Bill Treasurer's Blog, page 7

Being Courageous

We often think of courage as something that only a select few possess. We see it as a heroic trait, reserved for those who are willing to risk their lives for others. However, courage is not something that is limited to a certain group of people. It is something that we all have the potential to embody.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the ability to act in spite of it. It is the willingness to face our fears and take risks, even when we don’t know what the outcome will be. Courage is not always about doing something big or flashy. Sometimes, it’s about the small things we do every day. Like standing up for what we believe in, even when it’s unpopular. You can personify courage in your daily life and in your leadership.

Who is Courageous?

Some of the most popular books of all time have been written about courage.

Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage, in which he profiled senators and congressmen who courageously moved against the tide of popular opinion. Steven Crane penned one of the most influential and bestselling works in American literature, the classic Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage. In 2007, Senator John McCain co-authored Why Courage Matters, which became a New York Times bestseller.

From every vantage point, be it political courage, military courage, moral courage, or physical courage (for example, daredevilry), courage is often defined as an extraordinary feat, an action taken while enduring exceptional hardship or challenge. To be thought of as “courageous,” we seemingly have to defy our very natures. That is, the deeply rooted impulse toward self-preservation. Courage, as we have been endlessly told, is the rare occurrence, the exception to the rule, the outlier.

Courage Within

If we judge acts of courage solely against a standard of exceptionality, we risk moving courage too far beyond our reach. By reserving courage only for war heroes, political mavericks, or people of perfect moral character, it becomes inaccessible to all of us who aren’t these things. When the term “courage” is limited only to the heroes among us, we begin to abdicate our own responsibility to be more courageous.

By inflating courage to a standard so high that it can only be attained by an exceptional few, we suck the air out of our own space to be courageous. Often to the point of extinguishing the brave little pilot lights that flicker in our souls waiting to ignite. We begin to deify our heroes, making us small and them uncomfortable. We start to think, I am not like them. Which leads us to, I am no hero. Which concludes with, I am not courageous.

When we avoid acting courageously, it is not just because we are afraid. It is because of how uncomfortable acting with courage requires us to be.

It may well be that there are two varieties of courage—one for people who have done extraordinary things, like walking on the moon, and one for those of us right down here on Earth. The reality is that few people will ever shoot a gun at an enemy or use the bully pulpit to persuade the populace or take a rocket to the moon. But all people, personally and professionally, will face a foe, suffer injustice, and face uphill challenges. The first kind of courage is admired for its exceptionality. The second kind occurs more regularly and can be thought of as everyday courage. Rather than focus on the rare and nearly unattainable kind of courage, focus on everyday courage so as to make it more accessible, understandable, and attractive. Courage is not just for heroes anymore.

What is Courage?

Courage is often defined as acting despite being afraid. The essential, and perhaps counterintuitive, element of this definition is that it is not the absence of fear. In other words, courage is not fearless. In fact, it is the opposite. Courage is fearful. It is precisely those times when your knees are shaking, when your voice is unsteady, and when your stomach is teeming with rioting butterflies that you are being courageous . . . provided, of course, that you are moving through your fear.

While it is common to include fear in the definition of courage, the definition needs to include another element too: discomfort. Acts of courage are acts of discomfort. Were they not, more people would be courageous more often. When we avoid acting courageously, it is not just because we are afraid. It is because of how uncomfortable acting with courage requires us to be. Thus, it is important to factor the idea of discomfort into a well-rounded definition of courage.

Courage, whether demonstrated in an act that will live on forever or a personal challenge is something we all experience. Courage isn’t reserved for heroes or those who have changed the course of history. It’s something we’re all capable of.

This post is an excerpt from the Courageous Leadership Facilitators Guide part of the Master Courage Building Certification Program.

The post Being Courageous appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

Building Workplace Courage

Inside and outside of work, these are fearful times. Over the last few years, the world has suffered through an unusual amount of anxiety-provoking situations, including the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous wars, the toppling of governments, multiple natural disasters, and political and economic unrest. Because of this, leaders need to be mindful of the mental health of their employees and take steps to mitigate the effects of fear on their performance.

From a business perspective, leaders need to guard against fear-saturation in the workforce. Research shows that workers who are full of fear have higher instances of depression and sleep deprivation, both of which significantly hinder performance.

The Impact of Fear

Simply put, fear is bad for business. Fear makes workers clam up, restricting the flow of feedback that is so necessary for keeping leaders from making bonehead decisions. It heightens workers’ suspicions of one another, undermining the trust that interpersonal relationships need to flourish. Fear causes workers to be unduly preoccupied with safety, strangling their willingness to take risks and extend their skills. Fear lowers morale, damages relationships, erodes trust, and builds resentment. Ultimately, fear lowers confidence, standards, and profits.

Given the debilitating impacts that fear has on productivity, performance, and morale, it is striking that so many leaders still resort to stoking people’s fears to get things done. Perhaps all this fear-mongering explains why Gallup states that 79% of workers are disengaged at work and 44% say they felt stress during a majority of their work days. And this is costing businesses a lot. Lost productivity resulting from disengaged employees costs the American economy an estimated amount of  $350 billion annually. And stress is reported to rack up more than $300 billion a year due to health costs, absenteeism, and poor performance.

One way to get some of those billions back would be for leaders to focus on building workplace courage and confidence among the rank and file.

Four Steps for Building Workplace CourageJump First

If you want workers to have more initiative, take on greater responsibility, embrace change, and assert ideas, you have to do so first. As a leader, you have to be the first one to climb up and off the high dive ladders that you are asking workers to climb. You must be the one to set the behavioral example that you want others to emulate. Ask yourself, “Where am I playing it too safe at work?”

Show the Sunrise

As a leader, during fearful times especially, you need to provide hope and optimism. Here’s an overused phrase to stop using today: “What keeps me awake at night is…” Showcasing how worried you are bout the company only serves to heighten people’s anxiety. There are more effective ways of engaging and motivating people, such as inspiring them with a clear and hopeful vision for a better future. So instead of bragging about what keeps you awake at night, how about focusing on what gets you up in the morning?

Create Safety

Workers will extend themselves beyond their comfort zones to the extent that you make it safe to do so. This works in reverse too. If workers think that you will bite their head off if they disagree with you, they’ll keep their mouth shut instead of providing you with close-to-the-action insights that could inform your decision-making. Make it safe for people to disagree with you. Be sure to coach them about how to disagree with you in a way that will cause you to be open to their pushback.

Modulate Comfort

One danger that can emerge when workers experience fear over protracted periods is that they start to become comfortable with being afraid. They become comfeartable. As a leader, your job is to activate peoples’ courage to keep them from becoming disengaged and apathetic. When people are performing in a lackluster way, provide assignments that stretch and challenge them. Once achieved, let them settle into those assignments only long enough to gain confidence. When they do, it’s time to stretch them into discomfort again.

Workers who are courage-led are more committed, optimistic, loyal, and change-embracing. Why wouldn’t they be? Imagine, for example, working for a leader who was a positive role model of courageous behavior, and whose vision of the future was so bold that it actually excited you. Go a step further and imagine what the whole company might look like if all the leaders led by building peoples’ courage and reducing their fears. There would be a lot more honesty, and a lot less nail-biting. There would be a lot more personal accountability and a lot less apathy. And there would be a lot more confidence and a lot less anxiety.

The bottom line is this: Who would you rather work for, a leader who stokes your fear or a leader who filled you with courage?

Updated May 2023.

The post Building Workplace Courage appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

Creating Safety

The relationship between risk-taking and safety is one that is often overlooked in the workplace. People are more likely to take risks when they feel safe, and the consequences for doing so are forgiving. However, this doesn’t mean creating a risk-free environment. Instead, it means supporting courageous actions and creating an environment where people feel safe enough to act courageously. By creating safety, employees are more likely to feel empowered to take calculated risks and innovate in their roles, leading to a more dynamic and successful organization.

Creating Safety

People take risks relative to how safe they feel. The more forgiving the consequences, the more likely people are to extend themselves. This does not mean that getting people to be courageous means creating a risk-free environment. Rather, it means supporting their courageous actions with a reasonable amount of safety.

The safer people feel, the more risks they are likely to take. People extend themselves when the consequences for doing so are forgiving.

At work, setting up safety nets is essential for promoting courageous behavior. For example, I once worked with an executive who was asked to head up a new division in a totally new market. Accepting the job meant also accepting considerable risk. For one, he would have to move out of his leadership role in one of the company’s established and successful divisions. The new role meant that, at least for a little while, he’d have fewer employees, fewer resources, and potentially less stature in the company. It was possible that his colleagues would come to view him as leading the company’s pet experiment. Worse yet, his colleagues might view the new division as a “special project” and start suspecting that the move was little more than a kind way of putting the executive out to pasture.

Safety Nets

To off set these risks, the owner of the company created a number of safety nets. First, he supported the new undertaking with a significant infusion of capital. The money would help cover the high costs of new market entry and prevent the executive from being in the impossible position of creating something out of nothing. Second, on numerous occasions the owner personally championed the eff ort, making everyone aware that creating the new division was a top strategic priority. Finally, he promoted the executive—before the executive had formally moved into the role. This showed people, tangibly and symbolically, that not only was the executive not being put out to pasture, but he was now going to have even more clout and influence.

Safety nets offset the risks, making it easier for employees to be courageous and take calculated risks.

Such safety nets didn’t remove the risk of failure. Nor did they reduce the amount of work it would require to make the new division successful. Instead, the safety nets supported the executive by showing him the confidence the organization had in his ability to be successful. The company had his back. The safety nets made launching a new division more attractive, and less risky, to the executive. With safety nets in place, it was easier for the executive to be courageous and accept the new role.

Don’t Look Down!

Too many managers fixate on magnifying the consequences of failure instead of building safety nets that promote success. They spend far too much time reminding people about the consequences if things go wrong instead of clarifying what things will look like if they go right. They say such things as, “Whatever you do, don’t don’t screw up!” and “If you drop the ball on this, you’re toast!” Such things are akin to telling a diver not to wipe out instead of how to nail the dive.

Many people get promoted into the management ranks because of their critical-thinking skills. Particularly in industries like consulting, engineering, and technology. Such skills allow for accurate problem-solving. Critical-thinking skills also help uncover fl aws and help mitigate, minimize, and control risks. The danger occurs, however, when critical thinkers place a disproportionate amount of attention on “all the things that can go wrong.”

It is difficult, if not downright impossible, for a manager to be simultaneously critical and encouraging. By placing too much emphasis on criticism, the manager draws too much of the worker’s attention to the things that must be avoided. When all of the attention is being paid to what can go wrong, too little attention is given to how to make things go right. By focusing solely on the consequences of failure, such managers are, in effect, widening the holes in the safety nets. When managers continuously obsess about all the bad things that must be avoided, they end up injecting workers with so much anxiety that it creates an untenable amount of performance pressure, undermining their confidence and creating, ironically, an unsafe situation.

Three Ways to Build Safety Nets

If your aim is to help people to be more courageous, you’d be wise to create safety nets. And because safety (and danger) occurs on many levels, weaving tight nets requires a multifaceted approach. For some, safety comes in the form of financial stability. Such people will risk doing courageous things to the extent that those risks don’t jeopardize their job security. For others, safety has more to do with preserving their reputation. They will take risks as long as doing so won’t make them look bad. Still others find safety in belonging to a group. They will do courageous things as long as their place in the community isn’t threatened.

As a manager, you’ll find that gaining a clear understanding of each worker’s definition of safety will help you to craft each person’s net. That said, there are three specific ways of building safety nets regardless of which kind of safety is involved:

Give people permission to be courageous.Value forward-falling mistakes.Provide air cover.

Creating safety nets in the workplace is essential for promoting courageous behavior and taking calculated risks. It is important to understand that people take risks relative to how safe they feel. The more forgiving the consequences, the more likely they are to extend themselves. Managers should focus on building safety nets that promote success rather than magnifying the consequences of failure.

Create an environment where people feel safe enough to act courageously. This empowers employees to take calculated risks and innovate in their roles, leading to a more dynamic and successful organization. By promoting safety in the workplace, companies can foster a culture of innovation, growth, and success.

How do you build safety nets to support workers and promote risk-taking in your workplace?

This post is based on an excerpt from Courage Goes to Work.

The post Creating Safety appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

Getting to Acceptance

Over the course of your career, you’re bound to have a few startling setbacks. In my book, A Leadership Kick in the Ass, I explain why setbacks and failures often provide valuable lessons that can actually enhance your career. The trick is learning to accept the lessons that setbacks can provide, instead of rejecting them. What follows are some tips for doing just that.

Answer the Holy Question

Here are the four most important words in the English language: What do you want? Think of your answer in lifelong terms. What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of ideals do you want to stand for? What kind of mark do you want to leave on the world? When you see your butt kicks as events that can actually move you closer to your desires, they become less threatening.

Be Courageous

Initially, your butt kick will make you feel raw and vulnerable. It takes courage to allow yourself to feel these feelings. Courage is not found in comfort. Be courageous by embracing the discomfort your butt kick causes.

Control What You Can

Much about a butt kick is beyond our control. We don’t get to choose, for example, the timing of the kick, who kicks us, and how hard the kick is. But how we respond to the butt kick is entirely within our control.

For example, after getting fired, Pete, our IT director, could have control of writing his resume, lining up job interviews, working with an executive coach to process his kick, and more. Acceptance is easier when you have some semblance, however small, of control.

Reduce Judgment, Increase Honesty

When your butt kick comes, don’t waste time obsessing about all the ways you’ve let yourself down. Instead, get out a piece of paper and list all the ways you may have contributed to the kick. Be rigorously honest. Identify the lessons you’ll carry forward to prevent similar kicks in the future.

Surrender

Nearly all of life’s greatest lessons come down to these two words: let go. Only by releasing your tight grip on how you wanted things to be can you fully accept things as they are. Let go of the condition that existed before the kick, so you can grab hold of the better leader you can be after the butt-kick lessons take root.

Career setbacks can cause funky feelings of embarrassment and humiliation. But growth is often an outcome of painful experiences. The end result? Good and rewarding things can grow out of that pain, provide that you accept the lessons that your setbacks can provide.

Setbacks happen to everyone. How have you turned a setback into a lasting lesson that impacted your career?

Updated April 2023

The post Getting to Acceptance appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

The Pressure to Deliver Results

The pressure to deliver results is as old as leadership itself. Greek mythology tells the story of Dionysius, a Sicilian king, and Damocles, his fawning courtier. Damocles had a habit of going on and on about how fortunate the king was, how magnificent he must be to have such a blessed role, and how wonderful all that power and authority must feel. Dionysius, knowing how utterly ignorant Damocles was about the actual pressures of being king—particularly the pressure to get results—generously offered to switch roles with Damocles for a day.

Damocles eagerly accepted the offer—who wouldn’t want to be king for a day, right? Surrounded by every luxury, Damocles ascended to the throne. Almost as soon as he was seated, he noticed a sword hanging high above the throne, held at the sword’s pommel by a single hair of a horse’s tail, ready to fall and behead him at any moment. Unbeknownst to Damocles, Dionysius had arranged to have the sword suspended above the throne as a way of viscerally illustrating the invisible pressures of his job.

Relentless Performance Pressure

Before assuming his temporary kingly duties, Damocles had no idea that day in, day out, Dionysius had been working under such intense threat. The king’s job had seemed cushy and attractive, yet all the visible spoils of leadership were masking the tradeoff, in the form of relentless performance pressure that those spoils required. Soon Damocles buckled under the pressure, begging Dionysius to switch back to his courtier role.

For thousands of years, the Sword of Damocles has been used as a metaphor to signify the invisible pressure and threat that comes with being a leader in a position of power. Shakespeare extended the metaphor further, waxing poetic,

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

Chances are, you will never be a king or queen. But if you’re in a leadership role of any size or stature, because of the perilous pressure to get results, you’ll often have a foreboding sense that you, too, are working perilously under an unstable, drawn, and sharpened sword.

Managing the Pressure to Deliver Results

As long as you are in a leadership role, the pressure to deliver results will drive you and those you lead. To the extent that you get results, consistently and bountifully, your job as a leader will be secure. The opposite is also true. If you don’t get results, your leadership career is toast.

Results rarely come instantly or easily.

The key question for your bosses when evaluating you for a leadership role is: Can you make it happen? Attaining, achieving, or producing the desired outcome is the name of the game. If you can earn trust to make it happen, other leadership inadequacies will be more forgivable. You might talk too much, come off as arrogant, or have a lot of turnover on your team, but if you produce results, all those things will be largely overlooked. It shouldn’t be that way, and I wish it weren’t, but that’s how it often works.

Early on, the pressure to get results may gnaw at you, making you toss and turn at night. The pressure may spill over into arguments with your spouse or cause you to bite your nails down to nubs. It may, and probably will, cause you to take on too much yourself. None of that is constructive, and none of that will make a difference. You still have to make results happen if you want to remain in a leadership role.

Playing the Long Game

Results rarely come instantly or easily, and eking out more becomes harder as you advance in your leadership influence and rank. One company owner with whom I work is fond of reminding his employees that the company is in it for the long game and that business is a marathon, not a sprint.

As a new leader, you may sometimes feel like you have to accomplish everything as quickly as humanly possible. Working with urgency is good, but working with fury is not. Yes, over and over again, you’re going to have to deliver the goods, make real things happen, and move the organization forward through your work. Since getting results will be an ever-present part of your job, why not just make it part of your regular routine? Plan—work—finish. Repeat.

Do you feel a sense of pressure to get results? If achieving results is a marathon, how could you change your approach to ease the pressure?

This post is based on an excerpt from Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People.

The post The Pressure to Deliver Results appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

Work In Progress: Goal Setting to Improve as a Leader

You’ve got to get better. Everyone does. The torch of self-improvement should burn bright and shouldn’t flame out until very late in life. You will never ‘graduate’ as a leader. You will never be granted absolution from the obligation to improve. The people you lead deserve your continuous work on yourself so you can do a better job for them. You’re not expected to be perfect, and too much perfectionism will definitely interfere with your leadership (can you say, ‘micromanager’!), but you are expected to always be refining, shaping, strengthening, developing, advancing, and elevating yourself. You are, and always will be, a work in progress.

Setting Goals to Improve as a Leader

If you are ready to improve as a leader then the next step is setting goals. Human beings are goal-directed creatures. Goals give us a destination that we can move toward and gauge our progress as we go.

Even before we learn to set goals for ourselves, others are setting them for us. Our parents repeat words over and over, with the goal of getting us to talk, until we start saying the words ourselves. They keep pushing us along with other little goals (e.g., dress ourselves, learn manners, ride a bike, wipe our hiney) toward the greater goal of turning us into self-reliant and capable young adults who can, eventually, face the world on our own.

This goal-directed journey to self-sufficiency is aided and reinforced by relatives, teachers, sports coaches, and countless others until the whole notion of goals and advancement is wired right into our being.

To improve as a leader, start with clear goals. Goals provide a sense of momentum, confirming that each day you, and the organization, are moving forward. Progress toward goals is the clearest way of knowing that what you’re doing at work truly matters and that you’re making a true difference.

Getting Goals

You don’t want to have the goals become like New Year’s Resolutions that quickly recede in importance. The point isn’t to set goals, it’s to get them. Leadership, is about results, right? Here are some ways of ensuring that the goals you set will be achieved:

Write them down, explicitly and clearly. Include how the goal fits into broader team and organizational goals in the writeup, to link individual, team, and organizational progress.Write down the risks that could emerge if the goal isn’t attained.Set a realistic but aggressive deadline to create urgency. Also, set Momentum Milestones, and dates when you’ll evaluate the progress toward the goals.Identify measures you’ll use to gauge and track goal progress.Identify the resources, training, or support that you will need to make the goal happen. Also, identify lower priority items that you could trade off in service of making the goal happen.List the initial actions that you need to take to initiate goal momentum.

As you set goals, it’s critical that you’re not vague. ‘This year I need to communicate more…’ is a weak goal. So is ‘Show more initiative…’ and ‘Be more assertive…’ and ‘Be more detail-oriented.’ Those are intentions, not goals. And you know what they say about intentions, right? (If not, Google ‘What is the road to hell paved with?’). To ensure a high likelihood of achievement, you’ve got to operationalize the intentions. Instead of ‘communicate more’ say, “We agree you’ll lead our bi-weekly staff meetings, and immediately afterward you and I will jointly evaluate the meeting’s effectiveness.” You get the idea. The more specific the goal, the better the chances the goal will be reached.

What goals do you have to improve your leadership? If you don’t have any, then follow these steps and start today. 

This post is based on content from Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People.

Photo by 30daysreplay on Unsplash.

The post Work In Progress: Goal Setting to Improve as a Leader appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

How Will AI Impact Organizations and the Role of Leaders?

If you have a television or radio, chances are you have heard talk of AI (Artificial Intelligence). Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve workplace efficiency dramatically. It has the potential to take over dangerous or repetitive tasks and allow workers to complete jobs that require creativity or compassion.  The impact artificial intelligence is already having on organizations is significant. Here are some of the ways in which AI is expected to continue to impact organizations:

Automation: This technology can automate many tasks that were previously done by humans, such as data entry, analysis, and even decision-making. This can lead to increased efficiency, lower costs, and faster processing times. However, it can also lead to job displacement, so leaders will need to find ways to retrain and redeploy their workforce.Data Analytics: AI can analyze vast amounts of data and extract insights that humans may miss. This can lead to better decision-making and more accurate predictions. However, leaders will need to ensure that the data being used is unbiased and ethical.Customer Service: AI-powered chatbots can provide 24/7 customer service, which can improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs. However, leaders will need to ensure that the chatbots are properly programmed and can handle complex inquiries.Personalization: AI can help personalize products and services for individual customers based on their preferences and behavior. This can improve customer loyalty and increase revenue. However, leaders will need to ensure that the personalization is done in an ethical and transparent manner.Innovation: Artificial intelligence can help organizations innovate by identifying new opportunities and predicting market trends. However, leaders will need to ensure that their organization has a culture of innovation and that their employees are trained to work with AI tools.How will the Use of AI Impact Leaders?

AI can help managers and leaders make better decisions by providing them with more accurate and relevant data, insights, and recommendations.

By automating routine tasks, such as data entry and analysis, managers and leaders are free to focus on higher-level tasks that require their expertise. Through this data analysis AI can also assist managers and leaders in providing a better customer experience by analyzing customer data and providing personalized recommendations.

Looking to improve productivity in your organization? AI can assist managers and leaders in identifying areas where productivity can be improved, optimizing workflows, and streamlining processes. And while productivity is a goal that directly affects the bottom line, employee engagement and retention do as well. AI can help managers and leaders identify the needs and preferences of their employees. This allows them to create a more engaging and satisfying work environment.

In summary, AI is likely to impact managers and leaders in a range of ways, providing them with more accurate information, greater efficiencies, and new opportunities for innovation and growth.

A Shift in Leadership Style and Skills

Artificial intelligence is here, and if it isn’t at your organization yet, chances are it will be soon. Here are a few steps leaders can take to be prepared:

Understand AI: Leaders will need to have a basic understanding of AI and its potential uses in their organizations.Foster a culture of innovation: Encourage experimentation and risk-taking to discover new uses for AI.Re-skill and retrain employees: Invest in training and education to help employees adapt to working with AI tools.Ensure the ethical use of AI: Ensure that AI is used in an ethical and transparent manner. And that its impact on society is carefully considered.Manage change: Manage the transition to AI in a way that minimizes disruption to their organization and workforce.

In summary, AI will have a significant impact on organizations and the role of leaders. Leaders will need to embrace AI, invest in training and education, and ensure that its impact is carefully managed and monitored.

This post was actually written with a major assist from AI. AI does a pretty good job, right? Except for old-school writing that uses phrases like, “In summary…”

Is your organization using AI? If so, how is it impacting the leaders in your organization? 

The post How Will AI Impact Organizations and the Role of Leaders? appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

Development Works

One of the advantages of a thirty-year career is accumulating enough evidence to support your convictions. Some people doubt that training can develop leadership skills, and think that people are either born with what it takes to be a leader or they aren’t. So early on, I would ‘sell’ leadership development because I harbored my own doubts about the impact such training could truly have. I was unsure if development works. Leadership did seem to come more naturally to some people than others.

Now, though, benefitting from thirty years of evidence, I know leadership development works. In fact, one of my most satisfying moments was watching a group of vice presidents deliver their division’s business plan during a strategic planning offsite meeting. I had worked with many of those VPs since before they assumed their first leadership roles. I knew them before they were versed in the company jargon, back when they would get nervous when answering a simple question in a workshop. And now here they were, business-minded professionals, presenting their plans, full of knowledge and confidence. I found myself welling up with pride as I reflected on how far each had come.

Developing Leaders

Bear in mind that it wasn’t just me who had developed those leaders. The leaders who had led them played a huge role in their advancement. There had been scores of one-on-one developmental meetings, stretch assignments, sidebar feedback conversations, and performance reviews. Whatever natural leadership acumen each person may have started with was far outweighed by the nurturing attention each leader had been given along the way. Not a single person in that room, from the VPs to their bosses, had gotten there alone. Each had benefitted from the baton-passing tradition that leadership is, as more experienced leaders support, develop, and coach new leaders along their journey. Leaders creating leaders is what leadership is all about.

Passing the Baton

Developing leaders starts with how you are leading those who report directly to you in an organization. Reflect back on the beginning of your leadership journey and you will likely find a senior or more experienced leader who passed the baton to you. They Invested time and stretched you out of your comfort zone with new or challenging tasks. And they recognized your growth and provided feedback when you faced challenges.

Here are a few ways today to not only improve your leadership but also to help you begin to pass the baton to the next level of leaders in your organization.

Schedule individual 15-minute check-in meetings with each direct report. Decide with them how frequently you’ll meet for future check-ins. I recommend at least monthly.List some “organic opportunities” you could involve your direct reports in today.Go through the exercise of identifying what and to whom to delegate tasks. Identify who might benefit from opportunities to learn and grow.Meet with each person to whom you’re delegating a new task to ensure a smooth transition. Be sure to set a date so you both can monitor progress.Make time to privately recognize people who are stretching and challenging themselves by learning new and uncomfortable things!Aspiring Leaders

If are currently an individual contributor with aspirations of leading, these tips can be applied to you as well. Take charge and schedule a meeting with your leader. Find those organic opportunities for learning and growth. Bonus points if those opportunities take extra work off your leader’s plate! Seek out ways to stretch and challenge yourself that could benefit you, and the organization.

The bottom line is development works. But you have to work to prioritize and find development opportunities for yourself or those you lead. Novelist Courtney C. Stevens, the author of The Lies About Truth, says,

“If nothing changes, nothing changes.”

That certainly applies to leadership development.

Who is a leader who invested time in you? What has the payoff been for that investment? How can you invest in someone in your organization today? 

This post is based on an excerpt from Leadership Two Words at a Time: Simple Truths for Leading Complicated People.

The post Development Works appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

Risk-taking and the Law of Inertia

Newton’s first law of motion, the law of inertia, tells us that a body at rest will remain at rest and a body in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Inertia is defined as the property of an object to resist changes in its state of motion.

We, too, are subject to the laws of inertia. We, too, are bodies at rest or in motion. And inertia inhibits our ability to take risks because it resists our ability to change. Risk-taking is about starting something new or stopping something we’ve grown comfortable with. In the human law of inertia, risk-taking is the force that moves us out of our routine or comfort zone.

To risk means to change. Risk-taking causes the usual discomfort that accompanies change, inertia—the cozy comfort of the status quo—is often a more attractive choice. To overcome its debilitating effects, and to help ready themselves for the risk, risk-takers need to learn to defy inertia.

Risk-taking as a Vehicle of Change

Through risk-taking, we move beyond the comfort of our current condition and overcome inertia. While sometimes this movement is taken through physical activity. Such as leaving the safety of the ground to scale the face of El Capitan. Other times the movement entails more of a cerebral shift. Like converting to a new political or religious belief system, for example.

Whether physical or intellectual, the risk is a vehicle that moves us from where we are to where we want to be, and you simply can’t get from here to there without movement.

As a general rule, the greater the distance between your current reality(here) and the destination to which the risk will carry you(there), the more substantial the risk. And the hard truth is, the bigger the gap between here and there, the more energy, discomfort, and sacrifice will be required to overcome inertia and take the risk.

Risk is a vehicle that moves us from where we are to where we want to be.

Risk-taking is hard work. As the path of change, risk-taking is the hard way out of our current circumstances, the way of initiative. Unfortunately, there is an inverse relationship between initiative and enormity. Thus, the more daunting the risk, the harder it is to muster up the energy to face the challenge, and the easier it is to opt-out. We feel dwarfed by the risk’s bigness and we think we simply don’t have the physical or intellectual wherewithal for the undertaking.

Perceived Barriers

For example, many people have shied away from starting their own business not because of the financial commitment, but because they were convinced that the volume of paperwork would be too vexing. While turning away from the hard work of a large risk is understandable, turning away from small risks makes less sense.

In these instances, the reluctance to risk is a function of habit—the behavioral expression of inertia. I see this a lot in my executive coaching practice. Often the smallest risks (in the form of behavioral change) are often met with resistance.

I once coached a highly successful, but plateaued, senior executive who, to the annoyance of both his wife and his employees, meticulously planned every waking moment of his life. He knew his rigidity was becoming more than a barrier to career progress, it was hampering his ability to enjoy life as well. More than one person had told him he needed to “lighten up.”

The reluctance to risk is a function of habit—the behavioral expression of inertia.

First, he related all the ways in which his overly structured behavior was blocking his personal and professional growth. Then we began brainstorming how he could increase the amount of spontaneity in his life. Seeing the need to start slow, I made a simple suggestion that on the weekends he begin taking off his wristwatch. This would allow him to be unrestricted by time so he could begin experimenting with living less rigidly. Meeting my suggestion with a mixture of shock and characteristic rigidity, he replied, “Good God, I could never do that!”

Defying Inertia

Risk-taking requires being alert to the effects of inertia in all its active and inactive forms. Our really big risks, require inertia-defying exertion. They require pulling up the roots of our habits, putting down the television remote, and springing into action.

Is there a big (or small) risk you’ve been hesitant to take the leap on? What would it take to apply the laws of inertia and get moving today?

This post is based on an expert from the book Right Risk: 10 Powerful Principles for Taking Giant Leaps with Your Life.

The post Risk-taking and the Law of Inertia appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.

Five Key Characteristics of Goals That Motivate

We are at the starting line of another year. And for the majority of companies, the new year begins with goals.  Now as you are reading this, chances are you have made and already broken your own New Year’s resolution. The most common reason for that is lost motivation or the goal being too far out of reach. As a leader, you want to set clear and achievable benchmarks for your team. Consider these five key characteristics to create goals that motivate your team. They might just work for those New Year’s resolutions too!

1.     Clarity

Clear goals are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound.  When a goal is clear and specific, people know what needs to be done and what is expected. Included in clarity is communication—make sure to leave the door open if questions arrive throughout the process of completing the goal. Making goals clear is not just for the employee—it also helps you, the leader, to know what to expect and when to expect it.

2.     Proper Assessment of Task Complexity

For goals that are highly complex, we have to be sure to give people sufficient time to meet the goal and provide the time to practice or learn the skills that are necessary for success.  The purpose of goal setting is successful achievement, so you have to be careful that the conditions around the goal support that success rather than stifle it. Be sure to give an employee access to any information or individuals that can help them along the way.

3.     Feedback

Incorporating feedback into the goal-setting process allows for expectations to be clarified, difficulty to be adjusted, and recognition to be given.  In particular, when a goal is long-term in nature, it’s important to set benchmarks that help people gauge their success and see their achievement. It is also helpful if you can create an open feedback line to ensure communication about the given task does not go stale. If there is a question or misunderstanding, you want it to be addressed!

4.     Commitment

For goal setting to be effective, the goals need to be agreed upon and understood.  While this doesn’t mean you negotiate every goal with every employee, there is value in engaging the people working towards the goal in crafting it.  When we help to create the stretch goal, we are more connected to the challenge and more willing to commit.  The harder the goal, the more commitment is needed.

5.     Challenge

We are often motivated by achievement, so we’ll judge a goal by how difficult we perceive it to be.  If it is too easy, we won’t give it as much attention and energy. Too difficult we might not have the skills necessary to accomplish it. However, if it demands us to stretch ourselves just outside our comfort zone. We are more likely to be motivated to excel and achieve the recognition of a job well done. Challenging ourselves and others is one of the key ways to encourage growth and set employees up for leadership in the future.

Creating goals that motivate (rather than stifle or exhaust) can be difficult. This is especially true when the tasks at hand are complex or in uncharted territory. Consider these five key characteristics of goals that motivate to create an environment of enthusiasm and set your team up for success.

How will you hold yourself accountable to create goals that motivate for your team this year?

Updated January 2023

The post Five Key Characteristics of Goals That Motivate appeared first on Giant Leap Consulting.