when leaders fail to lead

“I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.”
― Lao Tzu

Maybe you’ve seen it before, a callous remark by someone who has a role of leadership that says, “I’m more important than you!”.   Maybe you’ve felt those sentiments and asked yourself, “is this the place I want to work at.”   High performance organizations know how to engage the staff and find ways to inspire   their staff so they can excel, does yours?

What kind of organization do you work at?   What do the leaders say to you?  How to they encourage you to be your best?  How do you they encourage you to learn?

There is a distinct difference between leadership and management.  Managing is about getting specific results and in older models people used command and control to get those results.   Today work is far less about being told what to do, and rather more about inspiring people to commit their best.   Some leaders haven’t figured that out yet and believe that leadership is about controlling others.

Companies that enjoy great success often are led by people who inspire and engage all the staff in the company.    Effective leadership is often driven by engaging the positive emotions of the people that are being led.    Positive emotions can be leveraged to create the opportunity for desired change.

When was the last time you spoke with a leader in your organization where you were encouraged to excel?

What does leadership look like in your organization?

Examine your answers.  Determine what kind of organization you work for and what type of leadership is being exhibited.   Observe your emotions over the course of a day, or a week.  What sensations do you have?   How do you feel when you get home?   Energized, drained, indifferent?

One example of a company that is well led is Trilogy Health Care Services.  Take a look at their mission and vision.

In this video clip learn what Bob Davis has to say about leadership and what it takes to lead authentically.

 

how can you empower your children …

We do live in a crazy world.   We’ve heard far too many stories about the violence in the world, about children being mistreated in some form.     Maybe you’re asking, “What can I do?”.      Jason Nelson has written a new book called “Empower our Children” .    It might be a resource that you can use to look at the world from a different point of view and perhaps challenge your way of thinking as well.    Look at the story and see if there is value for you.   Look at it from the perspective of what you can learn and apply.     What can you do?

 

find self-compassion

“Feeling compassion for ourselves in no way releases us from responsibility for our actions. Rather, it releases us from the self-hatred that prevents us from responding to our life with clarity and balance.”  Tara Brach

You spill the cup of coffee you just brewed and it splashes over your clothing leaving a nice brown stain.    What are you saying to yourself?

What do you say to yourself when you don’t meet your expectations, when you are late, when you say something you shouldn’t, when you forget an important meeting, when you oversleep or when you get a speeding ticket? What are you telling yourself?

Many people find that their message to themselves upon any unmet expectation is filled with insults and derision that would never be heard by someone else.   People become their own worst enemy and call themselves names that only reduce their ability to succeed.   Some people believe telling themselves that they are “not good enough” as a way to motivate themselves to better results and often it only yields more of that same message … “you’re not good enough”.   Before long that becomes their internal truth and all they do by yelling at themselves is provide confirmation that they aren’t living up to the world’s standards or their own.    If they are “not good enough” then that means people around them aren’t good enough either and it sours those relationships as well.

What do you tell yourself when you don’t meet your own expectations?

What if you could tell yourself a different message?    You can.   New research is being done in the area of self-compassion.    It might be worth reading about or learning more about.   Practicing self-compassion just means that things can go wrong and that it is OK.

You can change what you tell yourself when things don’t go exactly as planned.   Instead of beating yourself up, try this just say it to yourself:

“This is a moment of suffering.
Suffering is part of my life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion I need.”  (From Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff)

Just repeat those lines and practice it for a week.   See if you can notice a difference.   Go ahead every time you are ready to condemn yourself say those lines above instead.

To hear more about self-compassion listen to this video:

 

choices

“I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!”
― Oscar Wilde

You have a choice.

It is that you don’t want to do it, it is just that you don’t do what you want.   Our habits inhibit us from making the choices that allow us to grow and to experience  new things.   Our brains are so intent on staying the same and staying safe that making a choice to change for the better takes a supreme effort and most people are unwilling to choose change over being the same.

Our choices will dictate how we feel about a day, overwhelmed, satisfied or overjoyed.   For some people the day defines their mood, others their mood defines their day.  How do you choose your mood?   Why not be satisfied with an average day?   A day without the tiresome worry of doing more, a day that is filled with just enough, an average day.   What would it take to create an average day rather than a day stuffed with too much activity?  It is a choice.  What do you choose to make important?

Time management is about choices.   Some people are stuck with so much to do that they become depressed.   They seem to be putting all their effort into tasks that are neither important or urgent, it just feels that they are.   People that know how to master their time, focus on doing two things, the important and urgent, and the important and non-urgent tasks.  What do you focus on?

Here’s a simple way to decide what to do, use the ABC rule.   All things that are very important are done first as in if you don’t do them bad things happen, those are “A” choices.  Then there are “B” choices,  good things happen when I do these.  And there is the “C”  choice, these are the, nice to do when you have the time.  Where do people put their time in effort into, the “C” choices, often waiting for bad things to happen before they address those “A” choices, and neglect the “B” choices, the choices they really want to make.

Barry Schwartz (TED) thinks we have too many choices.  What do you think?

It’s too much

“The sheer availability of information… has launched a tsunami of seeking… at the same time, the information glut contributes to pervasive cynicism, fragmentation, and a sense of helplessness. ” Michael J. Gelb

It seems that more and more people are suffering from the effects of “too much”.   “Too much” information, too much work, too much busyness, too much stress, too much …

The “too much” symptoms look a lot like ADHD when you start peeling the onion a bit.    People start losing focus,  are unable to manage time effectively, forget simple things, and generally feel overwhelmed with their world.   The Wall Street Journal just published an article that talks about the fact that many people may be approaching some practical limits of the mind.

Executive function impairment which is thought to be the central issue in ADHD is now impacting a greater part of the population.   Recent ADHD statistics show that ADHD is rising in the population.    With the rapid increase of information (games, TV, video, internet, etc.) the ability for the brain to process all that information is resulting in stress and decreased brain function.

Looking at the ADHD statistics you can see that there is an increase in overall ADHD incidence.    The rate of increase of ADHD could be tied to many factors but one thing that is probably the most pressing is the rate of information growth and information saturation in the lives of young people.

While the appearance of ADHD seems to be growing along with the growth of information it could also be tied to a  linear logical system of education where the creative and physical aspects of education are being eliminated.   When executive memory function starts decreasing there is a rise in negative behaviors in teenagers and young adults.   Finding ways to reduce brain overload is going to be critical as we move towards a more information rich society.

In children executive memory function is increased  by taking time to engage in physical and creative arts.    It is precisely the things that are being pulled out of the education system marginalizing more and more children.  If there was a resurgence of arts and physical activity there would be a wholesale improvement in the education system.

Take this a step further and we see adults being inundated by information and not having the time to take a break from the onslaught of data.    Moving away from strict linear logical work would have great benefits.

What do you do?

1. Take creativity breaks

2. Exercise and increase your oxygen uptake.

3. Work on exercises that focus on short term memory work.

As the influx of information increases the symptoms of ADHD will likely increase as the more right brained thinkers slip under the tide of more information.   The rate of information growth isn’t going to stop it is only going to increase and in order for children and adults to thrive in this new age more focus and more energy should be applied to practicing things that increase the executive memory function.

Paul Saffo noted that, “Point of view” is that quintessentially human solution to information overload, an intuitive process of reducing things to an essential relevant and manageable minimum.  In a world of hyper abundant content, point of view will become the scarcest of resources.”

What do you think?  Are we teetering on the edge of information overload?  Are we damaging the next generation of leaders by removing the arts and physical activity from our education process?   What would you do?

 

it’s your questions

“In fact, the most effective approach is simply to ask questions. We can ignore directives, but questions force us to attend to them. In the corporate world, most of us are so used to being told what to do that when someone asks us what we think we should do, it stops our automatic processing in its tracks.

Rather than telling people, we should ask them, whether it’s deciding how to implement a strategy, setting objectives, or evaluating performance. The effect of a question may not be as stunning as glasses made out of burning cigarettes, but it will activate the brain and get it working the way we need it to.”    Psychology Today

Those two paragraphs that were printed in Psychology Today represent the new model of leadership.   In the past leadership was in many cases more of a request than a question.

Everyone today should be thinking about themselves as a leader and a person who asks questions.   Questions allow the receiver of the question to create (notice “create”) an answer in response.    The old way was “request” and “react” and the new way is “question” and “respond”.   Think about it, what makes you feel more empowered?   Is it a request or is it a question that you get to answer.

Think about questions in the workplace.  When do you feel empowered?   Do you feel empowered when you are “told” to do something or do you feel empowered when you are asked, “How could you solve this problem?”.  For most people it is the second approach, it is their idea, it is their solution and that is empowering.

Look at any organization that is not functioning at their full potential.  What do you hear?   Do you hear questions or requests?    More than likely you are hearing requests more than you are hearing questions.

New managers want to manage.   They are being asked “lead”  your team to success and immediately they are requesting rather than asking empowering questions.

Now, take this to your world, your sphere of influence, what does that look like to you.   Is it a world of questions or requests.   If it is requests see what you can do to change it to questions and see what happens.

“Questions focus our thinking. Ask empowering questions like: What’s good about this? What’s not perfect about it yet? What am I going to do next time? How can I do this and have fun doing it?”   Charles Connolly

stuck in a career with no place to go …

Are you stuck where you are?

“Organizations often spend too much time watching the scoreboard and not enough time watching the ball. Blanchard^® research shows that 50% of organizations focus on dashboards and metrics when they should be focusing on creating and improving employee passion. A focus on numbers and productivity without a comparable focus on—and understanding of—what motivates each individual can undermine an organization’s efforts to boost employee productivity and employee work passion.

There are both distinct and subtle clues to understanding organizational productivity. Metrics such as sick days, decreased revenue, and defect rates are easily measured, but the subtleties of productivity can be harder to read. In organizations where employee work passion is high, people willingly exert discretionary effort. They talk positively about the organization to friends and family. They support their colleagues without it being a required part of their job. They are loyal. And they intend to stay with the organization, perform well, and inspire others.”    (from the Ken Blanchard Organization)

It is no wonder that so many people feel like the work they do doesn’t matter.  The effort and focus is on measuring things and leaving out the most important thing, people.   Of course there are organizational results that truly matter to the success of the business and those things shouldn’t be left to chance, but how often are those measures obscuring what really needs to be understood, how engaged are the employees in the work that they are doing?   Measuring productivity and orders and profits are  important, and so is the heartfelt engagement of each person.   Companies that want to improve bottom line results just need to care for their employees.   Now, some would say, “we do care”, we have benefits, they get a paycheck, they get a vacation, employees get all these things from us and what do they do, they don’t do their best.

There are many companies where manager’s are managing as if were 1920 and Frederick Taylor was designing the work day.   Extrinsic motivation which was the popular mode of squeezing more out of an employee is an outmoded form of management.  Not that it isn’t needed at all, it is just that it is needed far less than what it was.   The new leadership model includes intrinsic motivation and the prime method of encouraging employees.  Companies could benefit greatly, improve their bottom line, improve their competitiveness, and improve results by improving employee engagement.

What kind of company do you work for?  Is it encouraging you, empowering you, allowing you the autonomy you need to produce your best results?    When 84% of people surveyed believe they need to be doing something different then most people are not feeling empowered to make the difference they could make.

If your company is filled with people who are working at less than their potential then “coaching” is one tool that can improve the bottom line.  See if your company’s management would be open to improving their bottom line.

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”  Pema Chödrön

6 stages of change

“Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.” Jonathan Edwards

For many people the thought of change is something that pulls them back into the closet of darkness.  Not so much the thought of making a change but making change happen.   Change invokes fear, a kind of fear that increases stress to the point of creating anger, grief, sadness or even withdrawal.   Think about it, when was the last time you were asked to change how did it feel?

So, where does change start?  For some people change starts with someone else making a change.   That’s right someone else needs to change more than you need to change.   It sounds like “If that other person would change I would feel a lot better”, or “If they asked me first about the change I would tell them what should have been done”.     People in this early change phase are really acting like victims, unable to control themselves they desire to control others and blame others when things go wrong.   You might know some people who are constantly blaming others and circumstances for their feelings.     This phase of change is called precontemplation, a place of denial.   Why me?   “Look over there, look at that.”   Someone in precontemplation wants anything but to talk about change, especially personal change.

“I don’t know how”, or “Something is stopping me”, these people are in the stage known as contemplation and while they can acknowledge that they should change they are only thinking about change.    There is a restless energy about making a change, a feeling of unease and dissatisfaction, but not enough energy to actually start the change process.    It is almost like having packed for a trip with a planned destination but no ticket to get there.    Here they are standing at the curb, bags packed, ready and waiting to go.    Someday they will actually make the trip, it is anybody’s guess when that will happen.   Have you experienced this phase in your life?   Maybe you are there right now.

When people are ready to make a change they are putting more focus on the solution to their problem than the problem itself.   There is a marked energy increase but not enough to actually implement change.   These people are fence sitters, they are ready to jump but not quite.   This is a place where the thought of “what will happen to me” frequently enter the thought stream.   “What if it doesn’t work then what?”     People in the preparation phase may make small steps but not enough to make a real change.

Eventually the desire is greater than the pain of staying in place.   The action phase is where people make a commitment to changing their behavior.    So, in a burst of activity the individual starts taking steps and making progress towards change.    Great progress is being made and then, and then it stops.   The change has been going well but suddenly the lack of outside encouragement to push through the change is missing or disappears.   The action phase can cause burnout if there isn’t someone who can act as a cheerleader in the change process.    For those who maintain the energy to move forward change will happen.

For those who make the behavioral change and have passed that initial burst of energy required to make the change the next phase is the maintenance phase.  As important as the change is maintaining the new habit is important or it is possible that the change will reverse and the old habit will come back. You’ve probably seen this happen many times yourself.   People will go on a diet and lose a lot of weight and then before long that weight comes back.  Without a strong maintenance phase reversal is possible.

With effort and positive reinforcement people transition into the final phase or termination.  When people reach this phase the behavioral change is permanent and is the habit.

Organizations that are trying to create change need to be aware that people transition through the  phases at different rates.   It is easy for leaders who have contemplated and pushed for change to grow weary of the change effort and forget about reinforcing the change and helping people move through action to maintenance.    Organizations that fail to provide strong reinforcement programs that are positive and reassuring will end up falling back into the previous behaviors.

Too often organizations fail to realize how large some changes are and the impact change can have on its employees.   Businesses may assume that everyone is going to grab hold of the change initiative and move right into action.    Leaders or managers will be asked to ensure that the change happens quickly and if it doesn’t blame the individual contributors for not taking the change seriously.

People who are dealing with significant changes in their lives may have external events put before them that push them into the precontemplation stage.     Changes in career, life circumstances, major moves, death, illness or other high stress events push many people into the precontemplation phase.  Moving out of precontemplation requires shifting the energy towards the positive, lots of encouragement and plenty of success stories need to be used as an intrinsic motivator.

Each phase of change requires different incentives and rewards so that falling back into previous patterns can be avoided.  Again, organizations need to properly manage change as people will not all be in the same phase.  Mixing the incentives and messages to align with each stage a person is going through should be considered.

Where are you stuck?   What changes are you avoiding?   What is it costing you not to change?   What are the benefits of not changing?

The change process

1. Precontemplation

2. Contemplation

3. Preparation

4. Action

5. Maintenance

6. Termination

If change seems daunting to you, find someone who can work with you through the change.   Friends aren’t always the best people to support your change effort because of their emotional connection to you.   Try finding someone who isn’t going to judge you during the change and someone who can support you through the change.

What are you thinking about changing?   Write them down and identify each stage of change you are in.

 

For more information, read “Changing for Good”  Prochask, Norcross & Diclemente (1994)

Love is the biggest eraser there is. Love erases even the deepest imprinting because love goes deeper than anything. If your childhood imprinting was very strong, and you keep saying: “It’s their fault. I can’t change,” you stay stuck. Louise Hay

Coaching as a tool for those with ADHD/ADD

“I prefer to distinguish ADD as attention abundance disorder. Everything is just so interesting . . . remarkably at the same time.” — Frank Coppola, MA, ODC, ACGA

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) affects approximately 5% of the population in America.  The impact of ADHD/ADD is significant in terms of lost opportunity and decreased productivity for those impacted.   While there is no cure for ADHD/ADD there are many ways to cope with the disorder.

While coaching is an effective method to work with those to who are diagnosed with ADHD/ADD coaches are not qualified to make the diagnosis of ADHD/ADD and those who feel that they have many of the ADHD/ADD symptoms should get a reliable diagnosis to ensure that the symptoms are not caused by something else.

ADHD Categories

There are three categories of ADHD (ADHD includes ADD). 

1. Combined ADHD, which is a combination of all ADHD symptoms.

2. Inattentive ADHD (this is what most people call ADD) and shows up as having difficulty concentrating and loss of focus.

3. Hyperactive-Impulsive behavior and is recognized by high activity, high energy behavior.   These people are able to focus they just can’t sit still.

What does ADHD look like?

The symptoms that are most obvious are:

1. Difficulty paying attention, a loss of focus in a conversation, compulsive daydreaming, easily distracted, constantly shifting attention from one thing to another and not completing tasks on time, disorganization, carelessness (partially completed work, or high incidence of mistakes), inability to focus in on the conversation (switching subjects in the middle), lower social intelligence (inappropriate comments and remarks, lack of contextual sensitivity).

2. Can’t sit still, must keep moving and talking, a general restlessness.  

3. Impatient (want it now), speaking before thinking, intruding on others (with different conversations), need to be first in line

While these symptoms show up in everyone from time to time most of the time “normal” individuals are able to manage their behaviors.  The person with ADHD is going to have a history of being easily distracted, on the go and being impulsive.   In school ADHD may result in social isolation, lower grades and greater discipline problems.   The ADHD person will likely not even be aware that they are different and see themselves as normal and wonder why others are behaving as they do. 

WebMD has a quick ADHD assessment that can be taken to get a first look to see if ADHD might be what you are dealing with (you or someone you know) .

Once a reliable assessment has been made for ADHD/ADD options for treatment or coping with ADHD/ADD can be made.   While there is no cure for ADHD there are many ways to minimize the impact that ADHD can have.   One of the options for those with ADHD is to work with a coach so that the individual can start creating new positive habits.  

Coaching ADHD clients

There are numerous benefits of using a coach for people with ADHD.   A coach can work with the client to improve confidence and a positive self-image which will help in all aspects of life from career decisions to improved relationships.  Some of the topics could include:

1. Daily planning  (getting the day organized)

2. Creating small moments for focused activity (reducing hyperfocus as well).

3. Using color to create focus (as the mind is distracted, intentional distraction helps provide focus).

4. Carelessness reduction   (improve the quality of the work)

5. Accountability (non-judgmental methods to boost confidence while increasing commitment)

6. Generating positive self-esteem

7. Organization of space, clutter reduction in small steps lessening the chance of overwhelming the ADHD person.

Coping with ADHD

Getting the right amount of sleep, adequate exercise and having a good balanced diet are good first steps in managing ADHD.   Other interventions include coaching which is a great tool to help create the necessary coping mechanisms to thrive in a world that is continually getting more chaotic.    It may be that in the future that those with ADHD will be in demand as they are often highly creative and always thinking and those qualities will be what businesses and schools desire, but until then coping with ADHD and creating positive habits will help those with ADHD be successful.

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.” — Steven Wright, comedian

at the crack of dawn

“Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self-starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.”    Og Mandino

Sometimes the early morning comes to early for some.   Early on May 11th a program aired that gave the viewers some insight into the power of coaching and how coaching can transform the way people interact with the world.  

Coaching is transforming businesses so they are more efficient and effective.    With coaching employees are more engaged and more productive.

Individuals that receive coaching start to make great progress towards the achievement of their goals.   Coaching provides the accountability people need especially in the world we live in today where change is happening at breakneck speed and getting faster.     Coaching clients can learn how to manage stress, reduce anger and understand what triggers their emotions and coaching can help people live a more positive and inspired life.

People with ADD/ADHD can learn coping skills that will allow them to perform at much higher levels.   Overall coaching is a process that can make a great impact in all areas of life.

Find out what coaching can do for you.