has strong roots to keep it steady, the branches and the trunk of the tree move with changes in the environment. By staying flexible the tree adapts. As we stay flexible, our ability to be resilient improves and gives us strength.
Is your thinking allowing you options to live your life to its fullest potential? Are you accepting the opportunities in your life that allow you to grow as a leader? As a person?
To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.
Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.
Fulfill Life Purpose While Living Your Values
Having a strong sense of life purposeand aligning your activities with that purpose creates a strong foundation for wellbeing. Emotional intelligence accounts for 85-90% of the difference between outstanding leaders and their more average peers. Emotional intelligence is a major factor in accomplishing life purpose. Key areas of focus:
I have been working with several clients using the Enneagram to develop more insight about their personalities. This tool helped one client identify why she is struggling in her leadership role. She is focused on achieving (an overdone strength). Her need to achieve overshadows her ability to work well with others. When she became more aware of this quality, she began taking more time to work with her team members, remembering to slow down and take a few minutes to talk to them as people that she actually likes. The team has responded very well. Over the past year of using this awareness practice, she has seen her team productivity improve and her relationship with the team members improve. Over this time, the entire team is more engaged and productive.
Keys to purpose and emotional resilience: Have a clear life purpose, develop skills in self-management, and appreciate and work with your emotions regularly.
Harness the Power of Connection
The ability to interact with other people with awareness, empathy, and skillfulness and to experience closeness is vital in building resilience. Keys to connection: invest time in key relationships and build the necessary skills to relate with others such as communication and empathy. Interpersonal skills include the ability to interact with other people with awareness, empathy, and skillfulness. Ideally, using interpersonal skills translates to empathic understanding to engage the strengths and energy of business relationships, at every level within the organization, as well as with customers and suppliers.
Accoding to Gallup “Those without a best friend in the workplace have just a 1 in 12 chance of being engaged. Social relationships at work have also been shown to boost employee retention, safety, work quality and customer engagement.” This research represents a significant shift in views of friendships at work and the importance of developing strong connections, yet the research is clear – investing the time in connection improves our work and our work environment.
I will be speaking at the ASQ Conference as the keynote speaker about Building Leadership Resilience. If you are interested, please click the link.
Photocredit: Power of connection David Boyle
To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.
Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.
In leadership terms, we define Resilience as the ability to adapt in the face of multiple changes while continuing to persevere toward strategic goals. In our very dynamic work environment, we as leaders must build resilience in ourselves as well as in our employees.
As a leader, you actually become different based on the changing environment. Most people, after a period of adjustment, bounce back to their previous level of happiness no matter what happens to them. There are also several studies that support the idea that after a period of adjustment, people return to their prior level of happiness.
Think about someone you have worked with that you respected but they did not navigate challenge well. It may have been tough to watch but not much you could do about it. Here is a story of one of my clients.
I worked with a very talented leader who had some issues with resilience. Under pressure he tended to get angry and controlling because he did not have a system to manage the stress. He became short with his staff and caused them to become disengaged because they felt unsupported. He would obsess about what others had done and get defensive. He was becoming unhappy in her job – more unhappy than was reasonable based on her situation. As we worked together, over time, he developed stronger coping skills and has a much greater capacity to manage the same level of stress. Some of the things he did were: start a reflection process while driving home from work, become aware of and manage his self talk – remembering that his boss really is on his side. All of these activities contributed to improved physical health and also greatly improved her ability to motivate her team and produce higher quality work and enjoy working with their leader again. He also developed a much stronger relationship with the senior leadership team.
We break resilience into four primary categories:
All of these categories are interlinked, none of them can be ignored for long-term resilience. An example, tt is hard to think clearly if you are physically unhealthy and so on. As you think of yourself as a leader, it is important to remember that maintaining personal resilience is as important as building other business or organizational skills. In my coaching practice I often hear that leaders are too busy to take care of themselves. I fully understand the delicate balancing act we all play and yet, building and maintaining resilience are quite important to your success. One of the biggest challenges for leaders is balancing the time requirements for competing commitments. Resilience is yet another one of those. The good news is, as we improve our resilience, we will think more clearly and have a more positive impact with our interactions with others. We will impact measures such as employee engagement, so an investment in resilience will likely drive improvements in your effectiveness as a leader.
Maintain Physical Wellbeing
According to Gallup, “Those with high physical wellbeing simply have more energy to get more done in less time. They are more likely to be in a good mood, thus boosting the engagement of their colleagues and customers.” This category is one we often best understand and yet give limited focus to. Some basic elements include:
One of the key goals in maintaining physical wellbeing is managing the amount and impact of stress. Key to body resilience: Build daily routines that help your body recover from stress
Directing Mental Perspective
Mental perspective of resilience is based on our attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions rather than knowledge. Negative and inflexible thinking prevents the ability to see the big picture and to find creative and alternative routes toward a goal. The key to mental resilience: Question assumptions, attitudes and beliefs, and actively manage your thinking consistently.
Dr. Susan Kobasa’s research findings published in 1988 on AT&T executives indicated three major factors distinguish people who display stress hardiness and resilience:
Read about Fulfill Life Purpose While Living Your Values and Harness the Power of Connection in our next post.
I will be speaking at the ASQ Conference as the keynote speaker about Building Leadership Resilience. If you are interested, please click the link.
If you are interested in learning more about resilience, or building your resilience, take our resilience assessment, attend a resilience class, attend the ASQ conference or contact a coach.
Photo credit: Positive Attitude: Auntie K
To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.
Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday to remind us that a gratitude practice can be very powerful tool for improving health and well being as well as mental clarity. This practice is so beneficial it is part of my daily practice, just like healthy eating. It is an important part of building resilience.
Advanced research at theInstitute of HeartMath and elsewhere has provided evidence that gratitude is not simply a nice sentiment or feeling. Sustained feelings of gratitude have real benefits, including the following:
TheInstitute of HeartMath is helping more people experience the benefits of the sincere feelings Thanksgiving celebrates by providing the following helpful appreciation exercise:
The Heartmath Institute provides tools to measure the physiological impact of gratitude on your body. I have used the emWave Personal Stress Reliever tool for two years now and have found it to be very helpful in monitoring my heart and stress level.
Gratitude is a simple and effective practice and the benefits are real and attainable. It creates a healthier, happier and more fulfilling state of being for anyone who takes a few moments to feel and reflect on it.
Photo credit: libookperson
To become a more innovative leader, you can begin by taking our free leadership assessments and then enrolling in our online leadership development program.
Check out the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, via iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One. Stay up-to-date on new shows airing by following the Innovative Leadership Institute LinkedIn.