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“Creating Successful Leaders”

August 29, 2012 “10 Tips for Feeling Less Trapped at Work” by Amy Lindgren

I read an article titled “10 Tips for Feeling Less Trapped at Work” in the Pioneer Press that aligns perfectly with many of the things I speak about and share with clients. The article’s author, Amy Lindgren, made the great observation that, due to the sluggish—if not non-existent at times—job market, “people feel trapped by the position or company they are currently employed by.”

I agree with the Lindgren’s claim that people feel trapped due to their limited employment options. But I’d like to take Lindgren’s idea one step further: Not is the job market slow, but employers are also struggling to figure out how to keep people engaged and excited about their positions at a time they can’t expand, offer the opportunities they previously offered, or challenge people in the ways they had hoped. In the work I do with companies and their employees, we seek to keep people energized and working on self-improvement so that they’re ready for the opportunities when they arise.

Lindgren supports her claim by urging readers to “make the best of the situation while you are waiting for the tide to turn.”

Her 10 Tips Include:

1. Go Deeper or Get More Shallow: If you are just barely there mentally, getting more deeply involved might engage more of your skills and increase your sense of satisfaction.

2. Seek Balance and Variety: While jobs that are the same every day can be comforting, they can also be numbing. Can you switch some duties with a co-worker to provide more balance in your day?

3. Take Your Breaks: Always take your lunch breaks, a short walk in the morning or afternoon, or any other opportunity to clear your mind, change our perspective, get re-energized, and increase your heart rate. Stepping away from your desk gets blood flowing to your brain and keeps your energy up. Americans are known for sitting long hours, skipping breaks and eating lunch at their desks.

4. Shake Up Your Routine: Instead of eating a sandwich at your desk, eat it while taking a walk outdoors. Maybe you can start a lunch club with co-workers or a Friday potluck.

5. Build Work Relationships: We’re all in this together, after all. Why not do something as a group once a month?

6. Go Home on Time at Least 3 Days a Week: If you can’t get all your work done, there’s either too much work on your plate or you’re using time inefficiently. Whether it’s too much work, or not working the right way, solve the problem.

7. Do Something Outside of Work: Look for something to do that is just for you, such as a good work out—perhaps yoga?

8. Solve a Different Problem: If your work issues seem intractable, turn your attention to other problems that need resolution in your life. How long are you willing to put those things on hold while you wait for work to improve?

9. Start Your Career Exploration Process: If you’ve been itching to move on, this can be within your company or outside of it. It’s never too early to start the networking, planning, and exposure necessary to make a new calling a reality. If you wait, you may be slowing down your progress when the time is right.

10. Prepare Your Resume: Having your resume ready will increase your sense of empowerment and help make all of your accomplishments more obvious to you. This is surely a way to feel less trapped.

Read all of the details of Amy’s comments at:  PioneerPress.com

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August 21, 2012 What the Beach Teaches You About Leadership

By Margaret Smith, UXL: Creating Successful Leaders
SPEAKER | CAREER COACH | CERTIFIED INSIGHTS DISCOVERY PRACTITIONER

For me the ocean is a magical place where I can relax and get lost in the consistency and the power of the waves. It’s also a place where I witness amazing imagination in other people and a calm that doesn’t exist in their everyday world.

I recently spent two weeks on the beach in Delaware where my family has a house. It’s become a tradition for family and friends to gather there for the last two weeks of July. I’m never quite sure whose car will pull in the driveway or where they will sleep, but that’s the fun of being ‘at the beach’. It always works out and there always seems to be plenty of food and floor space!

It may come as a surprise, but the beach turned out to be offer a lot more than sun, water, and sand. I actually observed a lot of amazing leadership truths while I relaxed and watched.

What the Beach Teaches You About Leadership:

1. Be Open: As they say, “if you build it, they will come.” Start building a tradition today—the memories are priceless. You may also find you have more friends than you realized and the laughter outpaces the ice making. My family came from Colorado, Georgia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania (we came from Minnesota, but that doesn’t count!). High school and college friends showed up, even just for a day. It was a treat to look west and see someone who we hadn’t seen in a year crossing the dunes laden with an umbrella, chairs, and sunscreen!

2. Get Outdoors: The ocean is entertainment for all ages.  A pile of sand and the mystery of the next wave brings out the child in everyone. Young children, parents who probably are difficult to pull away from their blackberry, and grandparents all mix it up on the beach. It was the real great American get together.

3. Take Risks: One morning I was taking a walk at the water’s edge and observed a mother with her three children. I would guess her kids were around 5 to 8 years old, and they were all preparing to take on the waves. Their mother was giving them instructions on how to jump and dive to avoid getting blasted and thrown up on the shore like the sea shells they had been picking up. As she dove into water that was roaring and foaming and changing depths she yelled, “Come on go for it!” The look on their faces read, “Are you kidding?! I can’t see the bottom, I don’t know what is out there… It goes on forever! Is she nuts?” Despite their fears, they soon go the hang of it.

Later, I saw the children’s mother yelling at them ‘ot to walk back to their beach house alone. The oddness of her concern about walking to the house vs. jumping into this massive, ferocious looking body of water that they knew nothing about struck me. The ocean has the power to make taking risks a good thing.

4. Challenge Yourself: I love watching the Olympics, and I could see the same energy and challenge of the Olympics demonstrated all along the beach. Volleyball became popular, with nets going up every 100 yards, girls doing cartwheels, races being held, new games being created, and all in the spirit of healthy competition and the creativity. We sure are capable of new ideas when we’re not glued to a screen. In here lies a strong message for all of us: Move a little and accept a new challenge.

5. Pitch In: You carry so much stuff to the beach for the day and everyone needs to pitch in. And, just as soon as we get it out there, we have to help carry it back to the house (and it never fits as well when it’s full of sand!). Even the smallest in the family helped and felt like an important part of the team. Many times we observed people reaching out  to help someone laden with beach supplies and sandy kids make it over the dunes. We’re all in ‘this’ together—it’s a lot more fun with some help.

Thanks for listening. I can’t wait until next year!

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August 9, 2012 The Most Important Leadership Quality

A recent article published in the Harvard Business Review claims that one quality rises above the rest when it comes to great leadership: self-awareness. In the article, titled “How Leaders Become Self-Aware”, author Anthony Tjan poses a question to help us understand what is meant by self-awareness: “What motivates you and your decision making?”

Are you prepared to respond? Unless you have already made practice in self awareness part of your everyday and you’ve taken the assessments and consulted with others, you may struggle to answer Tjan’s question.

Tjan outlines three steps that all of us can take to become better leader in our life. Because I do a lot of work with self-awareness as an Insights Practitioner, I’m always combing through new resources for my coaching when it comes to self-awareness. I thought Tjan’s pointers were spot on and provided some great ideas for improving effectiveness and interactions.

Test and Know Yourself Better

This translates simply to take a personality test. I know it sounds simple (and the process can be as simple as answering questions about yourself for half an hour online, in the case of Insights Discovery), but this quick gesture, when given reflection, can transform the way you work and your relationships with others. Tjan advocates self-assessments because “they facilitate self-reflection, which leads to better self-awareness.”

Watch Yourself and Learn

This step plays out on a more long term scale, but can have big takeaways when done correctly. The process of this step is simple: when making a big decision, always record your reasons for that decision and then revisit these reasons 9-12 months later. What panned out and what didn’t? Tjan labels this practice as feedback analysis and explains that its effectiveness is found in two steps: “a) codify rationale and motivators and b) reflect and assess outcomes.”

Be Aware of Others, Too

Self-awareness is no good if you live alone on an island—the real power of this knowledge reveals itself when you interact with others on a team. “Knowing your natural strengths and weaknesses makes you a better recruiter and allocator of talent,” says Tjan. But this knowledge is most effective when you’re aware of the strengths of those around you, because this results in a group of people who both “understand and complement each other.” A strong team is founded on the diverse approaches and skills of its members, and because these members approach tasks differently, this promotes learning and feedback within the group—it leads to innovation.

Have questions about self-awareness? Feel free to contact me for answers.

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