Want to foster trust in your team? Then it's time to get naked—kind of. This is a professional post, after all! Author Patrick Lencioni advocates for "getting naked," or being vulnerable with your team in order to create a foundation of trust. Trust is the foundation of any cohesive team. It leads to healthier conflict, which produces better decisions, more accountability, and, ultimately, better results.
Read MoreThe relationship between a leader and her coach is deeply personal, so let’s spend some time thinking about what each person should bring to it. Let’s start with what the leader should expect from the coach:
Discretion. You should be able to tell your coach anything and know that it will never be shared with anyone else. (Unless you’re confessing to a crime—we’re coaches, not priests). This means there should be an agreement between the coach, the leader being coached, and the company paying the coach about what information is shared and who shares it.
It’s funny how when you do a thing for a long time, you forget what other people don’t know about that thing. I’m guilty of that myself, and I want to spend this month demystifying coaching. Maybe you’re reading this because you want to be a coach, or maybe it’s because you’re thinking about hiring a coach. Either way, I hope to pull the curtains back a bit and educate folks on all things coaching.
Read MoreLast week, we talked about inviting others into your development in the form of mentorships. When you hear “mentorship,” what probably comes to mind is a relationship between two people in different career stages. This is a valuable and essential type of mentorship, but it’s not the only one; peer mentors offer a network of support based on diverse lived experience. In other words, they’re in the same boat as you, but they’ve traversed different seas.
Read MoreIt’s tempting to view your development as a leader as a solo journey you can embark on, achieve, and triumphantly walk away from, with the pride of having pulled up your proverbial bootstraps and done it all on your own. After all, we live in a society that praises individualism. That doesn’t make it right—and in the case of leadership growth, I’m going to advocate this month for the opposite: unabashedly inviting others into your development.
Read MoreFor some people, mindfulness is synonymous with sitting cross-legged on a cushion chanting “ohm.” Let’s demystify that idea. The Olympics are starting in Tokyo now; watch any event, and you’ll see the practice and results of mindfulness. These athletes have achieved the pinnacle of their sport by paying close attention to what they are doing, how they are feeling, and remaining curious about what they are missing. They build systems that help them constantly monitor progress and use the answers to improve. They do this because they want to be the best diver, boxer, or footballer they can be. My suggestion is that if you’re going to be the best leader you can be, you should engage in similar practices.
Read MoreLet’s start by being clear about what we mean when we say “self-aware.” As defined by The Oxford Dictionary, self-awareness is “conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires.” Psychology Today says, “Self-awareness involves monitoring our stress, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. But I like the way Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck talks about it. Manson says there are 3 levels of awareness. I’ll clean up his language and summarize a bit for you here, but follow the link above to get his rated R (for language) 30-minute read.
Read MoreSelf-awareness is often regarded as a valuable leadership trait, but what is it and why? To define self-awareness, I would point you to the work of Tasha Eurich, published in Harvard Business Review. Dr. Eurich’s research suggests there are two types of self-awareness: internal and external. Internal self-awareness is understanding yourself—your values, beliefs, passions, etc., and how those things influence the way you react to the world around you. External self-awareness is understanding how others perceive you.
Read MoreA few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of having more conflict, not less; I also wrote about the importance of establishing a baseline of trust to make way for healthier conflict. But having more and better conflict takes more than goodwill; it’s essential to think about what structures support healthy conflict. Over the 15 or so years that I’ve been helping teams do great work, I’ve identified systems that will turn good intentions into results.
Read MoreDid you know that there is a kind of nuclear reactor that actually produces more fuel than it uses? It’s called a breeder reactor. Conflict on your team can be like a breeder reactor for trust; you need a solid foundation of trust for healthy, productive conflict AND healthy, productive conflict produces more trust. That’s because every time you settle differences respectfully, people grow to trust that you care about them individually, and you both care about what’s best for the organization.
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