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Archive for March, 2011
Don’t Be Mean – Part Two . . the 5 step solution for leaders
I am a big fan of Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaborative Services. She is a great coach and passionate about developing leaders that make a difference. She is also thoughtful and nice. The kind of person you trust as soon as you meet.
I had the privilege of doing a two guest posts on her blog around leadership development and coaching.
Here is the link to the second part of the post:
I am a big fan of Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaborative Services. She is a great coach and passionate about developing leaders that make a difference. She is also thoughtful and nice. The kind of person you trust as soon as you meet. I had the privilege of doing a guest post on her blog around leadership development and coaching.
Here is the link to Part 2 of the post. http://www.aspire-cs.com/don%e2%80%99t-be-mean-part-2
If you missed it, here is the link to Part 1 of the post. http://www.aspire-cs.com/don%e2%80%99t-be-mean-part-one?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Don’t Be Mean – Part One
I am a big fan of Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaborative Services. She is a great coach and passionate about developing leaders that make a difference. She is also thoughtful and nice. The kind of person you trust as soon as you meet. I had the privilege of doing a guest post on her blog around leadership development and coaching. Here is the first part of the post. http://www.aspire-cs.com/don%e2%80%99t-be-mean-part-one?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Resilience – What we can learn from the military
Image via Wikipedia
Do any of us in the private sector experience any more stress than a soldier in battle? We all know the answer. No. Which is why it is worth taking 300 words to explore an effort to help soldiers build their resilience.
Resilience is the word of the year for the discussion around assisting people to manage through a stressful business environment. I found a great clinical discussion in the Harvard Business Review around resilience (link). I like clinical approaches to topics because they provide great information about what works, what doesn’t, and an outline of the critical steps/pieces of a solution. They learn and I apply.
Here are the key pieces of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program.
- Test for psychological fitness - Identify strengths in four areas: emotional, family, social, and spiritual fitness. All four have been found to reduce depression and anxiety.
- Learning - A mandatory course on post-traumatic growth and optional on-line classes on the four fitness areas. Mandatory class covers five areas: Understanding a normal response to trauma, learning techniques for controlling intrusive thoughts/images, how to talk about it, see the trauma as a fork in the road, and transforming the trauma into new/reinforced principles of life.
- Train key leaders - Called Master Resiliency Training (MRT), the goal is to teach them how to embrace resilience and pass on the knowledge. This last piece focuses on: Building mental toughness, Building on our signature strengths, and Building relationships.
I am not sure where this study will go, but when 900,000 people go through something and someone is measuring the outcomes and sharing the learning it should have a lasting benefit.
How can we apply this today? What do you see from their approach that reinforces how you lead today? How you coach or mentor? How you can create your own CSF program? How does your own awarness of self make you more resilient? or less . . . . .
On a side note: I am glad someone is looking out for the health of our soldiers.
Related Articles
- Resilience training – bleeding heart soft or army tough? (peterjsimpson.wordpress.com)
- Posttraumatic Growth (schott.blogs.nytimes.com)
- 3rd Cavalry Emphasizes De-Stressing Troops in Iraq (waronterrornews.typepad.com)
To Know Yourself – Know your Art
Image via Wikipedia
Seth Godin made the comment “Art is not in the eye of the beholder. It’s in the soul of the artist.” One thing I always see when talking with people about careers is their art. It is the heart of their story, and if I don’t see it I make them talk until it oozes out of them. It is there, it just needs to be named. Here are a few artists I have met recently:
The construction project manager who takes over a project that is behind schedule and over budget. The work – many hours and many difficult decisions. The Art - completed, on time and on budget.
The entrepreneur who is fanatical about taking care of the customer and giving back to the community. The work – two jobs through the first two years of being in business. The Art - twenty people, a just completed 100% growth year, and numerous awards recognizing the big heart of this small company.
The administrative assistant who sees the workplace as something to be organized. The work - anything to make sure meetings go smoothly, things get fixed, emergencies get handled, and nobody ever sees her sweat. The Art - an amazingly well run department where things just happen smoothly and finding things is easy and logical.
The administrative assistant who realizes everyone needs a friend at work – and a occassional kick in the pants. The work - always willing to listen and connect with people in the organization, even while getting her work done. The Art - some call her mom, some call her friend, I call her the pulse taker and doctor – in any case she is a cultural definer.
Final point, the art takes work. Funny thing, the artist does not see the work, just the art.
Today, look around at the artists and make sure they know you see their art. Challenge others to create some art. What art are you creating and sharing today?
Want to develop as a leader? Focus on these three adjectives
Leadership is not easy. It does not get any easier by the endless number of competency models, development programs, books, blogs, and opinions that seem to get thrown at new leaders. In case you were wondering, I don’t have an answer on a sure fire way to become a great leader in the next 300 words.
What I offer is a solution to something I see in leaders at all levels, and that is an incredible talent for getting work done but a struggle building relationships with peers and their team. Here are three adjectives that should be part of the selection and development of any leader. If people are willing to use these words to describe a leader then they are doing something right.
- Transparent - What are your priorities? What are you worried about? Often the speed at which you are operating and the dozens of things you are dealing with at any one time make it hard for people to know what you are thinking.
- Consistent – Respect comes before like for leaders. Do people know what to expect from you around vacations? Lunch breaks? Professional development requests? Deadlines? Personal calls? Celebrations?
- Authentic – Regular people laugh, cry, have bad hair days, and sometimes have to say they are sorry for something they did or said. Leadership models too often paint a picture of someone who sounds more like Superman or Wonder Woman. Leaders do all the things regular people do - with a balance of providing strength, energy, and passion for an effort. This one is probably the toughest.
So what do these adjectives look like in practice? Here are a few tips:
- When taking over a new team, take time to find out what they do and don’t pretend to have all the answers. (authentic, transparent)
- Develop standard events around communication, performance discussions, follow-up to questions/issues, and celebrating special events. (consistent)
- Get to know the outside lives of your people and let them get to know yours. (transparent)
There are many more, but hopefully this starts the discussion. Feel free to share some important things that I might have missed. I don’t know everything. (transparent, authentic) :)
Related Articles
- Joy – 3 Steps to Create More as a Leader (trugroupscott.wordpress.com)
- The Law of Leadership Transparency – 3 ways to apply it (trugroupscott.wordpress.com)