Tag Archive for: leadership

Constancy: Success Lies In Your Habits

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Walt Disney had four keys to success. One of them was constancy. I interpret constancy as “staying on the path whether or not you are in the mood.” However, first you have to have a path, a direction a vision. And then you have to stay with it even when you are bored, fearful, or inconvenienced. That is what will give you success and self-respect in your life. I first learned this as a nationally ranked distance runner. I had to get out and train, day after day after day, whether I felt like it or not. Of course, some days I was tired and ran more slowly or shut it down early. But developed the habit early in my life to show up and put the running shoes on.

Since my early days of running, I’ve learned to apply this principle of constancy to every aspect of my life. Whether it’s the day-to-day grind of parenting, business development, serving the customer, or staying with a spiritual practice, constancy is what brings success – and self-worth. If you can’t rely on yourself, how can you be a reliable person? And if you aren’t reliable, how can you achieve anything?

It’s good to get inspired every so often, but it’s the day-to-day work you do when you aren’t inspired that produces the results. Sometimes your heart isn’t in it. Sometimes you’re tired. Sometimes you’re afraid. Sometimes it’s just plain hard work. But you put the running shoes on and show up, not because it’s the easy thing to do, but because it the right thing to do. That’s the Law of Constancy.

Inspire, Illuminate and Encourage Authenticity in Leaders

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If anyone out there is attempting to grow thier business to a new level (and who among us is not), It can often be helpful to revisit your mission statement. The passion and promise of our business is to build cultures of trust that attract, retain, inspire, and unleash greatness. Its about making this world a better place to work. Through the strength of  authentic presence, leaders can learn to connect with their authentic selves, thus amplifying their impact on the world. The path to transform cultures is ultimately to inspire, illuminate, and encourage authenticity in leaders.

Inspire is about nourishing and creating learning environments and conversations that awaken the human spirit, connect with and tap into the power of the universal life force, touch the soul, open the heart, and move people to action through significant emotional experiences. This can be achieved through the expression of our own unique gifts – the strength of identity and integrity as human beings.

Illuminate is about shining a light on the gifts and the voices – those seeds of possibility – that lie deeply hidden within every one of us as we are besieged by a world that tells us how we “should” be. Illuminating is also about making a conscious contact with a deeper life force that carries, guides, and supports us to live authentically.

Encourage – Has its root in the Latin word cor, which means “heart.” So does the word courage. To have courage means to have heart. To encourage means to give courage, to give others heart, to give of my heart so that others may more fully develop and experience their own courage and heart.

Authenticity is the dedication to living congruently between our inner and outer lives. This ongoing inquiry and commitment leads to amplifying the impact we have on the world through deeper presence.

Leaders are culture makers at all levels of organizations and in all walks of life: people who are committed to find and express their voice in the service of others.

Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves. Leaders see the oak tree in the acorn, and create the environment that brings the oak to fruition. Leadership is about presence, not position. Leadership is like the sounding cavity of a violin: It takes in the sound, resonates with it, and gives back depth and fullness to another  voice. My work is built on a simple premise: great leadership cannot be reduced to technique.

Great leadership comes from the identity and the integrity of the leader. This involves making deep changes within so as to be capable of transforming others from the depth of our own experience. We lead from the inner strength of who we are. Greatness is the commitment and capacity to fulfill your natural, authentic potential. For further reading, please check out our “Authenticity and Art” blog.

Tragedy As A Gift In Disguise

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Over the years, I have learned that every life circumstance, even a tragedy, provides an opportunity to grow. A friend recently told me of how she had lost her farm and her home that she loved so much in a horrible fire. Everything she owned and collected for more than sixty years was destroyed.

“At moments like this,” she said, “you stand at a fork in the road. If you take the familiar path, you collapse, give up, and feel hopeless, resentful, and defeated. You focus on the negative and lose yourself in the ‘problem,’ pointing to your misery to rationalize your pessimism. It takes little effort to be a victim and to stay a victim. It’s the easy way out.”

“You can, however, take the other path, You can view your tragedy as an opportunity for a new beginning. If you decide to keep your perspective, you can look for growth opportunities, and find inner reserve of strength. By deciding to focus on the possibilities rather than the pain, I was able to come through the loss of every material thing I owned with more strength and contentment than I had before the fire. When I sat and reflected on the whole experience, I soon realized that the things I had collected over my lifetime were just that – things, and things that I no longer needed, things that were actually becoming an anchor to keep me on the shore of new growth. After considerable suffering from the loss, I began to realize that the important things in life are not things at all. No longer attached to my house, I moved closer to my grandchildren. This was a move I had been procrastinating for sometime.”

“As I adjusted to my new environment, I was invigorated. It felt as if I were starting the second half of my adulthood. Had I taken the path of misery, I would have remained resentful and depressed, and would have missed the opportunity to set sail to new possibilities.”

What gifts have been given to you that are disguised as tragedies? What is calling you to deepen your authentic presence? What are you waiting for?

Acceptance Of Our Darker Self: A Key To Leadership

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I was coaching an executive recently who was sent to work with me by her CEO. The presenting problem was an extremely low score on a recent 360 survey. The results of her feedback were that she was a competent professional but had very poor interpersonal skills. When I tried to get the executive’s perspective of herself, all I got was a positive presentation. She was, indeed, very difficult to reach to and to connect with, just as her scores indicated. Soon after this initial interview started I pointed out the discrepancy between her “polished presentation” of herself and the reality of how others were perceiving her. Her response was that she was always taught to be optimistic and positive, and with a smile on her face, she explained that she just couldn’t understand why the feedback scores were so low.

Her perceived “inauthenticity” was distancing her from those she was most interdependent upon. It’s hard to trust people that won’t be honest with themselves. In reality, she wasn’t phony; it’s just that she was only expressing a small spectrum of herself.

A lack of acceptance of the darker side of herself (e.g. insecurity, fears, resentments, worries, inadequacies) was preventing her from being perceived as “real,” and resulting in people distancing themselves from her. She was also incapable of assessing the full spectrum of what was happening in her culture because she couldn’t see it in herself.

Authenticity is compelling. It also enables you to lead with greater wisdom and resourcefulness. This is our work together: to face and accept some of the darker parts of our nature, the parts we avoid. Connecting with and accepting a fuller spectrum of oneself – especially the darker self – enables us to better connect with others.

Nurturing The Artist Within

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Picasso said that we are all artists when we are 8 years old; we have to be taught not to be artists.  Just as we suppress the artist within us, we are indoctrinated to not trust the authentic self within us – the essence of who we are. By trying to meet the expectations of a world that tells us how we “should” be, we lose touch with the authentic desires that live within us. Where can we start to claim back this lost inheritance?

My friend and renowned artist, Murray Phillips, thinks that we start with an understanding of the concept of spirituality.  The term “spirituality” is bandied about today and is one of the catch-words of the 21st century.  “Spirituality,” writes Murray, “is part of our nature – part of the essence of being human.  Spirituality is not an optional add-on.  It is not that some people are spiritual and others aren’t; anymore than some people are physical and others aren’t.  Some people may be in better physical health than others but they are not more physical.  Some people are aware of their spirituality and others may be less aware, but they are no less spiritual.  This is an important place to begin.  If we are spiritual beings we function best when we are cognizant of that.  One of the ways of increasing that awareness is to nurture the artist in you. Make time to deliberately and consistently feed the creative aspects of your being.”

While meditation, prayer, and quietness can foster authentic connection, so too can creativity. Create a sanctuary where you can get away from the expectations of the world to create and reflect.  Creativity is the language of our spiritual nature. Find an area of interest (painting, writing, poetry, woodworking, dancing, music) and become involved.  Make it a priority, remembering that urgent things always will crowd out important things.  Use it as an opportunity to feed your soul.

“If of thy earthly goods thou art bereft
And to thy meager store two loaves alone to thee are left
Sell one and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.”

Entitlement: Greatness Run Aground

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I have noticed that every time a great culture is built, there appears to be an opposite and equal reaction to greatness: entitlement. It seems to be human nature. If you give your kids a lot, they want more. I grew up with telephone party lines, with one line for up to five or six residences. There were times when you had to wait 1/2 hour to make a phone call. Now I get impatient with my cell phone provider when I get a dropped call and have to redial with the push of one button.

It used to take a winter to travel across this country on chuck wagons and horses. Now, as expectations have been raised, I find myself getting upset if a plane is thirty minutes late. Living in a great country, with world-class health care, education, law enforcement, and political systems seems only to increase our craving for more. Meet our needs with a high standard, and we raise the bar with a demand for more. I’ve seen the same dynamic in organizational cultures. The more the organization gives us what we want, the more entitled we feel. The best cultures I have worked with all experience the challenge of entitlement.

The reverse of this also seems true. My mother lived through the depression in a 900 square foot shack with ten siblings, enduring years of unimaginable poverty, and was void of entitlement. When she was close to death I asked her how she felt about dying. “After seventy-eight years, I accept death. I was fortunate just to have lived!” Joyce did not even feel entitled to life itself. Hard times are an ally in battling entitlement.

All the recent attention to building great cultures, empowering employees, and developing leadership capacity so people feel engaged seems to have unintentionally reinforced our love of entitlement. Living in great cultures has somehow fostered a belief that we have a right to get whatever we want without any obligations in return. Doing our own thing and expecting rights without service is self-serving. In the name of a great culture, we see people ask for such things as more pay, more freedom, greater recognition and privilege, more flex time or a risk-free environment without any reciprocating accountabilities.

This is simply wrong. Just because we are attempting to build cultures of trust that encourage you to find your authentic voice doesn’t mean you will get everything you ask for or have absolute security. Cultures of trust require a partnership, a commitment to a dialogue, not acts of concession. Accountable, authentic cultures of trust are based on reciprocal agreements. There are no licenses granted.

At the heart of entitlement is the belief that “my wants are more important than the culture and the culture exists for my sake.” At some point each of us needs to grow up and discover that our self-interest is better served by doing good work than by getting good things. Entitlement also rests on the belief that something is owed us because of sacrifices we have made. In reality, entitlement claims rights that have not been earned. It diminishes self-respect and constrains our freedom. The only way to reclaim what we have lost to entitlement is through acts of commitment and service to an entity larger than ourselves – the culture we work and live in.

When you see entitlement in the culture you live or work in, there are four steps to counter it:

  1. See entitlement as a sign of growth and greatness. You won’t find much entitlement in poverty and highly bureaucratic systems that have been suppressed for years.
  2. Identify the value or values you want to replace entitlement (e.g. self responsibility, service to others, gratitude).
  3. Find the allies in your culture who live by the values you are committed to and support them to foster these values with others who trust them. Like parenting, you only influence the values of people with whom you have a strong, trusting relationship.
  4. Get the values you want to instill off the wall and into people’s hearts through conversations and clearly defined actions. Then make a promise to live and work in accord with these actions, while being open for ongoing feedback and learning. Then shine a light an actions that are self-responsible, committed to service, and exude gratitude. Tell the story. Keep the renewed values fresh, making it difficult to be entitled.

Thanks to Peter Block (Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest, Berrett-Koehler Publishers) for his inspiration behind many of these insights.