Angie Morgan's Blog, page 32

Create Your Own Leadership Laboratory

There is little debate over the value of leadership. We may not all become perfect leaders, but we can all demonstrate accountability, credibility, confidence, decisiveness, and emotional resolve. Those behaviors enable us to influence and inspire people around us.

 

By developing self-awareness around our current behavior, we can all learn to demonstrate more of those behaviors. Consider running a 1-day “Leadership Laboratory” by planning and conducting thoughtful leadership experiments and noticing the impact that they have. Try the following: 

Demonstrate service-based leadership. Do something unexpected for someone, like:

Bring your colleague a cup of coffee in the morning.
Be extra kind to a service provider, such as a waitress or the UPS deliveryman.
Ask a more junior employee how things are working out for them at the office (and stick around to hear their answer).
Spend a whole day really listening to others. Make an effort to withhold your thoughts and comments and just focus on the other person.




Take steps to achieve progress. Take action on a decision that you have been meaning to make (but have been procrastinating on), such as updating your resume, seeking out a mentor, or tackling a “non-urgent, but important” priority.


Demonstrate greater accountability. Work to eliminate excuses from your dialogue and pay attention to when blame enters into a conversation. When a problem pops up – just say “I’m on it!” and solve it like it is yours alone to solve.


Expand your self-awareness. Spend time reflecting on your strengths as a leader and see how you have or have not been leveraging them. If you have a sense of humor, is it coming with you to work each day?


Add value. Speak up at a meeting and share your perspective or go above and beyond to ensure others have what they need to be successful.


Create your own success. Create 90-minutes of white space in your day when you can put some strategic thought into your goals. Challenge yourself with this question: Are you really on the path that you want to be? If not, what are you prepared to do to change it?

You’ll notice that none of the actions listed above require you to overhaul your personality or fundamentally change who you are to be a leader. Being a leader is about influencing outcomes and inspiring others. Leadership qualities are small behaviors that can have profound impact on your success, as well as the success of your team members. 

 

When you invest time into your leadership development, and take action, great things will happen … here is your opportunity to see immediately what positive impact a little leadership can bring!

Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter to let us know how your leadership lab went!

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Why Grit is Critical for Reaching Your Goals

At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable. – Christopher Reeve

What dreams do you want to achieve? What goals do you intend to pursue?

Whatever your answers to these questions, there is one critical trait that you need to depend on: grit.

Grit isn’t a word that we hear every day, yet it is an essential quality for goal accomplishment. People who have grit are able to cultivate hardiness when confronted with challenge and agility when circumstances change. It’s no surprise that the presence of grit determines if West Point cadets are retained after their first year, or who makes it to the stage in the National Spelling Bee Championship.

Grit isn’t a static quality. It can be developed in all of us. Here are a few things you can do:

Identify goals that you are passionate about achieving. Passion helps individuals heighten and sustain their efforts when the going gets tough.


Get as specific as possible with your goals. What is it that you want and when is it that you want it? Then, what are milestones you can cross to reassure yourself that you are on the right path?


Choose one big goal. Don’t tempt fate: Goal accomplishment can be very challenging because it requires us to start new habits. Don’t try to achieve five.


Decide what behaviors you would like to introduce, not ones that you would like to stop. It’s much easier to develop new habits than it is to halt old ones.


Grab an accountability partner. Share your goal with someone and ask them what they can do to support you. Remind them that it is your job to check in with them to update them on where you are and how you are doing.

Many of us approach the beginning of each year with great dreams and goals. Whether the changes you want to make are professional or personal, consider how grit can help you reach your goals.

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Continuing to Support Our Veterans in the Workplace

This article is adapted from the newest piece written by Lead Star Founder, Angie Morgan, recently published in Newsweek. 

Our society doesn’t know how to talk with our Veterans. We say, “Thank you for your service,” usually because we don’t know what else to say. But our appreciation is not enough for the Veterans who are struggling to transition to a successful life after the military.

I drew this conclusion a few weeks ago after a friend forwarded me the resume of a young woman. “She’s a Marine. You’re a Marine. Maybe you can help her find an opportunity in our community?”

I opened her resume only to discover a poorly formatted document that pieced together several minimum wage jobs over the past few years. Why wasn’t her military service listed on page one? I flipped to page two, and discovered that before her brief tenure as a “Sandwich Artist,” she had an impressive four years of service performing a role of mechanic and crew chief on Marine One, the President’s helicopter.

I was stunned. She – one of the very few Marines ever to say that they are responsible for the safety and security of the President of the United States – left the military to work at a minimum wage hourly job? I knew there had to be more to the story, so I called her immediately.

After a quick “Hey, Marine,” the Corps’ secret handshake for building rapport, I cut to the case. What’s going on?

Continue Reading here 

 

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The Skill of Storytelling Featuring Doug Stanton

A good story motivates, moves, and calls to action. Storytelling, in fact, is a powerful business skill. Whereas facts and data are easily forgotten, a story captures the imagination and is remembered for years to come.

On the most recent episode of Leadership Conversations, I was privileged to sit down with New York Times Bestselling author Doug Stanton to hear how he weaves together his stories into expertly crafted historical nonfiction works. It’s both an art and a science, involving inspiration and structure. He shared a few ways to incorporate storytelling skills into your leadership practice:

Listen with a nonjudgmental ear: Listening isn’t a skill that is often taught in training or courses, but there is a big difference between listening and hearing. Active listeners are engaged in the conversation and seeking to hear the meaning behind the message.


Ask questions: Asking questions, even ones that sound “dumb,” allows you to learn. It creates a sense of trust when you demonstrate curiosity and are upfront about the gaps in your knowledge.


Build trusting relationships: Building relationships and sharing ideas is an essential part of service-based leadership. When you are open to new perspectives, it allows others to be more forthcoming, engaged, and invested in mutual goals.


Be articulate. As a leader, you define a vision. You must then inspire people to act in ways that may, at first, seem unfamiliar or unnatural to them on the journey to that vision.

So, armed with these skills, start telling stories. Too often, leaders act as information brokers. We take in information, then process, translate, add to, and subtract from that information. Use stories to celebrate and illustrate heroes, hope, struggle, accomplishment, and perseverance.

To read more from Doug Stanton, his compelling books include The Odyssey of Echo Company and In Harm’s Way. Be sure to also check out the upcoming film release of 12 Strong, based on his book Horse Soldiers.

Listen to the podcast here 

 

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A Subtle Shift… and a Whole New World

“Leadership and learning are indispensible to each other.”

– John F Kennedy

“I didn’t realize that.”

 

I found myself repeating this phrase while touring the Imperial War Museum in London while on vacation with my family.

 

While reading charts and reviewing artifacts on WWI and WWII history, I was surprised by how my understanding of these world events was shaped by being American and serving in the Marines. These exhibits were presenting new information that complemented my studies. It was enlightening!

 

Later that evening, I spent time reflecting on how easy it is to get fixated on my own perspective, and how just a subtle shift could open my eyes to a whole new realm of learning.

 

If you’re like me, maybe you’ve found yourself getting comfortable in your own perspective from time to time. This can show up as a lack of curiosity, a disinterest in new knowledge, or even an overstatement of your awareness – such as “I know that already.” The reality is that our learning is never complete.

 

When we’re not stretching our perspective and growing our knowledge base, we become complacent and dull. We even risk being ignorant and irrelevant.

 

To stay fresh and learn continuously, we can all commit to actions that help us enhance our perspective, and – quite possibly – open our mind:

Understand the work of your colleagues. It’s quite easy to become siloed at work, yet when you take the time to learn other business functions you begin to see how the pieces of the puzzle work together.


Read beyond business literature. Some of the greatest lessons in life are buried in fiction.


Watch a different news channel. Isn’t it funny how cable news can be an echo chamber? Spend a week watching a different channel to gain a broader perspective on how news events are interpreted.


Talk to someone who you disagree with. Listen with an open mind and seek to understand (not to be understood).


Go to a museum … especially one you’re not drawn to. If you don’t “get” art, spend a few hours trying to “get it.” Often our lack of understanding has nothing to do with our intellectual ability and more to do with our inability to be curious and appreciative.


Use the iBooks or Kindle app on your phone to read while you wait. Personally, I’ve switched from “Facebooking” to reading and I’ve found my downtime more inspired.

As leaders, learning can happen anytime, anyplace, and anywhere. We don’t have to wait for the right moments – we can seek them out each day. 

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Lessons in Decision Making from the Yellow Birds

My youngest son, Gard, just started t-ball. On the day of his first game, the coach gathered his crew together to pass out bright yellow jerseys and asked the kids what they wanted to name their team. After looking at the jerseys, he made a recommendation: “How about the Yellow Jackets?” The kids were quiet for a few seconds, then a young voice proposed an alternative. “Can we be the Yellow Birds?”The coach paused for a second before saying, “Umm, okay. What do we all think about the Yellow Birds?” No one said a thing. A few minutes later, the Yellow Birds took the field.

My oldest son, Judge, observed the whole process. He, of course, had better ideas for team names, like Yellow Zombies, or Yellow Yetis. But I reassured Judge that Yellow Birds was perfect – it’s refreshingly innocent. Besides, this was a low-stakes decision. The team name of a Traverse City Little League group wasn’t going to make or break their season.

I’ll offer, though, that the decision-making process employed by the Yellow Birds, while great for t-ball, is one I’ve also observed in business environments where it isn’t as effective. It shows up in the type of process where:

The executive makes a recommendation, and someone proposes an alternative that seems both surprising and out of context … yet, that’s the decision the group enacts upon because no one wants to ruffle feathers (pun intended).


The group on the receiving end of the choice is hesitant to provide input or criticism because they don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, so they go along to get along.


Others outside of the group taunt the decision-makers for the “perceived” less-than-best choice (and propose alternatives that they would have selected had they had a seat at the table).

As leaders, one of the most important things we do is make decisions. While not every decision we make requires collaboration, here are a few things to keep in mind for the ones that do:

Invite multiple opinions to the dialogue – encourage the quieter voices, too, to share their perspective. If you’re not hearing enough ideas, ask people if they need more time to consider alternatives.


Encourage respectful debate before a decision is made, which will help get all the ideas out there before a choice is settled on.


Don’t be defensive of your idea – and encourage others to divorce themselves emotionally from their recommendation. Collaboration isn’t about who’s right or wrong – it’s about making the best call.


When a decision is made, own it –and encourage others to own it, too (the opportunity for dissent is during debate – after a call is made, it needs to be supported).

And, a note about ownership – own your choices with pride, even if they’re not the ones you would have made and/or were difficult to make. Pride is contagious.

Case in point: as I sat in the stands for one of the last Yellow Bird’s games of the season, I watched how well the coach owned his team name – his pride inspired team pride. These weren’t the reluctant Yellow Birds. These were the fierce, ferocious Yellow Birds – chests puffed, heads held high. Leaders can do wonders when they honor their choices with a positive example that can be followed easily by others.






























We have a whole chapter in SPARK related to decision-making – and how to take action on ideas that matter to you most. Curious? Learn more by visiting www.sparkslead.us. 

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America – The Beautiful

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. – John F. Kennedy

I’ve been to more spaghetti dinners, potlucks, and BBQ’s in these past few months than I can count! As I support my husband’s campaign for Congress, I’ve been traveling throughout Michigan meeting Americans, talking about their challenges, and understanding their hopes for their future. It’s been inspiring.

One thing I love most about these conversations is how passionate Americans are about America. We love our country, which is why when we disagree it can get ugly. Recently, my husband sent a note to prospective supporters and received a not so supportive reply. (That’s putting it lightly!) The note didn’t offend us. It reminded us that not everyone shares our vision, and that’s okay. That’s what makes America beautiful. 

 

We’re a nation of fighters. As hard as we fought for our independence, there were more fights to follow to ensure our values weren’t compromised, and our way of life wasn’t infringed upon. In fact, many would say we’re still fighting. We are, to quote a line from the hit musical Hamilton, a nation comprised of citizens who are “Young, scrappy, and hungry.” Not all conflict is bad. In fact, some of the best ideas and outcomes our nation has experienced were the result of long, hard battles that tested our nation’s mettle and tried our collective soul.

 

On this 4th of July, though, let’s put down the gloves. Fighting is exhausting – we all need a break. We all have been observing this hostile division going on in the political sphere, pitting ideology versus ideology, and often neighbor versus neighbor. Let’s all disengage to celebrate our patriotism and pride. Let’s pause to honor and respect those who’ve gone before us to ensure our freedoms remain intact. Let’s go to parades and – when the flag passes – urge others to stand. Sure, wear red, white and blue, and watch the fireworks, too. Let’s all celebrate that we live in a country where we can have these intense debates. 

 

Our Founding Fathers got so many things right – let’s do right by them through our expression of public spirit and enthusiasm around this incredible, enduring democracy. Happy 4th of July.

 

Angie and her family will be spending their 4th of July at both the Frankfort and Beulah, Michigan parades. If you see her, wave – she’s passing out candy and has quite the throwing arm!!   

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Collaborate or Die

Each year our firm receives cold calls from businesses around the globe requesting subject-specific training and development programs. We keep tabs, too, to see if there are trends as far as development needs. Past themes include EQ (Emotional Intelligence), change management, mindfulness and resiliency. This year, though, the trend is clear: Collaboration.

Businesses demand their leaders work across boundaries, share ideas, and communicate effectively to arrive at the best decisions. Clearly, from the inbounds we’ve been receiving, collaboration doesn’t happen naturally. The greatest barrier to it, though, is something very difficult to acquire, and impossible to manufacture – time.

 

This was apparent in a course I delivered recently on Design Thinking (DT), where the instruction was focused on how to conduct an effective brainstorm session, improve thinking quality, and implement a process for creative problem solving. Important stuff, right? I’d argue the most important “stuff” that businesses have to spend time on. The group I was working with valued the concept, understood the material, yet kept pushing back on how they were going to use DT concepts, let alone the process, because it took too much time.    

 

This experience made me wonder: What is the consequence when professionals don’t feel they have the time to bring their best thinking to the table, or work with their colleagues to share ideas? My immediate answer was that businesses solve the wrong problems, waste resources by working in silos, and run the risk of being tactical … not strategic. As Sun Tzu said:

Strategy  without tactics is the slowest route to victory.

Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

If this sounds like you, that you’re too busy to collaborate, then let me be the one to sound the alarm. 

We work in a knowledge economy, where the best ideas aren’t incubated by one lone leader trapped in an ivory tower. In this world, we need the best minds engaged in thinking work. Sure, we need doers, too. Yet for organizations to thrive, we can’t prioritize doing over thinking. 

 

As a leader, you have two responsibilities to address this collaboration challenge organizations encounter. First, make the time to develop your critical thinking skills. Start saying “no” to busy work, and “yes” to behaviors like the following that help you improve your thinking quality:

Read. Not just articles, but books – literature. Search for challenging works that expand your mind.


Write. Take time to capture your thoughts. When you write creatively, you force yourself to think, and the result can be powerful and clarifying.


Walk. Aha ideas happen during periods of reflection. Walking improves creative output.


Plan White Space into Your Calendar. You’re not a machine. You can’t have back-to-back meetings and expect to be creative (let alone effective). Carve space into your calendar when you can read, think, and write.

All these activities will ensure that when there’s a thinking challenge in your environment, which there always is, you’ll be prepared to collaborate. 

 

The second thing you must do, though, to improve collaboration is to force it. Collaboration will not happen on its own. It takes leadership to initiate and inspire dialogue, as well as hold people accountable to it. So when you’re confronted by a challenge where you could use additional brainpower, don’t be shy – request a meeting. Think about the diverse minds around you who can help you solve the problem and invite them to the table.

 

Looking for a fun yet insightful team collaboration activity? Start a SPARK Book Study with several of your colleagues. Here’s the simple to use guide to get you up and running!

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How to be Irreplaceable

If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. – Bruce Lee

“This guy is irreplaceable,” my client, an HR Leader, shared with me prior to a conversation I was going to have with one of the organization’s IT executives.

I love it when people are described as “irreplaceable.” It reminds me of a quote my mentor once shared, “the graveyard is full of irreplaceable people.” So, naturally, I’m a little skeptical to hear business leaders put their employees on unreasonably high pedestals, but when I met this guy I understood what she met. The organization would be hard pressed to find someone to fill his shoes.

Within the first five minutes, it was clear he indexed high on emotional intelligence, just by the way he engaged in conversation. He shared his background, which was pretty diverse and highlighted that he never shied away from experiences. When he described the projects he was working on, I was impressed by the innovation. He then started talking about the organizations he was affiliated with, as well as the conferences he planned on attending. This gentleman clearly had put a lot of thought into his career development.

After our meeting, I circled back with the HR Leader and agreed with her assessment – he was a very valuable employee. She then proceeded to tell me all the steps she and her team were taking to retain him.

When our conversation was over, I thought about how many professionals I knew who would be thrilled if their company put this level of attention into retaining them. I then thought about the behaviors any professional, at any employment level, could demonstrate to be seen as highly valuable to their employer. Here are 5 behaviors to make yourself “irreplaceable” in your organization:

1. Have a Positive Attitude. There are plenty of talented, intelligent professionals who are held back by their inability either to work well with others or set an inspiring example through their outlook and attitude. A fool-proof way to ensure a spot on any team is to be positive, while ensuring language and actions are aligned with the organization’s culture.

2. Understand How Your Organization Makes Money. To be irreplaceable, you have to understand how your business makes money and figure out how your role connects to results. Over time, learn how you can take initiative to either grow revenue or save on costs. If you can impact your businesses’ bottom line, you’re highly valuable.

3. Be Open to Experience. Curiosity and an open mind will get you pretty far in life – throughout your career, you collect experiences, which can be invaluable to both you and your employer. Going back to the IT Executive, he didn’t climb a career ladder per se – he was on the career jungle gym, which meant that he had a breadth of experiences he could pull from to inform his perspective. You can’t fake experience; you have to be open to it and grow from it. Your experience is your job security, so be intentional about developing it.

4. Lead Your Career. While developing your career, grow your network and expand your knowledge. You’ll discover that relationships become increasingly more important as your career matures, so make a point to build rapport with those inside and outside of your industry. Likewise, ensure that along the way you’re developing skills and knowledge so you’re able to be in a position to innovate.

5. Initiate and Execute. You will always be valuable if you’re able to follow through on the ideas you propose. Action is key. I can’t stress this enough. I’ve facilitated too many meetings with HR representatives who differentiate high potentials simply by their ability to get “stuff” done.

While this list is not exhaustive, it’ll get you on the right path. It’s important to note, too, that these are behaviors – not talents that you either are or aren’t born with. If you’re seeking to either be that sought-after talent, or a job-secure employee, consider how you can build these behaviors into your work routine.








Looking for more ideas on how to be a SPARK in your organization? Check out the SPARK End of Chapter Resources here!

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How to Spark Leadership

 

When Sparks are ignited, their actions can directly shape the future. Watch as SPARK author Angie Morgan shares the importance of service-based leadership at every level in an organization by telling a personal story from her time in the Marine Corps.

Service-based leadership is a concept that helps prioritize the needs of others. When others feel like their needs are being taken care of, they are freer and more independent to contribute and act on behalf of the team.

Service-based leadership is simple, inspired, and proven. It’s also a process, not an event. Simple actions, demonstrated consistently over a period of time, yield results.

Looking for more resources on how to engage your team? Check out Angie’s article with the Center for Creative Leadership here!

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