Tag Archive for: TheLeadersNavigator

Journalling – How To Get Going And Keep Going

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Journalling – How To Get Going And Keep Going

Connection to others is critical in good leadership and starts with connection to yourself. Journalling is a great tool for self-connection.

Here are some guidelines to get you going and keep you going:

  1. Buy a nice journal. I love a good leather-covered one I can feel proud to write in.
  2. Have a regular time to write – in the morning, at the end of the day, or, for example, every Sunday morning as you reflect on the past seven days and the week ahead. I like to spend five minutes journalling when I first come in the office, before I turn on my computer. It helps me connect to myself before the barrage of the world’s demands start hitting me.
  3. Experiment with structure. Sometimes journalling is a brain dump, a process I learned from Julia Cameron. Her journalling method is three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing. Other times I use a structure of a) How am I feeling? (Including wins in the past 24 hours, lessons learned, and glitches); b) How will I show up today? c) What am I grateful for?
  4. Write less than you think you “should.” Like exercise, it’s better to have small consistent successes than big failures. Two or three sentences is great while you’re getting into the habit.
  5. Don’t show it to anyone. You aren’t writing to impress anyone. It won’t be graded. It is only for you.
  6. Don’t sweat it if journalling doesn’t work for you. It isn’t for everyone. There are lots of other tools for connecting with yourself.

There’s a principle in boxing that timing beats speed and speed beats power.

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There’s a principle in boxing that timing beats speed and speed beats power. Whenever I’m up against my sparing partner and I feel less power, and I “try harder” to be more powerful it never ends well. It weakens my power, decreases my speed, and throws my timing way off.

I’ll never outpower someone who is stronger than me. All I can do is back it up and work on my timing and speed (which, to say the least, is tough at my age).

This is how boxing is similar to leadership. Leaders who don’t acknowledge their weakness or insecurity or fear will “try” to be more powerful by using their positional authority. Like in the boxing ring, this won’t end well. As Margaret Thatcher said once, “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you, you aren’t.”

Leadership, like boxing, is much more about timing than power. When you get promoted, after all, you don’t get more power. You get more accountability.

Like in boxing, work on your timing, your connections, your balance, the fundamentals – and power will naturally follow – through your presence, not your position. “Trying” to be powerful will only weaken you.

My questions for the day:

  • What does “timing” mean in your world?
  • What would you describe as your fundamentals – that increase your ability to influence?
  • How is leadership for you about presence rather than position?

Pruning: Growth Depends on Letting Go Of The Unwanted Or Unessential

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We have a thirty-foot rubber tree growing in the middle of our living room. About every six months we have to get up on the ladder and cut back the branches that push into the ceiling and the window.

Leading is akin to gardening, where we co-create an environment around us that enables the flourishing of life. Any gardener knows that pruning is a part of tending to a garden. A plant that is overgrown, gangly, or unhealthy needs to be thinned, cut back, or dug up. In its exuberance to grow, it seems to be the nature of growing things to get overgrown at times. In our case, we prune in order to manage the size of this tree. When it’s overgrown, it will crowd out the very light of the window it’s reaching for.

Like pruning a garden, our lives periodically need some cutting back.

What, in your life or your leadership, needs pruning?

  • What relationships that you have outgrown need to end?
  • What habits need to be re-evaluated and discarded?
  • What clutter in your life needs to be let go of?
  • What needs to end in order to allow for new growth?
  • What people on your team are holding you back and need support to move on?
  • What difficult conversations are needed now?

The Law Of The Echo

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Years ago, when I was first teaching about accountability, a young, enthused leader approached me.
“Your philosophy of bringing an ownership, self-responsible mindset to work reminds me of the Law of the Echo.”
“What’s the Law of the Echo?” I asked her.

“It means that whatever you bring to the world will come back to you – ten-fold. It’s like what Gandhi meant when he said, ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ If you want more accountability in your organization, don’t wait for others to step up to the plate. Instead, be more accountable. If you want more love in a relationship, be more loving. If you want more appreciation at work, get so busy appreciating others that you won’t have time to feel sorry for yourself for not getting enough acknowledgement.”

This conversation and explanation of the Law of the Echo has stayed with me for years. It’s worked for me on my team, in my volunteer work, and in my family. It’s a great formula for having a better marriage. It’s a great reminder when I find myself frustrated, blaming, or waiting for someone else to change.

My father likely would have said it this way: “It isn’t greener on the other side of the fence. It’s greener where you water it. “Grow where you are planted,”

Spread The Light

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I love this time of year. When it’s the darkest, we see a festival of lights throughout our communities.
I love our family ritual of unpacking Christmas stuff and spreading light throughout the house. And even though I usually spend the time on the couch, I love being a part of the annual decorating of the tree. When I am brightened and calmed by the light on our tree, it reminds me of the difference between leaders and learners.
Leaders bring a bright light to their work and spread it wherever they go. On the other hand, learners often, through their suffering, dim their light and the light of those around them.
Take some time to pause and ask yourself: What are you doing to keep your light bright? What are you doing to spread that light to the people in your life? Wherever you go today, and whoever you encounter, bring the gift of your light to the people around you.
The gift may be a compliment, a message of appreciation or encouragement, or simply taking the time to be there with empathy and compassion. Today, make it a point to give a gift of light to everyone you come into contact with.
By doing so, you begin the process of celebrating joy, compassion, and affluence in your life and the lives of those around you.