Tag: self-care

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Grow Your Brain: Lead Yourself to Increased Leadership Capacities

Research, published in the new book The Emotional Life of your Brain by Richard J. Davidson (with Sharon Begley), has good news. We can change our emotional styles and become more self-aware, attentive to context, and resilient – core skills for surviving and thriving in the rough-and-tumble leadership world. All it takes is systematic mental practice.

I’ll let you read the neurophysiology and brain science and just cut to the chase here. By thinking – and thinking alone – adults can expand areas of the brain to broaden their cognitive and emotional capacities.

This gives us more control than previously believed over what Davidson and Begley call the Six Key Elements of Emotional Style: our resilience in the face of disappointment, outlook on life, self-awareness, social intuition, attention, and sensitivity to context.

To quote the authors: “Mental activity, ranging from meditation to cognitive-behavior therapy, can help you develop a broader awareness of social signals, a deeper sensitivity to your own feelings and bodily sensations, a more consistently positive outlook, and a great capacity for resilience.”

Too negative an outlook on life or situation? Embrace the essentials of “well-being therapy” and focus on ways you can be more grateful, generous, appreciative, and upbeat. You’ll have significant growth in the brain areas used, giving you quicker and more automatic access to these positive responses over time.

Not very self- or other-aware? Slow down and ask yourself to focus on the feelings, discomfort, or concerns of another. It’ll increase activation of the circuitry involved in taking in pain and distress more carefully and broaden your capacities to see life more richly and compassionately.

Too self-aware and filled with the internal chatter and self-evaluations that keep you spinning your wheels? Learn to observe your thoughts or feelings non-judgmentally and choose to put them aside.

Mindfulness and meditation help here. [See the blog archives for past posts of mindfulness and the work of Ellen Langer.] With practice, you’ll develop the hard-wiring and self-control needed to pause, acknowledge a setback or disappointment, have a good laugh at how quickly your mind wants to perseverate and magnify a mere bump in life’s road, and stop yourself from spiraling downward.

The authors claim that locating the base of emotions at least partly in the brain’s seat of reason is a major break from conventional wisdom in psychology and neuroscience.

I’m thrilled their work affirms human capacities to develop the emotional and cultural intelligence needed for effective leadership in an increasingly diverse world. How do you want to lead? Respond? Be? Make it happen. That’s hugely empowering – and productive for us all!

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Jeremy Lin: A Teaching Case on Succeeding in a Complex World

I love the Jeremy Lin story – the humble, smart, sudden NBA superstar for the Knicks who until a few weeks ago was sleeping on his brother’s couch and wondering his future with the sport he loved. [If you need to catch-up on Lin-sanity, check out the Washington Post story on how his talent went unnoticed for so long or one of the many New York Times sport columns.]

This is a great basketball story – a living remake of the movie classic “Hoosiers.” It’s an American morality tale of hard work, immigrant family, humility, following a dream, and success against the odds. It’s also a teaching case about how to succeed in an increasing complex world.

Forbes columnist Eric Jackson identifies 10 lessons from Jeremy Lin to enrich our lives and work. Let me post and discuss.

1. Believe in yourself when no one else does. Only the 4th Harvard grad to make it to the NBA. One of only a handful of Asian-Americans to make it. Sent to the Knicks D-League team in Erie, PA 3 weeks ago. Already cut by two other NBA teams before. It’s easy to lose heart in the face of defeat – but where will that get you?  Look where faith took Jeremy.

2. Seize the opportunity when it comes up. Lin got to start for the Knicks because they had to start him: too many injured and missing players. Lin made the most of it. Opportunities arise when we least expect them. Will you be ready to make the most of them? Be strong and confident to rise to the new  challenge? How can you cultivate the inner strengthen needed for that? It’s not easy to sustain confidence in the face of rejection.  

3. Your family will always be there for you, so be there for them. Lin only got his contract guaranteed by the Knicks a few days. His family has been his support: they pick him up when he gets down on himself and make him “continue to believe.” If you want your family to believe in you like that, you’ve got to be there for them when they need it.

4. Find the system that works for your style. Context is everything in leadership – no one is perfect in all situations. Lin isn’t Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant (whom he out-scored the other night, by the way). His style of distributing the ball didn’t work with his other NBA teams. It’s perfect for the Knicks. Know your strengths and find the job or organization that’s a good fit. If you don’t, people will overlook what you bring to the table.  Amen!

5. Don’t overlook talent that exists around you. You may have a Jeremy Lin working for or around you now. Pundits say Jeremy wasn’t helped by others’ stereotypes: he’s from Palo Alto High and Harvard. He’s Asian-American. Don’t let assumptions blind you to your other or others’ talents. My own belief: we are all capable of much more than we now show with the right opportunity and support.

6. People will love you for being an original, not trying to be someone else. I love the Judy Garland quotation: Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.

7. Stay humble. In interviews, Lin shows humility despite the media frenzy. May we all have the grounding and executive presence!

8. When you make others look good, they will love you forever. The Knicks are playing well because they are playing better as a team – and have been working harder to share the ball since Lin. Lin praises his teammates to the media. Take note!

9. Never forget about the importance of luck or fate in life. To quote Eric Jackson, “Whatever you believe in, be grateful for it.”

10. Work your butt off. Lin was ready to seize his opportunity because his skills were strong from a lot of hard, hard work. Hard work is not glamorous – but there are no short cuts in today’s tough, competitive world.

I add a #11 to the list:

11. Choose hope. Hope is the most powerful form of human motivation. But it is not wishful thinking. Real hope is informed by persistence, hard work, patience, and courage – as seen in the Jeremy Lin story. The New York Times quoted one of Lin’s favorite verses: Suffering produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us (Romans 5:3-5). 

Sustain faith in yourself, passion for the contribution you want to make, and the hope necessary to find the right place to make it. Onward! 

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Creating Good Witnesses

Our Bloch Executive Education Center is offering a course on “Creating Witnesses.”  I must admit, on first glance I thought it was training on giving a good deposition. (After all, leaders can never be too prepared.) The blurb on the session told otherwise and reminded me of two important pieces of advice for effective career self-management.

ADVICE #1:  Make sure others see and understand your contributions and achievements (i.e.,  make them a witness). Good, hard work makes things move along seamlessly and progress as if inevitable – and that means others can easily overlook the breadth and depth of your contributions to making that so. Colleagues and not-so-helpful bosses may be waiting in the wings to take credit for more than their fair share – the organizational world is a political place – and you may never know if they are building their careers on your skill, effort, and reputation. Women, people of color, and others with token status can remain invisible to those predisposed not to see or appreciate them.

Bottom-line: you may think others recognize your skills, talents, and achievements. They may not. And it’s naïve to believe that your hard work alone will speak for itself. (Trust me on that one!)  Be proactive in helping credible others understand what you do so that they can speak for you to powerful others. Well-informed colleagues and good bosses can be your witness. You need that. As the adage goes, a person is never a prophet in his or her own land.     

ADVICE #2:  Maintain a relationship with your witnesses over time. You’ll change jobs. Bosses and co-workers will too – or they’ll retire, move away, and disappear from your life. That’s where a proactive stance toward maintaining your important networks comes in. Stay connected to your witnesses. Help them see how you’ve grown and developed. Email, LinkedIn, and social media sites now make that simple to do. You can’t predict when in the future you may need to call for a testimonial. 

So if you’re in Kansas City next month, come and take the Witness course. If you can’t, I’ve pasted a description below to give you a bit of the skinny.

Either way, begin right now developing a plan to cultivate those who can add credibility and an objective assessment of quality and accomplishment to your career story – and keep them as part of your professional life. (That won’t happen without careful attention and effort from you.) As your network grows, so will your confidence in the living reminders of your hard work well done. Onward to a brighter future!

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Charmaine McClarie, President of the McClarie Group, will be leading Strategic Preparedness: Positioning Yourself for the C-Suite seminar on March 16th. Click here to find out more information

What are witnesses?
Workplace witnesses are strategic individuals who see and hear your contribution to the organization and communicate the value you bring to the workplace to others.

Why create witnesses?
Simply put, creating witnesses is essential to your success. If you do good work, but no one knows about it, both you and the organization lose. You lose, obviously, because you get little credit (and in many cases no credit) for your contributions. The organization loses because it has no awareness of a resource which you’ve cleverly hidden away — namely, you. This makes you a well-kept secret.

What gets in the way of us creating witnesses?
Usually, our own selves. Most of us were taught to do just the opposite of the kind of self-promotion needed to succeed in our careers. We were told "your work will speak for itself", and "don’t toot your own horn." But being smart and working hard is no longer enough. Most of your colleagues are smart and hardworking, so you have to learn to distinguish yourself from the crowd by creating witnesses for your contributions at work.

So how do I create witnesses?
Witnesses don’t just happen; you have to make them happen. Here is a three-step process
that will allow you to create witnesses to your great work, so that it can move you and your
ideas forward and up the organization.

1. Ask yourself, how do influential people make themselves seen and heard in this organization? What does it take to be respected?

2. Next, identify who you want as your witnesses. In other words, who has the power, influence and relationships to help you accomplish your goals and reinforce your value in the workplace?

3. Finally, plan how you’ll turn these individuals into witnesses for your work. Craft effective messages that will resonate with each of your witnesses and allow them to communicate your value to others in the organization.

The cardinal rule: you must not be a well-kept secret. If you are, you lose because your organization doesn’t know if you are strategic or if you get results. You organization loses because it isn’t able to appropriately leverage the value you bring.

Leaders don’t leave their careers to chance. Begin creating witnesses for your work today!

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Managing the Occupational Hazard of Leadership

Leadership is emotional work. “There’s no leading without bleeding,” Jerome Murphy, professor and former Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, writes in the most recent Phi Delta Kappan.[1] “No matter what we call it — stress, agitation, loss, frustration, fear, exhaustion, shame, confusion, sadness, loneliness, hurt — there’s not an executive alive who can lead without experiencing emotional discomfort.” Anyone who has led – from the head or the foot of the table – knows exactly what Murphy means.

Leaders can’t escape this occupational hazard; however, they can be their own worst enemy in responding to it – turning inevitable job discomforts into personal anguish and self-doubt that erode focus and energy.

“In the privacy of our minds, we can make things worse by fighting our discomfort, getting hooked on our troubling thoughts, and scolding ourselves for falling short. As a consequence, we can sidetrack our work and lose sight of what really matters to us.”

The stage is set for unproductive denial (and an investment of psychic energy pretending we’re not uncomfortable) or negative self-talk (and worries about whether our discomfort is a sign that we’re a flop or, worse yet, no leader at all). “In the grip of mind chatter that sounds like a Greek chorus of naysayers, it’s not unusual to rehash the past, fret about the future, and hang ourselves out to dry,” concludes Murphy.

There are more productive ways to respond, and Murphy draws from psychology and Eastern thinking to suggest six.

1.  accept the emotional discomforts at the core of leading: “In doing so, we can hold them more lightly, believe them less resolutely, and take them less personally.”

2. acknowledge distress without clinging to it: “We can have our thoughts rather than be had by them.”

3. focus on changing behaviors, not feelings: “We can accept what we’re experiencing at the moment while still working to make things better.”

4. treat self with compassion, kindness, and care. “Both intuitively and through scientific research, we know that self-compassion is central to well-being.”

5. accept human imperfection: “Self-criticism is often accompanied by an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation — as if ‘I’ were the only person suffering or making mistakes.”

6. keep faith in core values: They remind us what’s at stake and put the inevitable discomforts in leading from and toward them in perspective.

Mindfulness training can help cultivate these habits of the mind. The leadership payback is clear: increased capacities for situational diagnosis, task focus, calm value-centered action, and resilience.

Our internal dramas may still be intense, warns Murphy, but we’ll witness them from a safe, nonjudgmental place where we can respond wisely.

[1] Jerome. T. Murphy. Dancing in the rain: Tips on thriving as a leader in tough times. Phi Delta Kappan (September 2011), 93 (1): 36-41.