self-leadership

Self-Leadership in One Sentence

October 22, 2011 by Rosa Say

We keep hearing (in several philosophical quotations from the older and wiser) that the answer to that quintessential question on the meaning of life, is simply to live the life you are given, living it as fully as possible.

Which tends to evoke another question: And what, pray tell, does “fully” encompass?

Yet no wise person will answer that question definitively, except to press back with, “What would it mean to you?”

That is where self-leadership comes in.

We make the ‘self-’ distinction intentionally in our Managing with Aloha culture-building, where self-leadership is about you first, before you presume to tackle leadership, which is about others too. The value of Alaka‘i will include both in a person’s life.

In one sentence: Self-leadership is the growing process of arriving at your own choices in life, living it fully.

So go for it: Make it about you. We all win when we get your best.

In Managing with Aloha, we’ll press back on defining “fully” too, however we do have the presumption of Aloha, feeling your Aloha Spirit must be an integral part, and it will be when you honor your sense of self.

In The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard writes,

“Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment.”

Growing, however, is a beautiful process too, for it is filled with a multitude of those moments.

Self-leadership in one sentence has long been an exploratory exercise for me: My sentence has gone through several evolutions, and it keeps getting shorter, and more focused. The two words I have never been able to edit out, are ‘growing’ and ‘arriving’ for their appeal is so strong. To arrive can be so rewarding, and so meaningful; why not pause and celebrate when it happens?

Try the exercise for yourself: What is self-leadership for you? Can you articulate it in a single sentence?

Aloha! Just joining us?

Talking Story is the blog home of those who are learning to be Alaka‘i Managers — those committed to managing and leading with Aloha. Read a preview of the book which inspired this movement, and visit our About Page.

Purchase Managing with Aloha at Amazon.com in hardcover, or in the Kindle Store.

Lead, Follow or Get out of the way

October 20, 2011 by Rosa Say

You have heard this phrase before, I’m sure. You may even have said it yourself, or at least thought it… I admit that I’ve said it, and thought it several times when a younger, more inexperienced manager (politics tends to push me into that thinking still… sigh).

I do try to catch myself now, and bite my lip if necessary! At work I go for even better: I will rephrase LFOGOOTW to give people a more welcoming “we” choice, to deliberately eliminate the GOOTW sarcasm. When I sense my team has reached a degree of clarity with an issue, I ask, “would you like to lead this one, or work within your followership?” genuinely feeling that both choices have merit, just different energies, and that each person can make each choice relative to the variables at hand.

Replace innuendo with Culture-building

I’m not the only one who feels that way; it’s in our culture. Our team has talked about followership enough to know that Following is NOT a Passive Activity. Following can often go the What/How way of the managing verb (as compared to the Why/When leading verb), a great thing.

As for “…or get out of the way,” that’s not one of our options. We can’t afford bench-warming (and nobody likes it).

The trick to timing the question of lead or follow, is one of sensing people are ready for action, and feeling we’ve talked about it quite enough — at least in that stage of the project. The “lead or follow?” question turns people loose when both choices have been established as good choices in a workplace culture. Neither has that cynical dig in it (“if not, get out of the way.”) which is very un-inclusive (i.e. un-Kākou).

join the QuEuE by Maldita la hora on Flickr

However is that enough?

In Managing with Aloha cultures, we do go for the “and” instead of the “either/or.” LFOGOOTW is a good case in point with advocating the “and” embrace, for as Dan points out in the comments, “lead, follow, or get out of the way oversimplifies things a bit.”

I remember a wonderful comment from Stephanie when we had talked about the LFOGOOTW phrase within the value-mapping we’d been doing at MWA Coaching, with the value set of Alaka‘i, Kākou, and Lōkahi:

The more I read, the more apparent it becomes that for as long as I can remember, I have been looking for others to provide me with clear answers rather than developing them on my own. In fact, I am truly grateful to the gentleman who inspired [this conversation string on “Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way.”] since I often get stuck thinking about mantras as law.

So what does this have to do with leadership? For me, the lead or follow mentality seems limiting. Much like in partnerships, where only two people are involved, it’s about taking turns. In other words, it’s about being a team-player, just like you expressed [with the value of Lōkahi]. The best leaders understand this and know when to stand down.

In an environment where all members are respectful the leader rises to the occasion with ease. Nurturing an environment that enables every member to shine is not always easy, but that is certainly my goal.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with looking to others for help with answers; in fact, learning from their lessons is quite wise. And taking turns can help — don’t think it simplistic and dismiss it. We seldom work alone or in a vacuum, and collaborative and synergistic work is what great teams engage in and thrill to.

And I love what Steph had observed, that “In an environment where all members are respectful the leader rises to the occasion with ease.” The goal she had to nurture such an environment was outstanding — truly Kākou behavior with that Ho‘ohanohano demeanor of respect.

I think about it again today (thus this post) as I wonder what direction the nascent #Occupy movement will start to take.

“Rise to the occasion” with Lōkahi

How do we allow leaders to rise to the occasion with ease as Steph says, while we continue to shape our own more progressive and proactive behavior?

Let’s revisit the Lōkahi connection: Lōkahi is the value of collaboration, harmony and unity. The pairing of Kākou and Lōkahi are the MWA values of teamwork. They are the value-drivers of the followers that leaders dream of inspiring, and having on their team.

From Managing with Aloha, under a section heading called “the role of the individual” (hardcover page 107);

“Most of the Hawaiian values really speak to personal endeavors, and the concept that all starts from within you. We are responsible for our own attitudes, our own choices, our own happiness and our own success. While Lōkahi speaks to the behavior of people within a group, its core assumption is that the group’s effectiveness comes from the choices made by the individuals within it.”

“Lōkahi asks these questions: Are you a bystander or are you truly engaged? Does your reach include the entire team, and are you being cooperative? Do you seek to understand everyone’s opinion while sharing your own? Are you looking for mutually beneficial agreement or are you settling for negotiation or compromise? Do you understand the role of every person, and are you respectful of their participation and involvement? Are you fulfilling your own role and responsibility, so that you make the contribution that is expected of you? Are you supportive and positive?”

In other words, are you a team player? Will you be the best you can be on the team that your leader of choice champions? When called upon to do so, will you be able to take your turn leading too, building upon the involvement you have had all along?

Lasting movements (progress) requires clear, directional Change

In that conversation string I pulled Steph’s comment from, we’d reconvened to talk story about self-leadership in our value-mapping process. We spoke of how our leadership vocabulary could be sharpened, and thus strengthened as “Language of Intention” (MWA Key 5).

Then we asked each other, “What is self-leadership?” and tried to focus in on it in regard to effecting change. I recall it now (and looked up our conversation archive), because of all the dissatisfaction in current affairs — something’s got to give, and people say they want change: What will it be, and how will it happen?

Nothing changes until something shifts or moves. Self-leadership is what gets us to move.

Determination - Barrel Racing - Parada del Sol Rodeo by Alan English on Flickr

For the most part, I like change because it is vibrant and alive; it defies stagnation. I say ‘for the most part’ because there are times for calm and for stillness, but those are times for the reflection which leads to rejuvenation, and for fortifying our energies for the next leaps of movement.

That’s because nothing changes until someONE shifts or moves.

That someone is the self-led, the person who chooses self-leadership first, so they need never depend on the leadership of another to free them from any stagnation or inertia; they do so for themselves. That someone may emerge to be the leader, or one of them, but for the time being they have their own work to do.

The person who chooses self-leadership as their first experience, can then empathize with the needs of others they will eventually ask to join in, or to follow their lead. Often they need not ask; it just happens because leadership is so attractive and compelling. It’s magnetic and contageous.

The self-leadership of the value of Alaka‘i is about strong, self-impelling initiative.

It is the ability to self-energize so you always have reserves to call upon when you need them.

It is the ability to self-motivate, for motivation is an inside-job: If we’re completely honest, we will admit that no one can motivate us; we must do so for ourselves.

Self-leadership is a quest for learning more about what is possible. Therefore, there is an impatience and sense of urgency about self-leadership, for those who quest know that something bigger and better exists to be discovered or created.

The self-led have the burning desire to be the one who will do that discovering or creating.

Is that the person you are, or the person you hope to be?

I do believe that at some point in everyone’s life, they can answer, “Yes.” As Steph helped us see, it becomes our turn.

Alaka‘i may not be the most consistently called-upon value that we choose when it comes to our personal values, but I do believe it may be one that we universally share much more than others. We each have it: It’s more a question of when we choose to invoke this value, and about which of our passions, and about whether that passion is one we champion or choose another leader for.

talkingstory_header_09

Postscript: You will notice that the 1st few comments below are from August of 2009: This is a refreshing and reframing of this post when originally published then. I am doing what I encourage you to do in workplace culture-building: Repeat what you stand for to keep your language of intention alive and well. Refresh it and reframe it when necessary, and you keep it Kākou too – not everyone will have heard it the first time (or will have retained it). If it is important, put it back on stage: Alaka‘i ABCs: What do you stand for?

So I invite you to weigh in again: Let’s talk story.

If you are newly joining us, Alaka‘i was subject of the posting before this one too: Alaka‘i Leadership, Chiefs and Indians. Sections include:

Leadership delivers an affirmation of our values
What do we do, when leadership fails us?
Alaka‘i Leadership is a concept of abundance

Whose Confidence Should We Be Talking About?

October 1, 2011 by Rosa Say

Economist Paul Krugman makes a good point in writing of our Phony Fear Factor:

“Extended periods of ‘jobless recovery’ after recessions have been the rule for the past two decades. Indeed, private-sector job growth since the 2007-2009 recession has been better than it was after the 2001 recession.

We might add that major financial crises are almost always followed by a period of slow growth, and U.S. experience is more or less what you should have expected given the severity of the 2008 shock.

Still, isn’t there something odd about the fact that businesses are making large profits and sitting on a lot of cash but aren’t spending that cash to expand capacity and employment? No.

After all, why should businesses expand when they’re not using the capacity they already have? The bursting of the housing bubble and the overhang of household debt have left consumer spending depressed and many businesses with more capacity than they need and no reason to add more. Business investment always responds strongly to the state of the economy, and given how weak our economy remains you shouldn’t be surprised if investment remains low. If anything, business spending has been stronger than one might have predicted given slow growth and high unemployment.”

What I would add to this, is that we in business have to lead more assertively, and much more quickly. We have the power to affect change, and we’re not doing it:

“I think what business people are saying – hey, we’re gonna pull back, sit on the sidelines, and let the country make a decision as to which way they want to go in.”
— Quote: Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television

That’s simply unacceptable. And it’s downright foolish. If we’re as unhappy with the government as we say we are, why are we so willing to let them be our misguided saviors? Get action back in your own two hands, and stop giving away your power so naively.

Confidence resides in YOU

It’s true that ‘consumer confidence’ is low — it’s low because uncertainty is so high, and we’re being prudent, saving whatever dollars we have as a contingency strategy. Arguably, this is something we should’ve been doing all along — it’s called living within our means (i.e. our actual earnings) AND having an emergency fund for ourselves, versus living on credit and over-extending ourselves. Our low in consumer confidence is actually part of a healthier self-correction: Something like walking away from a mortgage contract we’d signed shouldn’t be the kind of choices good people feel forced to make.

So that’s the quick diagnosis of ‘consumer confidence.’ Fine. Now, let’s talk business confidence. Let’s talk about your confidence with the work you know can be done, and done right now, today, because you are doing it.

Let’s talk about your confidence in business as the great enabler it is, working on those time-honored concepts of strategic initiative, mission, and vision. Let’s talk about your confidence as a business person, business manager, and business leader with good ideas, because working in business is what YOU do. Let’s demonstrate those things, and how good we are at doing them.

Business can lead the way to future prosperity for all of us, by bringing back the certainty that can hit home for us on a very local level. When we see success in our own community, national stumbles in a deadlocked congress don’t seem as dramatic to us. As a business person, you bring success back by championing the confidence you DO have, and demonstrating that confidence in the work which does happen. Focus on what CAN be done right now instead of focusing on what cannot be done. Waiting and hoping for things to get better is a lousy business strategy. Actually, it means there is no strategy at all.

The future will always be uncertain by nature — we can’t know what hasn’t happened yet. However we can focus on what we see happening in our own neck of the woods: We can see where the flywheel starts to turn, and we can give it our local heave-ho. Invest in what you do know, and in what you know you should be doing about it. Be more hopeful because you are tuned in to your own confidence levels — wherever they are playing out for you.

**Beyond the numbers: Decide on the kind of jobs we need**

Along the way, we in business will create more jobs which frame the work we know must be done. [See: What gainful employment ‘should’ do for you.]

I am increasingly of the opinion that the void we have to fill is about having the right jobs in place, and not just jobs as a number. As a business person, you have to decide what the jobs of your future are, and then put those jobs into production: You cannot fill vacancies for jobs you haven’t designed yet. You design them because you are confident about the work those jobs produce — that’s the unfilled capacity Krugman refers to.

And no more waiting on anyone else.

Beautiful Confidence is a thought to keep close for the weekend: “Confidence is good’s natural extension.”

Workplace Culture balances Change and Constants

August 28, 2011 by Rosa Say

I received a couple of emails following my last posting (Managers Create Culture), and taken altogether the gist of them was this:

“If I don’t have a comprehensive philosophy yet, like you have in Managing with Aloha, how do I start to define the workplace culture I want to foster as an Alaka‘i Manager? The variables can be so overwhelming, and I struggle to focus, and set my priorities.”

Do you know when those variables get overwhelming? When they aren’t actually yours. We managers have a way of inheriting and collecting periphery.

Here’s what I recommend instead. It’s still about articulating an all-you packaging of your values (which is Managing with Aloha at its core), but arriving at them in another way, one which concentrates on action connected to desired change and valued constants.

To paraphrase and add to a famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi:

Be the Change you wish to see in your world, while remaining devoted to your Constants.

We talk about change a lot, equating it with initiative, innovation and creativity, however we tend to forget those constants we have already invested in, constants which keep us grounded, confident, steady and sure.

So try this: Sit with a blank sheet of paper, and make a simple list of your purely instinctive, gut-check WANTS, writing them down under one of two sub-headings:

MY CONSTANTS
(your keepers: You have these, still want them, and will devotedly hold on to them)
GOOD CHANGE
(your goals: Assume you want these for good reason, so work on getting them!)

Your list should describe your future. Identify what you want it to be, so those wants can guide you forward. Be as specific as possible, for specific detail is more conducive to revealing action steps you can take.

Your values will provide the ‘why.’ When you can tap into it, ‘purely instinctive, gut-check’ wanting gives voice to your values — you’ll be able to read between the lines, and get clarity on what your values are all about, and not theoretically or historically, but right now, for today, and for ‘Imi ola— a creation of your best-possible future.

This might help you start your list… Fill in the blanks, remembering to then choose which column they go in, valued CONSTANTS, or desired CHANGE:
I want to work on ______, and not on _______.
I want to forge a partnership with _______, so we can work on __________.
I’d love to see the day that we _____________ all day long!
I want to keep learning about _____________, so we’ll be able to _________.

Bet you can take it from there!

The first step in articulating the workplace culture you want is usually to be more selfish — yes, selfish, as in self-aware. Focus is all about energy management: Self-manage (channel your energy) and self-lead (create fresh energy) before you presume to create workplace culture for anyone else. It evokes the oxygen mask theory: You can’t save anyone else when you can’t breathe either.

In clarifying your change and your constants, you define your stretch while holding on to your keepers. You also couple your form and function without interruption (i.e. your on-going productivity and business of life), for balancing Change and Constants is simply a way you sort through the clutter of life, and focus on what’s important to you.

For instance, here on Talking Story you often read postings where I seem to question, dabble, and experiment: I especially love 90-day projects as a gift-boxing of my still-tentative change. When I wrap up those projects, I weave them into my Ho‘ohana Story somehow, for my constants are about Aloha (defined here), Ho‘ohana (worthwhile work), and ‘Ike loa (intentional learning). Over time, my keepers in the MWA culture became the 19 values in my book, and the 9 Key Concepts. The early sentences on my List of Wants moved into statements like the 10 Beliefs and Core 21.

If you pull out your list every time you do a Weekly Review, you can revise it with constantly freshened relevance. When something no longer sounds like a Burning Yes, just cross it off the list and add what does.

Trust me: If you can make this simple process your new habit, your desired workplace culture will be steadily revealed to you. And remember… You are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!

Your Change + Your Constants = Your Culture:

Write it down: Gut-check list your wants as either Constants or Change.
Create your future: Allow that list to set your priorities, and be your values-based focus.
Make it happen: Review weekly to self-manage and self-lead, and
Feel good about it: You’ll get a good grip on your best energies.
Share it: The Workplace Culture you champion will be the great result.

So turn this affirmation into a poster you look at daily:

I’ll be Change, and I’ll be Constant. I’ll be the Culture of my Future.

Write it on a post-it and tape it on the mirror where you brush your teeth each morning, then Ho‘ohana — make it happen.