Grow Your Authentic Leadership (Authenticity series 3/4)

In the preceding blogs of this series, we explored authenticity and its characteristics.   This article will focus on ways we can be more authentic. 

Leadership is a canvas for self-expression, and attempting to replicate someone else’s style will likely lead to failure. Employees seek guidance from leaders who invest time in crafting their unique approach, those who are honest and unwavering in their message.  Fyodor Dostoyevsky wisely noted, “To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”  People yearn to be led by individuals who share an honest message deeply rooted in personal conviction, not borrowed words that lack a genuine connection.

Here are some practical steps you can take to cultivate greater authenticity:

1. Know your values.  Many of our woes come from not knowing ourselves, our abilities, fragilities, and virtues.  We walk through life as strangers to ourselves, and that can cause distress in our authenticity and leadership.  What are the top 3-5 beliefs that are important to you?  Some may not know the answer- is it love, money, status, or relationships?  We cannot align our behaviors with our values if we do not know them.  Knowing our values helps us make better decisions.  For example, if we value career goals, when we become a parent, we will know that we will want to make room for work because we will deliver our best selves to all that we do.  Sharing our values is sharing our truth.  Authenticity is intrinsically linked to your values and core beliefs, even if your behavior adapts to changing circumstances.

2. Know your purpose and align it with the organization.  Knowing what you are meant to do in this world is vital for fulfillment, so if we are working for an organization that does not represent who we are and what we stand for, it can be stifling.  But, when we can align any part of our purpose to the organizations, we can live more genuinely by being ourselves and having our values shine through in all places. 

3. Express yourself as a trait, not a role.  Often, we equate our identity with our job titles; if we do marketing for a living, that is how we portray ourselves, but it does not capture all we are.  Maybe we are a learner and conveyors of ideas so there are a lot of roles we could have, like a facilitator for people to mutually explore profoundly impactful ideas, or a professional speaker, or a teacher, or a team leader, or simply an optimist.  Authenticity is the expression of traits you have that can be flexed in different places rather than confined to specific roles.

4. Connect to your past.  Authenticity can find its roots in your origins.  Leaders who maintain a connection between their past experiences and their current selves are more often effective in building and maintaining relationships because they are not worried about hiding aspects of themselves.  Authentic leaders remain focused on where they are going but never lose sight of where they have come from.  Reflect on how your past has shaped you, and identify the common threads that have woven through your life.

5. Build a foundation of self-knowledge.  We can learn about ourselves in many ways, but the best approach is to solicit honest feedback—perhaps a 360-degree review—from coworkers and follow it up with coaching so we learn more about ourselves and how other people see us, and then we can see if the two views are compatible.  Combining personal and professional histories can unveil common themes from our upbringing and work experiences that have shaped our authenticity.   Spend time in introspection, understand your preferences, and explore how they have evolved over time. This self-knowledge serves as a strong foundation for authentic leadership.

Authenticity in leadership is a potent force for engendering trust and nurturing meaningful relationships. To further enhance your authenticity, delve deep into your purpose and values, self-reflect, and express yourself through inherent straight rather than predefined roles.

Quote of the day: “Know yourself, and you will win all battles.” -Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher

Q: How can we become a more authentic leader?  Comment and share with us; we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series 4/4 will focus on dispelling myths of authenticity.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to explore what authentic leadership means to them and develop their style, contact me to explore this topic further.

Which components would you include?

Just What Does Authenticity Mean? (Authenticity series 1/4)

“Be yourself” is a piece of advice we have all encountered at some point in our lives.  But what exactly does it mean to be authentic, and why is it revered as the gold standard for leadership and navigating life successfully?

The term “authentic” traditionally referred to original works of art instead of copies.  It is about adhering to your true self and being transparent about who you are across all aspects of your life.  A core aspect of you shows up whether at work, with family, in your relationship, or among strangers.  There is something liberating about that consistent expression.  To be authentic is to be the author of your life, to write your story, and to direct your actions rather than feeling compelled to conform to others’ expectations or seek acceptance.

Good leadership requires authenticity

In Authentic Leadership, Author Bill George defined the concept as “understanding your purpose, practicing solid values, leading with your heart, establishing connected relationships, and demonstrating self-discipline.”  In essence, it involves neither projecting a fabricated corporate persona nor emulating the leadership styles of others.  It is being true to your origins, finding your unique path, and evolving into the person you are destined to become.

The Rewards of Authenticity:

In his book Tribe, Sebastian Junger shares the self-determination theory, which holds that humans need three elements to be content: competence in their pursuits, connection with others, and authenticity in their lives.  Introducing authenticity to the workplace is part of the whole person movement, integrating our internal and external selves.  Instead of concealing our values and experiences, we openly share them. Our values and experiences are not hidden but shared.   Otherwise, we risk donning a mask that exhausts us as we struggle to maintain the facade.   The bedrock of authenticity is being seen by others, enabling them to understand your beliefs and intentions.

Authentic leadership also bestows potent benefits upon others. When we are real, we create an environment that encourages authenticity in others.  Research by Vanessa Buote, as cited in the Harvard Business Review, suggests that most employees believe authenticity in the workplace fosters better relationships with colleagues, higher levels of trust, greater productivity, and a more positive work atmosphere.  Furthermore, a study in the Leadership & Organization Development Journal reveals that “employees' perception of authentic leadership serves as the strongest predictor of job satisfaction and can have a positive impact on work-related attitudes and happiness.”

The costs of being inauthentic: 

When we are inauthentic by concealing ourselves from others, the burden of making countless micro-decisisons to bury certain aspects of our identity becomes exhausting.  What we repress ultimately gets expressed; otherwise, we start to lose our way and act in contradictory terms.  Over time, we become strangers to ourselves, transforming into the very mask we originally intended to don temporarily.  When we limit ourselves and fail to bring our full version to work, we lose people’s trust, and our relationships weaken.  It could be challenging to shape the workplace with our vision when we are not forthcoming with it.  Moreover, relying excessively on external validation distorts our self-perception,  as Epictetus astutely noted, “personal merit can’t be derived from an external source.” We need to reconnect with our inner compass.

Authenticity is when we can engage the best and truest part of ourselves and be bold enough to show that side to others.  We can create great relationships at work and better lead our teams to more success.

Quote of the day: “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” -Joseph Campbell

Q: How do you define authenticity? When are you most authentic, and when do you find it most challenging? What does it feel like to be inauthentic? Comment and share with us; we’d love to hear your perspective!

[The next blog in this series 2/4 will focus on the characteristics of an authentic leader]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to explore what authentic leadership means to them and develop their style, contact me to explore this topic further.

Therapists and Coaches: What’s the difference? (Support Series 1/2)

Navigating life is not without its challenges.  There are times when we need help to accelerate our progress.  Former President Barack Obama reminds us, “Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.  I do that every day.  Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength.  It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new.”  If you feel stuck in some part of your life or just navigating a tricky situation, partnering with an ally could be just the thing that helps you breakthrough.

This series will explore four common sources of life and career assistance and the differences between each.  The first blog will cover support offered by therapists and coaches, and the second will review mentors and sponsors.   While they all have commonalities in helping you go after something you want in life, each has its particular focus, which may relate to what you need at the time.

Therapy

As a coach, I am often asked about the difference between coaching and therapy and while I am not a therapist, in putting together this information, I have conducted research and spoken to various therapists to learn more. Here is my coach's perspective.

While there are many different kinds of therapists and specialties, I’ll focus on a general description. A therapist, or trained mental health professional, must have a license to treat mental health and focus on emotional healing.  They can lead you out of a type of dysfunction that is getting in your way of operating soundly on a day-to-day basis.  Most people go to a therapist because of a presenting problem, such as a panic attack or crushing anxiety that makes them less effective on the job and in their lives.

We all have a past, and sometimes previous unaddressed emotional issues and key experiences have framed who we are today.  Therapists can help examine your history and seek to undo unhelpful thoughts or process trauma so you can move forward.  You may discover that you had an interaction with a teacher early on that made you feel ashamed, and even though it has been decades, you play that record in your mind like it just happened and haven’t shared that struggle with anybody else.  Carl Jung said that secrets are psychic poison; we can better heal by processing repressed experiences.  Therapists explore any family links that may have had a more significant impact on you that you never gave credit to, but it sits in your subconscious and settles as nerves in your body.  Maybe your parents told you that you were never good enough, or not as good as your sibling, and it is connected to the lack of confidence you are now exhibiting, which prevents you from going after a promotion.  Maybe you only received love from your family when you were achieving something, so you have some self-limiting behavior of burying your head in work to produce results rather than collaborating with your teammates because you find the former to be a more valuable method to prove your worth to your boss, it’s your conditioning from when you were young.  A therapist can help you navigate those emotions and illuminate the present better to move forward. 

The goal of therapy is to release any places where you are blocked to be happier, more settled, and at peace.  At its core, it works on the psychological problems from its source and does healing work, sometimes spanning an extended period.  Tiffany Louise, Social Worker and Professional Coach says, “People generally seek therapy because they are feeling blocked, experiencing maladaptive emotional and behavioral health symptoms, and are otherwise not functioning optimally in their lives.”  This trauma can cause people not to follow through with agreements or assignments and be resistant and stay stuck.  Therapists can help you develop coping mechanisms so you do not get derailed in your day by the incessant ups and downs that can create imbalance.

There are also times when we are experiencing complex life events and are overwhelmed and have a crushing worry that consumes us, so we need to talk about it to process and heal.  In a comment to the Huffington Post, David Spiegel, Associate Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University said "We're social creatures, fundamentally, so talking to people can be a real source of support, and therapy can be an interpersonal laboratory. It's a way of working with cognition, emotion, and interpersonal relationships in a way that helps you manage your emotions and learn to see it from a different perspective."  In other words, you do not have to go through a huge life transition or trauma to benefit from therapy.  Talking with a professional allows you to get a sense of how you appear to other people, helps you get feedback on whatever you're feeling, and offers insight into how those emotions are affecting your everyday life. 

When should you seek a therapist?

You can work with a therapist when you want to gain emotional healing from your upbringing, past trauma, or need assistance with an overwhelming situation. When there are consistent interruptions to your functioning, maybe you feel chronic anxiety or stressed-induced pains, have trouble sleeping, experience changes in appetite, or feel depressed, you can get support.  In general, humans are not meant to keep things inside, and therapy can help us in all sorts of ways and can be whatever we want it to be.

Coaching

Coaching is a creative alliance designed to help people move forward in their personal and professional lives and be the best.  A coach helps you define what you want to achieve, strategize how to get there, and support you as you take action to achieve extraordinary and sustainable results.

Coaching helps you clarify who you are, who you want to be, and dedicate time to inner work and reflection.  As a Leadership Development and Executive Coach, I have helped clients define their purpose and rediscover their passions to have great fulfillment and meaning.  Some of my clients feel like they have a lot to be grateful for, yet something is still missing; they need that extra processing with a trained coach who can help them piece the puzzle together.  I’ve helped clients create a vision for their lives, so they know that when they take steps, they are meaningful ones because they are in the direction of their worthy goals.  Together, we explore their values or enduring beliefs that guide all their decisions and set goals aligning with their purpose, vision, and values.  When life feels complex, knowing these crucial elements can serve as a steady and reassuring guide, steering us through the mayhem.

Coaches work with people who feel like their lives are on autopilot and they want to challenge themselves or break out of their comfort zones and stretch to play bigger.  They want to tap their inner motivation for a major goal, such as being promoted to senior leadership.  A coach offers tremendous accountability for others to get what they want out of life.  Just recently, I was working with a senior leader who aimed to be a Vice President. When I asked her what she needed to do to get ready for that position, she was grateful for the question because she never thought about it methodically so she made a list and created a roadmap. Asking her about what her leadership needed to see from her expanded her viewpoint beyond her perspective and created even more nuance to her plan. Coaching is about helping others discover their dreams and uncover the motivation to go after them deliberately.

If you feel confused about the next chapter in your life (i.e., struggling with career decisions, major life choices) and would like guidance on what would best serve you, coaches can help.  If your thoughts represent puzzle pieces, coaches help to take them out of your mind and place them on the table so you can see the map to explore the territory better.  Coaching is not about focusing on what’s wrong, but on what’s possible so you can get more out of your life and live from a point of choice and fulfillment.

As an Executive Coach, I work with others to improve their mindset and skillset to accelerate their career and have a bigger leadership impact.  Common topics I’ve covered with leaders include communication (how to speak with executive presence, how to give and receive meaningful feedback, how to advocate for yourself and negotiate effectively, how to have courageous conversations, how to listen to understand and not reply), how to delegate for results, run meetings, prioritize, plan, organize, have work-life flow, make better decisions, be a strategic thinker, among others   I’ve also helped leaders run high-performing teams by creating agreements, defining mission, vision, and values, putting in place systems and processes for peak performance and having productive conflict.  I help leaders discover their philosophy and principles that will guide their actions, know their strengths, and plan to address their weaknesses or find workarounds. I also do a lot of work around career coaching by helping clients do the work to get clear on what they want in their next role; I help them create their leadership branding and their narrative so they can speak about themselves profoundly. Sure, we cover tactical aspects like updating their resume and LinkedIn, but I assist them in being strategic about their outreach so they know whom they want to contact to connect with and what they want to say to maximize their time in a win-win fashion so it is an energy-building experience.

Through coaching, I help clients be better learners, raise their self-awareness, and potentially have mindset shifts to upgrade their human operating system.  We explore blocks such as nasty messages from their inner critics that keep them from their best life or limiting beliefs and derailing habits that do not serve them, so we replace them with productive alternatives.  A coach helps you remove unnecessary obstacles and barriers that you have created for yourself to move forward.  We work on improving your confidence and self-esteem and overcoming feelings of self-doubt by revisiting old scripts and updating them.  Similar to the sport of curling, we are clearing the path so the client can direct their stone where it needs to be, although the difference is that he client does the work.  A coach helps clients discover their blind spots because it is hard to see the spinach in our teeth and it is nice when a trusted advocate kindly draws our attention to something that would be helpful to know.  When emotions are strong, we need someone else to see how we think. Neuroscientists call these disruptors.  We need people to interrupt our thinking patterns to prompt us to stop and to look at them differently, somebody to help us revisit and expand our stories.  Big shifts can happen when somebody else reflects your beliefs to you to see how they serve you and what you want to do about them.

How does the coach operate?

Many sessions begin with a goal or topic to explore and end with action steps and accountability, but it all depends on the client’s needs.  It usually includes asking empowering questions to connect people to their passion and purpose, raising awareness of their inner blocks, challenging their thinking, and discovering new viewpoints and possibilities.  As a certified leadership coach and thought partner, I’m trained to listen and reflect deeply, always asking more of them than they ask of themselves. I reflect to them what I hear but slightly shifted language.  I hold space for others to process what they really think and feel because we do not often create reflection time for ourselves. They have a container to utter unformed thoughts to a coach dedicated to helping them make discoveries to fuel their growth. I also use a lot of frameworks so clients can have set models to work from.

When should you seek a coach:

If you need a skilled thought partner to help you advance on your personal and professional short and long-term goals and you want to be held accountable for projects that you are pursuing, a coach can help.  If you are eager to rise in your career and navigate all the pieces involved in the process, a coach can help.

Therapy and coaching are two ways that can help support your growth for greater understanding.  While therapy tends to focus more on the past and working out previous experiences, coaches dip into the past but are mainly interested in how it informs the present and uses that information to guide them to their destination.  With that being said, many therapists are coach-like, they see clients as naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, and they work on goals to deepen the learning and forward the action.  There are also many coaches who are not afraid to explore the client’s full context, including how the past has influenced their current outlook and actions and how they may want to address the wounds.  While the brain is a marvelous complicated mess, and sometimes the lines can be blurred, we need different things at different times.

Q: Who do you go to when you need help?  How do you see working with either a therapist or a coach supporting your goals?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

Quote of the day: “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.  Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakes.” -Carl Jung, psychiatrist.

[The next blog in this series 2/2 will focus on two other supports – mentors and sponsors]

As a Leadership and Executive Coach, I partner with others to help you achieve your goals, contact me to learn more.

Who do you turn to for support?

What is your company strategy? (Strategy series 1/3)

Having a solid strategy can mean the difference between winning and losing, failing and succeeding.  Knowing the stakes, how do you create a good strategy?  What does strategy even mean anyway?

At the company level, Harvard Business Professor Michael Porter defines strategy as a unique and valuable position involving a different set of activities than your competitors or the same activities done in different ways. The Management theorist Henry Mintzberg famously defined strategy as 5 Ps: plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective. He explains:

·      The plan helps you attain your objectives to achieve your intended position.

·      The ploy is a new offering that is usually a surprise tactic that competitors would not expect.

·      The pattern is understanding what was implemented before and pulling out useful aspects going forward.

·      The position is your market location and the role you play in relation to your main competitors.

·      The perspective is how your organization sees itself and how various target audiences perceive you.

Generally speaking, strategy is about your intention or the way you pursue the work to further the mission and creatively grow the business in various facets – employee health, customer satisfaction, and revenue growth.   Let’s break down some strategy components:

1. Strategy is about choices.  To do well, a company must choose to do some things great and not others.  So, how do you choose?  Many people like to begin broadly in these four categories to be industry leaders:

·      Product leader - Nike and Apple are product leaders.  They constantly change their designs or shoe technology to be the coolest and most innovative in the market.  It is hard to outdo them in this category.

·      Customer intimacy – This is about creating an incredible experience for the customers where they are entirely taken care of.  You are prepared to jump through hoops for them.  Most big companies can find this challenging, but Nordstrom is an example that offers excellence in this department.  It is easier for smaller companies to do this like coffee shops, where workers know your name and have your order ready for you upon arrival.  Zappos is known for exceptional customer service.  Tony Hsieh shared a story about taking clients out one evening and when they all returned to their rooms, one of them craved a pizza, but room service was closed. Tony suggested they call Zappos and they came through on the request! Although they didn’t deliver themselves, they found a nearby pizza parlor that would.

·      Operational excellence – This is about performing efficiently at scale.  Starbucks and Chipotle have standardized their processes and have a model that can be exported seamlessly.   

·      Low Prices – Cost-effectiveness can be a powerful strategy.  It is part of IKEA’s competitive advantage.  They target young furniture buyers who want style cheaply. 

Roger Martin, named #1 by Thinkers 50 says to know if you have picked a good strategy, follow this rule – “If the opposite of your choice is stupid on its face, you have not chosen.  For example, if you say, our strategy is to be customer-centric or operationally effective or to value our talent, you can perform this test by stating the opposite - Our strategy is to ignore customers entirely.”  If it does not make sense, it cannot work as a strategy because it would be hard to do that and succeed, let alone stay in business.  Maybe regulated monopolies like the DMV can get away with this, but they do not engender much love.  If the opposite of operational effectiveness is inefficiency, then that’s not a choice because it is not a profitable route.

2. Strategy is about trade-offs.  Michael Porter says, “the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do” because you do not have the bandwidth to do it all.  Focusing on 1-2 things per quarter and adding the rest to your future list. Leaders need to know how to say no often.  As Peter Drucker says, “strategy is saying no to the things that you would like to say yes to.”  We can have many good ideas but only so much capacity to execute.  The key is to choose a couple of priorities because when you have too many, your team spins their wheels, and there is no organizing framework since they all need your attention.  Southwest Airlines is an example of a company that makes these strategic tradeoffs.  They offer short-haul, low-cost, point-to-point service between midsize cities and secondary airports in large cities.  They avoid large airports and do not fly great distances. Their frequent departures and low fares attract price-sensitive customers who otherwise travel by bus or car and convenience-oriented travelers who would choose a full-service airline.  They empower their employees at the front desk to make decisions aligned with their priorities (e.g., planes landing on time, cheap prices, and treating customers well).  It’s the reason they do not have milk on their flights because they do not have refrigerators since they have to be repaired when there are breakdowns, and that can lead to late departures. 

3. Strategy is about problem-solving.  What’s the space between the outcomes you're currently achieving and your aspirations?  If you think about the biggest challenge in reducing client churn from 35-15%, what are the fewest battles necessary to win that war?  How do you go about getting to the root of the problem to make sure you are solving the right one?  How do you frame the question for the best solution?

4. Strategy is about simplicity.  There is a myth that strategy needs to be complicated but to be most effective, you want to make it simple - understandable, memorable, and actionable.  Research by Roger Martin supports this point.  He says, “43 percent of managers cannot state their strategy.  When executives are not clear on their strategy, they have to work harder to see their impact on the organization’s direction.”  Moreover, execution does not like complexity.  Leaders who talk about strategy in concepts and cannot make it simple to move it to a specific goal with the fewest number of executable targets will struggle.  As Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” You can start with these simple questions - where are you?  Where do you need to go?  What resources do you need?  What are your options?  Which one is best to prioritize?  What is the easiest workflow process? What’s your timeframe?  What’s your process to reflect and reevaluate?

5. Strategy is about flexibility. You can be clear on your vision and flexible in your strategy. You do not want a strategy that will handcuff you when a pivot is in order so it is important to check in on your strategy. Pay attention to the context and as variables and circumstances require you to update your strategy, be ready. You also may not have gotten it right the first time and that’s ok, you can alter it after your strategy has been tested.

Strategy is an important part of any business and while some people try to make it complicated, it does not have to be.  As Jack Welch said, “In reality, strategy is actually very straightforward.  You pick a general direction and implement like hell.” 

Quote of the day: “A vision without a strategy remains an illusion.” -Author Lee Bolman

Q: What’s your favorite strategy?  What’s your process for formulating your strategy? Comment and share with us, we would love to hear!

The next blog in this series (2/3) will focus on how to develop strategic thinking skills.

 As a Leadership Coach, I partner with leaders to engage in strategic thinking for them and their teams, contact me to learn more.

What does strategy mean to you?

The Subtle Power of your Environment Influencing Your Habits (Habit Series 4/7)

Your surroundings may be impacting your habits more than you think and more than you want, so when you start controlling your setting, you can begin to have progress on the long-awaited changes in your life.

Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith said, “Most of us go through life unaware of how our environment shapes our behavior.”  When you have a conflict between the situation (having cookies in your kitchen in an accessible spot) and your willpower (choosing not to eat them), the environment overpowers your will every time. Those cookies have no chance, especially if they are chocolate chip walnut from Levain’s, the #1 bakery in NYC.  If they are hidden, you will likely not eat them.  Better yet, if they are not even in the house, you will not be tempted.  Physical and visual distance impacts your choices.  If you replace the sweets with fruit and keep them reachable, you will more likely grab that.  To eat healthier, stock your fridge with excellent options.  The key to changing your habits is organizing your environment in a way that makes it easy and sets you up for success. 

The power of the environment is further illustrated in Richard Thaler’s Nudge, he talks about the concept of choice architecture which is the process of organizing information on a page or arranging the items in a physical environment in such a way that influences decisions.  Anne Thorndike, a Physician at a Boston hospital designed a 6-month study to alter the cafeteria’s choice architecture.  Fridges next to cashiers only had soda so store managers added water and placed baskets of water next to food stations around the room.  Over the next 3 months, soda sales dropped by 11.4%, and water sales increased by 25.8%.  The presence of water changed people’s behavior. 

Your social situation also plays a role.  Jim Rohn said we become the combined average of the people we hang around the most.  Those people dominate the types of things we talk about and the activities that we do.  If we spend time with friends who enjoy going to bars, we can be more tempted to overdrink.  If we spend time with avid readers, we are more likely to be influenced in that direction by reading or talking about books. When we hang out with people where the norm is to have good habits, we will make better decisions with our time and set ourselves up for success. 

As French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne wrote - “The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along.”  Friends and family provide an invisible peer pressure force that pulls us in that direction.   Do you work at an office where staying until 5 is standard because people value family and personal development time?  You will be less likely to overwork and violate that shared expectation.  Join a group where your desired behavior is the norm.  I did when I connected to a philosophy group a few years ago where I met so many people who were just as jazzed about personal development as I am.  It felt fantastic to nerd out openly on topics that I would not have the opportunity to share with my other friend groups.  Successful businesswoman Kathy Ireland said there are two types of people – anchors and engines, anchors weigh you down while engines believe in you, support you, and propel you forward.  Who are the anchors and engines in your life? 

Professor Edwards Deming noted, “A bad system will beat a good person every time.”  Many of us become successful or not depending on the world around us and how we relate to it.  If somebody returns from rehab and is plugged into the same environment with the same triggers and social influences, they are likely to find change difficult.  Instead, habits are easy when they fit into your life, and the environment allows for it.  So, what environmental cues are steering your behavior either in the direction of beneficial change or throwing you off track?  Make a list of your environmental triggers that are either helping or hurting you to raise your awareness so you can take deliberate action.

Your physical and social environments may be having a much bigger impact on your choices than you initially thought.  If you want to have a healthy lifestyle, allow your physical environment to reflect your intentions.  If you are going to focus on growth and development, surround yourself with people who share your values.  Be intentional about your choices for the best habits to take root.

Quote of the day: “The key to behavioral change is to pass behavioral control to the environment.” -Author Paul Gibbons

Q: How can you set your physical and social environment up that would optimize your success?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you! 

[The next blog in this series 5/7 will focus on the importance of small steps towards habit change]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

Do you know how your environment impacts your decisions?

How Is Your Executive Presence?

The term executive presence can be vague and mean different things to different people, like the concept of leadership.  Is it about how you show up by what you wear, how concise and convincing you are in meetings, how great you present, how much credibility you have, or how strong your decision-making and strategic thinking skills are?

When you ask a group of managers who aspire to the C-suite what it takes to get there, they invariably mention executive presence, even if they may not be clear on what it means.  In a survey conducted by Coach Source, Dr. Brian Underhill shares that from a manager’s perspective, 42% of people who seek a coach want to develop their executive presence.

So, what are these “make or break” factors in considering whether to promote somebody into the upper leadership rank?  Executive presence is not just about one or two factors, such as how you look or dress, but about the whole person.  It may seem like some people either have it or not, but they likely worked hard to achieve it, and it can be developed with intention.  Executive presence, or I would extend the concept to also include leadership presence is about inspiring confidence in others because of character, capabilities, and reliability.  These leaders can handle complex and unpredictable situations, make tough decisions quickly, and hold their own with talented and strong-willed team members.

The Bates Executive Presence Index, a research-based, scientifically validated assessment measures executive presence according to 3 big categories: character, substance, and style.  I’m going to borrow aspects of that framework and include my categories based on commonalities from clients I’ve coached on this topic.

Components of Executive/Leadership Presence:

1. Character.  Arguably one of the most important is about the personal traits and values that define you.  Two key components include:

·      Integrity - Acting authentically, transparently, sincerely, and in accordance with your actions and beliefs.  You live up to ethical standards because you care about doing the right thing for yourself and others, even when it is unpopular.  You are credible, trustworthy, professional, dependable, and know how to keep your promises.

·      Humility - Part of being humble is being self-aware – you have a good sense of your strengths, weaknesses, and the impact that you want to make.  At the same time, you know you do not know it all, so you seek out diverse perspectives and feedback, you listen inclusively to others, and you believe that all people have worth regardless of title or position.

2. Substance.  This relates to depth and overall maturity and can be split into practical wisdom and emotional intelligence.

·      Practical Wisdom – Having those hard skills and competencies in getting the job done.  You also exercise good insight, judgment, vision, strategic thinking, and collaborative skills in bringing teams and stakeholders aligned and along with you as you achieve results.   

·      Emotional Intelligence – You show calm and balance when under pressure because you know how to manage your own emotions.  You do not have erratic and unpredictable outbursts or become emotionally unhinged when you clash with others or receive pushback on your ideas; instead, you use your emotional strength to understand the situation better.  You are also attuned to others’ emotions because you listen, ask questions, factor in other perspectives.   You show care and build great relationships because you can read the room, receive data, and make pivots to fit the moment better.

3. Style – This is about how you present yourself and how others see and experience you quickly, if not immediately.  It is the first impression.  Two critical aspects include presence and effective communication.

·      Presence – This is more than the right clothes, firm handshake, eye contact, or voice projection; it is about exuding confidence, being calm in hectic times, and adapting your demeanor to serve the situation better.

·      Effective Communication – Relates to talking with intentionality.  You are clear, brief, direct, and speak with authority.  You do not bog others down with the details or open the floodgates and blast them with information; you know how to get to the bottom line swiftly.  You use your communication to empower, inspire, and bring out your best.  That may entail providing a forum where others feel safe, expressing themselves, asking questions, and feeling stretched in their growth because of your high expectations in their development and support. 

Like many intangible leadership traits, these skills can be grown, especially if you have a baseline level of self-confidence and a willingness to deal with unpredictable situations that come with the territory at the executive level.

Let’s jump into some things you can do to develop executive presence:

1. Skill build.  Understand where you want to go, assess your starting point with your current skill set, determine the new proficiencies you will need, and pick one capability to grow.  You can raise your awareness by reading about it and then practicing the skill.  Perhaps, you want to begin with style and specifically your public speaking.  You want to stand and deliver confidently, clearly, and concisely to large groups, answer questions effectively by maintaining curiosity and not becoming defensives, and handle pressure calmly.  You can start with the headline, provide some more details, and hold space for others to jump in with questions, then go deeper on topics that interest them.  Being comfortable with releasing some control means that they can drive the conversation, and you can handle whatever comes your way.  Speaking in shorter bursts is helpful because it is more of an exchange and not a lecture.

2. Get support from others. You can work with a coach to get clear on who you are, what you want to work on, what it will take to work on it, and be held accountable along the way.  You can also work with advocates, managers, peers, colleagues, mentors to let them know that you are actively focusing on this one thing.  If they have tips or suggestions and can be mindful of sharing feedback when they see you doing the behavior, you can gain their support for your growth.  Receiving helpful feedback from them can allow you to adjust along the way.

Expressing your executive presence is unique to each person.  You make an impression through the values you bring to the organization, the results you deliver, the way you connect, and how you communicate your points.  It is a worthy skill to invest in because it can lead to more career advancements and opportunities.  When you lead with character, substance, and style, you can positively influence and inspire greatness in others. 

Quote of the day: “How you act (gravitas), how you speak (communication), and how you look (appearance) count for a lot in determining your leadership presence.” -CEO Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Q: How do you define executive presence?  What’s one essential feature of it?  Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help develop their executive and leadership presence, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you show up? Is it the way you want to?

What Comes After You Have Made a Decision? (Decision Series 7/8)

Congratulations, you have taken careful steps to make the decision that is right for you.  You got clear on your values, utilized effective informational and creative strategies, followed systems, and took action.  Now what?

Depending on your goal, whether it is about improving your decision-making skills, enhancing your current situation by reversing the decision, or just enjoying your peace of mind, you may consider the following:                                                                                                     

1. Reflect.  If you are interested in improving your decision-making abilities, carve out the necessary time to reflect.  After the choice, monitor it.  What is working?  What approaches, criteria, metrics, and systems did you use that were successful?  What did you overlook and may want to include next time you choose?  Mark Twain described the complicated nature of decision-making as follows: “Good decisions come from experience, but experience comes from making bad decisions.”  This is not to say that the only way to become a great decision-maker is to make a ton of mistakes; it just means that it is important to keep past decisions in the front of your mind to capitalize on the learning moment.

You can also do long-term reflection. You can do an annual review by asking - what was your best and worst decision you made last year? How do you know they were your best or worst? To answer these questions, most people follow a concept that Annie Duke describes as “resulting” - a decision was good if the outcome was good, but that is an incomplete way to evaluate. Just because you got home safely after drunk driving does not mean you made a good choice to jeopardize your life and the lives of others. Instead, what you can do is map out a few other choices you could have made and then evaluate them against the choice that you actually made. What did you wish you would have known at the time, how could you have found out that information, what will you do differently next time? Asking these kinds of questions will improve your decision-making processes.

2. Choose to reverse a big decision.  We think that when we make a selection, we have lost all agency, but we can always choose to course-correct if we have given it enough time and decided with all our minds and hearts that it is not right for us at this time.  Decisions are not permanent sentences and when we can get creative about having the confidence to tweak our choices or even reverse them, we can attain more happiness.

3. Enjoy the peace of mind of making a small, lasting decision.  Making some irrevocable determinations can bring more happiness.  Daniel Gilbert ran a study where at the end of his photography course, students had to choose which photo of the many to keep.  Group A was told that if they changed their mind later, they could swap the photo.  Group B was told their choice was final.  You would think that many people were happy in the first group because they preserved their options, knowing they could always trade their photo.  The study found that when people made an irrevocable decision, they rationalized it easily move forward.  Once something is gone forever, the mind gets to work, figuring out why what it has is better than what it lost.  But when a decision is irrevocable, you ruminate and think, do I like this photograph, maybe the other one goes better in my living room, I should take it back and upgrade.  When it comes to smaller decisions, set yourself up for ones that do not leave you with an out, at the end of the day, it is just a picture.

Depending on your goal, there are things you can do after a decision is made.  If you are trying to be a better decision-maker, you can reflect on your choice and monitor how it works out and what you did well in the process leading up to the decision.  If you are aiming for happiness, you may choose to alter or reverse the selection.  If you are interested in attaining peace of mind relating to small decisions, you may want to make irrevocable ones.

Quote of the day: “All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make, the better.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Q: How do you reflect on your decisions once you made them to improve your future decisions?  What was your best and worst decision of last year? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 8/8 will focus on decision-making in teams.] 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions and reflect on their process, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you make decisions that make you proud?

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

Systems For Better Decision-Making (Decision Series 6/8)

To what degree do you think our decisions determine our lives?  Should we stay in a city we have known and enjoyed for a decade-plus or move elsewhere to shake things up? Take a high visibility job with additional responsibilities or focus more on enjoying a balanced and relaxed life? Know when it is time to quit our side hustle or persist? To be human is to be jostled by choice.  I have found that to have an edge in decision-making, we want to have a few systems in place to better guide us.

Here are some helpful systems to consider when we are contemplating making big decisions:

1. Expand your time horizons.   Suzy Welch, a former editor at the Harvard Business Review recommends conducting a 10-10-10 analysis.  For every choice we’re considering, ask ourselves: how will I feel about having done this 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years from now?   This tool helps create psychological distance when you expand the time horizon and imagine how we would feel in the future.  A challenge we have when making a decision is the emphasis we place on immediate emotions so we avoid doing unpleasant things like asking for a promotion or breaking up with our partner because we may be blinded by the short-term fallout.  By considering how we will feel in the future, we can reduce the intensity of our current emotions and make sounder decisions.  You only have to deal with the short-term once, but the long run for the rest of your life.

A similar idea is to think about 2nd and 3rd order consequences or the downstream ramifications of your actions, which are not always obvious at first. You can decide to take up running and endure the initial pain of working out for the medium-term benefits of getting in shape and feeling great. You may also look further ahead to consider the joint pains you might incur from running on the pavement so perhaps you will want to have a plan to switch to a less impactful exercise such as yoga or swimming at some point since it will be lighter on your body but still help you attain your goal of healthy living. It is about being mindful of the long game.

Ask yourself, what advice would I give my friend.  Another way to gain distance from the problem is to imagine that your friend told you the same dilemma, what would you tell them to do?  This approach can help because when you picture yourself not involved, those highly charged emotions reduce their intensity.  You can see the problem more clearly for what it is minus the strong feelings.  Andy Grove, the former Intel CEO had a similar technique he used, which was to ask the question, “If I were replaced tomorrow, what would my successor do”?

2. Run an experiment.  In Stumbling Upon Happiness, Daniel Gilbert asserts that when we are thinking about making a decision and factoring in our happiness, we tend to be pretty lousy at predicting what will make us happy.  We may think to ourselves, “once I move out of the city and to the suburbs, it will be quieter, I will not hear the ambulance sirens, trucks, and unrelenting construction disturbances.”  But when we do it, we realize it is boring, we do not like it, and in fact, those background noises provided the occasional rushes. So, the best thing to do is to conduct small experiments.  Spend weekends or months simulating how we would be living.  If moving also means a job change, testing the assumption while we have a paycheck is most helpful because we will have an exit plan.

3. Do a pre-mortem.  It is human nature to strategize an approach and formulate all the ways we will be successful, but few people talk about what could go wrong.  The pre-mortem considers what failure would look like before even beginning the project.  This approach could have come in handy during the British colonization of India when officials were concerned with the number of venomous cobra snakes in Delhi.  To solve the problem, the government gave cash for every dead cobra.  While the plan was initially successful, ultimately it was a failure because they did not think about all the entrepreneurs who got into the business of breeding snakes to generate additional income.  When the government scrapped the idea, the cobra breeders let the snakes loose, and the population blossomed.  The solution was worse than the problem, and with a proper pre-mortem, maybe this could have been prevented.  It could be helpful to invest in the upfront time to generate a list of the ways a solution can fail.  A good question to ask to kick off this inquiry is: If this decision was a debacle one week, one month, or one year from now, what would be the causes of the failure?

4. Take a break.  When we find ourselves mulling over a decision and we feel like we have expended all our energy, hit pause.   Either do something else you enjoy like going for a run or playing catch with your kids or simply allow yourself to be bored so you can review the problem in new ways.  Einstein turned to his violin whenever stuck.  Woody Allen changed rooms and took multiple showers.  Beethoven took hour-long strolls.  When you get distance from the problem and do something completely different, you broaden your focus.  Author Ron Friedman says, “It’s only then, when you have some distance, that loose connections suddenly appear, making creative insights more likely.”  Our brain continues to mull over unresolved problems, even when we turn our attention elsewhere, and we can bring that additional insight into making better decisions.

5. Time-box your decisions.  Once you have gathered your information, instead of waiting for the moons to align, give yourself a window of time to make up your mind and set a date because then you will be more motivated to act.  In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Mark Chussil, Founder of Advanced Competitive Strategies, recounts wise words from his friend who said, “you should not spend your life making up your mind because things change, values change, and dreams change.  What broke your heart or made your day at age 25 is inconsequential at age 45.”  If the issue on the table has been reasonably vetted and the choices are equally attractive, it is time to decide, take action, and break the impasse. That dreaded feeling of being stuck could be corroding other areas of your life and draining your energy.

6. Avoid decision fatigue by automating.  Some decisions are minor, like what to eat and what to wear.  Others are more difficult, like deciding between two job offers; if you should move to a new country for someone you love; if you should cut a toxic friend out of your life, even though you share a rich history.  With so many decisions taking up your day, when you can turn the small ones into a routine, you can save your mental resources for the complex decisions.  It is the reason why Steve Jobs wore black turtlenecks, and Mark Zuckerberg dons hoodies.  Both men have stated that these decisions are the simple result of daily routines intended to cut down on decision fatigue.  Barack Obama said, "You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing, because I have too many other decisions to make."  Routines can prime your mental state for the best decision-making.

7. Make one big decision at a time.  Some people try to make 2-3 decisions at once.  How about just making one, waiting, and then seeing how the landscape changes.  You do not need to solve everything before you take action.  Similar to riding a bike, it is easier to steer and make turns once you are moving.  We cannot plan life just from the sidelines; we need to participate and adjust on the go.  Is there one decision you can make that can be a lead domino for three others?

8. Make decisions in advance.  When you decide now how you will act in the future, you set yourself up for success.  For example, if you want to go for a run in the morning, you can lay out your clothes in advance and be mentally prepared to know that you are going first thing in the morning.  You do not have to think about it at the moment when you may be sleepy and unmotivated.  With advanced planning, you can even anticipate the fatigue that you may feel, and how you will overcome it.

9. Aim for 80% or a good enough choice.  Many things we can be deciding on could relate to wicked problems with changing requirements that are often hard to recognize and numerous unintended consequences. Even with all the best research and strategies, there will always be information that eludes us.  Steven Covey says that trying to be perfect prevents action.  If you feel about 80% confident in your decision, go for it.  Any difficult decision may not be ideal, but we can go for a good enough choice. Choices are made depending on the estimation of how things will be in the future, but the future is ever-changing so decisions made today can be based on faulty information. In that case, it could be helpful to choose a direction rather than a destination because you become open to the possibility of adjusting as you go to better match the realities you will be given.

10. Examine tradeoffs.  Ray Dalio, Author of Principles said, “I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but not everything you want.  Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives to pursue even better ones.”  When faced with a choice between two things that you need and that are seemingly at odds, try and figure out how much of each you can get and know when you say no to one thing, you can say yes to another in which you are more enthusiastic.

11. Avoid indecision.  When we are in the deliberation stage, we have stress and anxiety, but when we move into phase two of pulling the trigger, our mind moves into action mode; it convinces us that the thing we have is better than the thing we left behind.  We sometimes wonder, after the fact, how we were even having a tough time deciding in the first place.  The energy you save by not deliberating pointlessly will be useful for other things, so put a timer on your decision and go for it.

Hard decisions are hard when we are in the process of making them, but after that, it is just life.  When we have systems in place to help us with decision-making, we can find ways to make the process a little less strenuous on ourselves, so we can spend more time in action with the things we love, and less time stuck in deciding.

Quote of the day: “[People are] born to live and not to prepare to live” - Boris Pasternak, Russian Poet

Q: What is your favorite system that you rely on for good decision-making? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 7/8 will focus on the aftermath of a decision.]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

What’s your system for making decisions?

Use Your Head and Heart for the Best Decision-Making (Decision Series 5/8)

How wise are you at making decisions?  In choosing, do you rely more on cognition or intuition?  While some people would advocate for the evidence-based, logical approach, others would endorse the way of emotions and gut instinct.  Who’s right?

Let’s take a closer look at each:

For some people, rationality is the easy answer.  When entangled in a decision, they may make a long list of pros and cons, weigh their choices against a pre-determined set of criteria, evaluate their options objectively, step back, and decide.  After all, isn’t the Prometheus gift of reason precisely what separates humans from other animals, so shouldn’t we rely on that?

Plato has a great metaphor of the mind; he compares it to a charioteer controlling horses, which are representative of our emotions.  The best people or the Philosopher Kings in his time were the ones who kept the tightest reigns on their emotional horses, which can be impulsive and impetuous beasts that lead us astray.  Simply distilled, reason is good, emotions not so much.

The problem with rationality is that it can be faulty.  In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman discovered cognitive biases, showing that humans systematically make choices that defy clear logic. He explains, “When humans are left to their own devices, they are apt to engage in several fallacies and systematic errors.”  To be better at decision-making, we need to be aware of these biases and seek workarounds.

In Favor of Emotions 

Those who love to be steered by their emotions in deciding would say that it is the superior method.  Our emotions are wise, especially when we have a good relationship with them.  We can recognize when we are in a bad mood and might lash out at others who are simply trying to help, or when we are feeling overconfident and might take more risks.  We have gut instincts, and when we listen to them, they can guide us carefully and diligently.  We already know the answer or at least one version of it because it is the accumulation of our memories and experiences, revealed unconsciously at speed.  So much of what we believe and do is driven by the unconscious; it is rooted in emotions that we sometimes cannot articulate, yet strongly feel.

In Johan Lehrer’s How We Decide, he recounts a story of Michael Riley, a radar operator in the British Navy during the Persian Gulf War.  On his second day, he picked up a blip on his screen, which could have been an incoming Iraqi missile or an American Fighter Jet, even though the two signals looked identical.  In seconds, he had to decide to receive a potential strike or destroy his fellow brothers.  He fired two missiles and single-handedly saved the battleship.  Initially, he could not explain why he felt confident that it was enemy fire.  It was not until years later that he discovered how he did it – that he unconsciously picked up a subtle discrepancy in the timing of the radar signal.  When we listen to our gut, we are rightly guided.  As explained by John-Dylan Haynes, a Cognitive Neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, “the unconscious brain is intelligent enough to select the best options.” 

While our emotions can be inexplicably powerful, there is a problem when we solely rely on them to guide our decisions.  This old saying rings true: “Don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions.”  When we are overwhelmed by passions, it can cloud our abilities to make clear decisions.  Believe it or not, most managers are not good at even recognizing their emotions, let alone not being consumed by them.  TalentSmart has tested more than a million people and found that only 36% of us can accurately identify our emotions as they happen.  If we are unaware of our feelings or cannot properly label them, we may not be able to use them to our advantage.

Reaching the nexus of thought and feeling

The secret to good decision-making is to harness the power of both our cognitive and instinctual forces.  The world is a complex place, especially for any one-purpose solution, so how we decide should depend on what we are thinking about and in what context.  

You can cycle back and forth between cognition and emotions.  For example, we may start with cognition to analyze data, make a pro and con list, assign weight to each aspect, analyze charts and patterns, and then use the emotional and intuitive side to see what feels right.  After the passage of some time, we can step back into the rational mode and see how those feelings impact the way we are looking at the decision.  Finally, after some more thinking, we can check back in with our hearts. This neurological see-sawing can be most effective because usually when one side of the brain is activated, the other side is turned off so it forces us to have a more comprehensive consideration. For example, you may just be thinking logically when you want to fire your employee because sales are down dramatically and you need to cut costs. But how can you tap into the emotional side and be thinking about the person’s livelihood? If you decide the layoff is the right way to go, you can be sure to let the person go with grace and compassion and provide support as the person journeys to their next endeavor.

We have wisdom deep inside of us that we can access to guide our decisions when it most counts. 

Quotes of the day: "The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions." -Donald Calne, Canadian Neurologist

"Emotions have taught mankind to reason." -Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, French Moralist and Writer

Q: In making a decision, do you allow more of your emotions or reasoning to guide you?  What process do you put in place to cycle between the two to get all their benefits?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 6/8 will focus on exploring systems for better decision-making]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you utilize both sides of the brain for the best decision-making?

Why Do I Feel Like An Intellectual Fake? (Imposter Syndrome Series 1/3)

You have just been told the fantastic news that you have been promoted to lead a team for the first time and while you thought you would have an immediate rush of euphoria, you pause to pay attention to your actual feeling, and notice that you have an overflow of doubt and negativity.  Your mind spins a series of aggressive questions - what if I cannot do this?  What if they find out that I am not that talented?  What if I mess up so badly that I become the first person in company history to get fired on the first day, perhaps even before lunchtime?

Do these worries torment you?  If you are like 70% of the population, you are not alone in this particular type of feeling known as imposter syndrome.  In their study, researchers James Alexander and Jaruwan Sakulku described it as “a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success.”  We have this sense that other people think that we are more skilled and competent than we are, and at any moment, we are going to be exposed as intellectual frauds.

How does Imposter Syndrome differ from good old fashion performance anxiety?

Sure, we all may experience moments of stage freight – right before stepping into the spotlight to deliver an important speech or conducting a high-stakes meeting, we deal with performance interference thoughts that can push us off our game.  And then there is imposter syndrome, which is self-doubt on steroids.  According to Researchers Joan Harvey and Cynthia Katz, there are three core characteristics of imposter syndrome: 1. The belief that you have fooled other people 2. Fear of being exposed 3. The inability to attribute your achievement to internal qualities such as ability, intelligence, or skill.  Instead, you think you got to your position through luck and do not deserve any of your previous accomplishments, you are just living this big fat lie.  Nervousness and some stage fright before big events are different than the perennial feeling of not earning any of your successes.

When we explore the negative impacts of imposter syndrome, we can work towards managing this feeling more effectively.  Here are some of the most detrimental effects:

1. Decreased satisfaction with work.  While some self-doubt can keep us on our toes, push us to take chances, and check our egos as we are reminded of our fallibility, too much of it can diminish our ability to find satisfaction at work.  If we are always feeling an excess of anxiety with every task we do, it will be hard to derive joy.  Even when we have an accomplishment, new situations arise and continue to be proving grounds.  It can also lead to increased workaholism.  If we are driven by this fear of failure and feelings of not possessing the capabilities, we will work harder, overdo things, and burnout.

2. Diminished happiness.  Imposter syndrome does not only hurt our career, but also our health, well-being, and personal relationships.  When work dominates, we neglect our self-care and our connections with others.  Resentment grows and dissatisfaction becomes the pervasive norm. 

3. Prevents presence.  If achieving presence requires us to be in tune with our truest feelings, beliefs, abilities, values, then how can we be ourselves in the moment, if we feel like a fraud?  Imposter syndrome causes us to overthink and second-guess, and it makes us over-fixate on how others are judging us.  Our thoughts are scattered and we find ourselves mentally reviewing our previous few steps and what our rewrite would look like.  This self-monitoring can prevent us from listening to others because we are distracted by our inner monologue, which makes it more challenging to build trust and connections for the highest quality relationships.

4. Keeps us playing small. A chronic sense of unworthiness can breed misery and crush our motivation, thereby holding us back from pursuing our ambitions. We reject ourselves before even granting a chance to succeed. We start to question our personality and wonder if we are even cut out for this job. That leads us to only take on tasks that we know we can succeed in and we do not put ourselves in positions of feeling stretched so our growth potential is heavily capped.

While imposter syndrome is a normal feeling, there are things we can do so it does not unleash a torrent of adverse effects on us and get in the way of our goals and dreams. The next blogs will jump into how imposter syndrome shows up and ways we can fight against it.

Quote of the day: "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant."  -Cary Grant

Q: In what areas of your life do you experience imposter syndrome?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 2/3 will focus on the origins and manifestations of imposture syndrome]

As a Leadership Coach, I partner with others to shatter their limiting beliefs and build confidence, contact me to learn more.

The untold damage of Imposter Syndrome

For Quality Sleep, Make Better Daytime Decisions (sleep series 3/4)

Getting good quality sleep does not just happen when your head hits the pillow, but from the moment you wake up.  Our behavior throughout the day and the choices we make, especially in the last few hours of our day can significantly impact our ability to get great rest.

Here are some practical things to do during the day to improve your sleep:

1. Control Stimulants.  As a general rule, it is best to cut off caffeine by 2 pm. Try to give yourself at least eight caffeine-free hours before bedtime. Nightly alcohol also disrupts your sleep quality.  Some people may believe a couple of glasses of wine can help them fall asleep quickly, which may be true, but the problem is that sleep hinders the REM stage, which is the most restorative.  That’s why even when getting many hours of sleep after a night of drinking, we wake up exhausted because alcohol has gotten in the way. The rule is if we are going to have a drink, make it at least three hours before bed; for two drinks, at least four hours before sleep.

2. Get Sunlight Exposure. The more daylight you soak up, the happier and the more alert you will be, which will allow you to sleep better at night since some of that energy has been expended earlier.  Even if you may not be able to get outside, sitting near a window can also help.  Studies show that on average, employees whose offices have windows get 46 min more sleep every night.

3. Exercise. Even as little as 10 minutes of exercise per day can dramatically improve the quality and consistency of your sleep. For one thing, it is because movement tires the body, which increases the chances that you’ll be sleepy when it is time for rest. Sleep specialist Matthew Walker recommends visiting the gym after work rather than before because it is a great way to reduce stress after a day at the office.  The movement helps burn off any tension, which enables you to wind down more easily and relax when you get to bed. Taking more walks can help boost your energy so the next time you need to make a phone call or have a meeting, why not combine it with walking?

4. Eat Well. The food we consume throughout the day has a surprisingly strong impact on our sleep. In particular, eating saturated fats and sugar is associated with a harder time falling asleep. Fat requires the body to work overtime, which makes it more difficult for us to feel comfortable. Regularly eating a cheeseburger and french fries – especially for dinner – causes your sleep quality to suffer, and frequent sugar intake raises energy arousal. Accordingly to an Australian study, spicy food may also disrupt your sleep.  In addition to the higher fat levels, it can increase your internal body temperature, which needs to lower for you to have restful sleep. If you eat these foods too close to bedtime, your body expends energy in digestion rather than helping your brain fall asleep. Many studies would advise not eating at least 3 hours before bed.

The choices you make during the day can have a major impact on the quality of sleep you have. When you are eating healthy, exercising, getting appropriate sunlight, and avoiding stimulates like caffeine or alcohol late in the day, you are creating the conditions for the best sleep of your life.

Quote of the day: “Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night.” ― Charles Fisher

Q: What are some productive daytime activities that help you sleep better at night?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear!

The next blog in this sleep series 4/4 will focus on optimizing your nighttime routine.

Are you inspired by the way you lead yourself? As a Leadership Coach, I partner with people to grow their leadership ability so they can live their best life and develop others more effectively. Contact me to learn more.

Make healthy eating choices for better sleep

Tips for Being a Super Sleeper (Sleep Series 2/4)

When was the last time you thought about the quality of your sleep? Given that it is one of the most important factors that can greatly impact our health, happiness, productivity, and relationships, it seems like it would be pivotal to invest our time to be super sleepers.

The National Sleep Foundation and the Center for Disease Control recommend 7-9 hours. Because every person is different, how much sleep you need depends on your genetics and how you are spending your waking hours. Some people may believe they fall into the category of needing only a few hours of sleep, but their underslept brain may be tricking them.  Arianna Huffington, Author of the Sleep Revolution notes, “Unless you have a genetic mutation and can function on three to four hours of sleep which is 1.5% of the population, the rest of us need 8-9 hours to have fully restorative sleep.”

If you are not sure how many hours you need to feel refreshed, you can run an experiment over a holiday or long weekend to find out.  Allow yourself to wake up whenever you want without setting an alarm. Needless to say, if you are backed up on sleep, the first night of doing this will not tell you much because you will be making up for lost sleep. But after one to two nights, you will start noticing how many hours you are getting when you wake up naturally. 

Why Are We Sleep Deprived?  Here Are Some Common Culprits:

1. Incompatible work schedules. Your work schedule may not be conducive to your natural tendencies. You may be a night owl who can do your best work in the evenings but those creative insights sparked at midnight will take a toll on your job when you have to report to the office at 9:00 am or even earlier.

2. Technology disruptions. Researchers have known for years that the blue-ish light that smartphone screens emit can make it harder to fall asleep.  A new study from Deloitte found that one-third of adults check their phones if they wake up in the middle of the night, as do nearly half of those under the age of 35. This smartphone addiction is impacting our ability to fall asleep and to remain so.

3. Coffee consumption. Caffeine is a stimulant that raises alertness and blocks our bodies from getting tired. What most people may not realize is that coffee has a half-life of 5-6 hours, meaning that if you drink a cup of coffee at 6 pm, 50% of that caffeine will still be in your system at 11 pm. So while your body may be tired later in the day, your mind is still racing, preventing you from winding down.

Now that we laid out key sleep disruptors, let’s turn our attention to tips for getting the best sleep of your life:

1. Minimize technology. Curtail technology use about an hour before bed; if you must consume, read a book.  To avoid distractions, use the iPhone bedtime app or an equivalent.   By setting an alarm for when you want to fall asleep, the “do not disturb” function switches on, and your phone will not continuously lure you with dings and vibrations.

2. Set the right temperature.  Being a little chilly will help you fall asleep more easily.  The ideal temperature is around 68 degrees but adjust according to personal preference. 

3. Control the light.  Light tells our brain it is time to wake up so keeping them dimmed leading up to bedtime can help. When you are ready to sleep, make your room as dark as possible.  You can even cover up any blinking lights from your laptop, cable box, or tv with stickers called lightdims.

4. Be Consistent with your sleep routine. A mistake that a lot of us make is that we stay up late on Friday and Saturday, and sleep later the following mornings. That leads to a phenomenon that psychologists call “social jet lag” because it’s what happens when our social life throws off our bodily rhythms. Sleeping in on the weekends after a late night with friends or binge-watching Netflix is what causes Sunday night insomnia. Going to bed and waking up roughly the same time will prime your body for nighty rest.

5. Create a sleep runway. If you are aiming to sleep at 10:00 pm, you should create a sleep runway of at least 10-20 minutes, depending on how long it takes you to fall asleep after you close your eyes.  Most people falsely assume that if they are in bed at 10 and up at 6, they have met their quota, but being in bed is not the same as being asleep.

Sleep deprivation is a pervasive problem and if left unaddressed, it can have devastating consequences. Creating the ideal conditions can help you get the best sleep of your life and have you perform at your best in all your important arenas.

Quote of the day: “Tired minds don’t plan well.  Sleep first, plan later.”  -Walter Reisch

Q: When you are having trouble sleeping, what is usually the main reason?  What trick do you use to help you fall asleep? Comment and share below; we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this sleep series 3/4 will focus on making better daytime decisions for sounder sleep.

Are you inspired by the way you lead yourself? As a Leadership Coach, I partner with people to grow their leadership ability so they can live their best life and develop others more effectively. Contact me to learn more.

How do your habits contribute to your lack of sleep?

It’s All About A Team-First Mentality (Team Series 3/10)

In today’s driven society, it is not uncommon for companies to have teams filled with talented, ambitious, opinionated people with large egos who want to advance in their careers.

The temptation for people to stand out from the crowd for recognition, promotion, bonuses, and office size looms ever large.  Internal competition creeps in and those company perks become ways to keep score.  The word team, unfortunately, exists in name, but not in practice because it becomes a collection of rivals who want to pursue individual achievement over group success.  If unchecked, these intergroup conflicts can have adverse rippling effects. 

So, how do you encourage your members to act as a team?  In short, form a community.  Phil Jackson said, “Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We.”  Do not just think about your team as a compilation of members who are working towards completing a job.  Instead, see them as much more -  a community that supports each other to be better than they think they can be as they march towards a common goal that they also personally care about.  Teams that act as communities do not have to be best friends and spend all their time together, but they have to know how to integrate their interests and put aside differences. 

The benefits of a community cannot be ignored.  Those who feel like they are part of a supportive network at work are more engaged, more productive, and are less likely to experience burnout.  The simple fact is that teams of people who subordinate individual agendas will always outperform teams that do not. 

Here are some ways you can build community:

1. Understand your role as contributing to the greater good.  Numerous examples can be found in sports.  Shane Battier is known as a no-stats All-Star in basketball, he never scored a lot of points or got a lot of rebounds, but he made his teammates more effective and the opposing team less so.  His team was more likely to win with him in the game and was part of two NBA championships. He knew exactly what his role was, which was not to be the best small forward in the league by merely chasing stats but to do whatever he had to do to be the best for his team, even if it was in a set-up role that did not allow him to accumulate impressive stats.   

Similarly, in 2015, co-captain Abby Wambach, considered to be one of the most successful soccer players -  2x gold medalist and all-time top goal scorer of 184 - spent most of the World Cup on the bench.  She was called upon as a substitute only in the late stages of some games.  She shared how she did not let that discourage her, she always found ways to lead from the sidelines and champion her teammates because that is what was called for.  To win a game, it requires a coordinated effort on and off the field and she always found ways to uniquely contribute wherever she was standing.

2. Share credit.  This is a vital part of being on a team.  Author A.J. Jacobs shared a story about Jonas Salk taking sole credit for coming up with a polio vaccine and when given a chance, did not acknowledge any of his collaborators and predecessors who helped along the way.  Psychologists call this failure to recognize and thank collaboratives the responsibility or self-serving bias.  It is a pitfall that we should all avoid since it causes a lot of pain and resentment among other people.  So, how do you fight against the natural tendency of each member to exaggerate his/her contribution relative to the influence of other teammates?  Choose to elevate and reward cooperation, as well as individual achievement. Encouraging teammates to help each other thrive should garner just as much, if not more recognition. When you consistently catch people doing great things like mentoring others or pitching in on teammates’ projects, that should be valued and rewarded. This gesture clearly communicates the emphasis your culture places on teamwork.

Author and Startup Investor Fran Hauser offers some easy strategies to share credit for team success and to provide appreciation.  When you have a team win, you can do the following, depending on what you think the recipient would most enjoy:

·      Send an email to that person’s boss and CC your coworker.

·      Call out a coworker’s “good job” at a meeting - have the person stand up while everybody else claps.

·      Take a colleague out to lunch to celebrate teaming up on a job well done.

·      Treat a colleague to a small gift card at their favorite store for helping you.

·      Send the person a morning text letting them know you got them a Starbucks coffee if you know they get a latte every morning.

·      Write a handwritten note mentioning their specific contributions that made the team successful.

If a supervisor accidentally credits you with a good idea, you can interject to set the record straight by letting your boss know it was your coworker who came up with that idea.  If somebody has told you an idea in private and you are passing it along in front of a crowd, be sure to mention the source and your information. When you spread the credit, you pass along the love, trust, and pride in the team

3. Contribute as a problem-solver.  Being a part of a community involves having a collective mindset.  Going to a meeting and pitching in on solving a problem, even if it does not relate to you directly because you are invested in the group’s outcome.  It is also about taking ownership of the group’s success.  When you complain, think about it as if you are griping against yourself so instead of spreading negativity, what are 1-2 possible solutions you can offer that goes along with your constructive critique?

While you may not get the chance to choose your colleagues, you can always take steps to improve the dynamic. Simple gestures about asking about people’s days, sending an email letting them know you appreciate their work, and genuinely listening to others can make all the difference in feeling like a community.

“Ego is the ultimate killer on a team,” said Management Guru Patrick Lencioni.  One way to subdue the dominance of the ego is to encourage people to feel like they belong to a community where they enjoy numerous collective benefits when operating together more than they can ever experience individually.

Quote of the day: “Great things in business are never done by one person; they are done by a team of people.” — Steve Jobs

Question of the day:  How do you like experiencing a sense of belonging?  Comment and share with us, we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this team series 4/10 will explore the importance of healthy conflict.

As a Leadership Development & Executive Coach, I work with teams to build community for peak performance. Contact me to learn more.

What can you build with a team-first mentality?