Our commitment to not mowing our lawn until the end of May has thrown us into a curious leadership conflict: we want to provide dandelions for wild bees whilst also trying to fit into our neighbourhood. We’ve found that our inner process and our actions in this...
At Choose Leadership, we always start from Purpose. Be it in our work with individuals, teams, or organisations. The reason is simple: Without a purpose, our clients drift. Purpose is the ultimate WHY – the reason for which something is done or created. When leaders...
Hot mess reactiveness, decisions and choices, chocolate and vanilla ice cream, managers and leaders. Throw in trying to order some dinner, a bit of football and a friend of mine, and there’s a lesson in leadership in there somewhere.
Values are what drive us, and although they are universal in the general, the flavour of each person’s values are unique to them, much like their fingerprints. When we bring curiosity to discovering who others are through their values, we build relationship, which fosters the conditions for true commitment through deep connection.
Leadership does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in interaction with others. The space of leadership has to be co-created by all who interact. As a leader, you have the opportunity to create a space that invites and allows all to show up as the leaders you need them to be to achieve your goals.
Team reset might be needed after re-entry from remote working into office life. After a few months of social distancing, conflicts might have cooled down. To avoid them coming back, leaders can take a few simple, but powerful steps to reset their team culture …
To reshape an icecube, you first have to melt it. Only then can you pour it into a different shape to then refreeze it. What’s true for ice, is true for any organisation. It seems simple. However, as you likely have experienced first hand, most change initiatives fail. that’s because the unfreezing of “how things are done here” never happens. That’s why now is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape your organisation into a better place.
Remember the last time you made a choice that trampled all over your values?
Perhaps you felt like a hypocrite, though likely not for long. Humans are hardwired to dissolve the cognitive dissonance between their aspirations and choices by justifying them so that those choices become acceptable exceptions. So after that quick mental hygiene process you forgot about it. That’s how it happens.
When my values turn from chasing one another to chasing me, I can go mental. And these days, I find myself quite challenged, with ongoing school holidays, so much work that wants to get done, keeping up with calls to my mother and my friends, and needing down time.
This has led me to reflect on my values, to evaluate how I spend my time, and to re-create balance – until the next re-evaluation…
If we don’t collectively come out of this crisis changed, then we have wasted a great opportunity. How to make the best of the time you have as you manage less people and need to have less meetings during the lockdown? Look at your values. Here’s why values matter greatly.
Research shows: Leaders who are aware of and act in alignment with their personal values are less stressed and happier. What’s more, their peers, team members, and managers perceive them as more effective than other leaders.
So if you find yourself with a bit more time on your hands, this is a great opportunity to reflect about the values that drive your leadership, your business practices, and choices.
If you don’t know where to start, this blog provides you with a 3-step process, including guiding questions that get you started on your journey of growing your leadership.
Leadership is not so much about staying creative. It really is more about recovering to creativity, now, … and now, … and now. As we are creating a workshop for a larger organisation, we are looking into creative and reactive tendencies and how they make or break our leadership in any given moment.
But why are we reactive in the first place? We’ve written about this before, and usually, this is where we speak to the patterns we’ve acquired in childhood. Today we want to look at this from a different perspective:
Your values shape …
At Choose Leadership, we always start from Purpose. Be it in our work with individuals, teams, or organisations. The reason is simple:
Purpose is the ultimate WHY – the reason for which something is done or created. When leaders don’t connect to why it really matters, they might well decide to have the important conversation, or finally make that important decision. But then urgent things get in the way. They end up distracted, and … drift.
That’s why…
Acting on what matters, according to Peter Block (The Answer to How is Yes) is “the act of making change in the world through a set of personal values that define who we are.”
And we cannot do that in life, if we don’t do it at the workplace, because that’s where we spend a large portion of our productive hours. To a lot of people, it’s a big ask to make a difference through work, because we depend on the money, and work seems to be the last place where we have a choice. After all, we don’t have a vote on what we do and how we do it when our boss tells us what they expect from us.
Democracy at work may seem like a funny notion, but in fact…
I was recently asked how to be a more authentic leader, build trust and lead others so that they can meet us without resistance. The challenge is that trust building is more than taking a handful from the toolbox of leadership.
Yes, facial expressions, choice of words, gestures and body posture are important.