Your Leadership GPS- leading with success

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking amongst a great line up of speakers, including: Michele Bailey, Blazing THE Agency, Jessica Jackley co-founder of Kiva.org, Denise Leclair, Bedouin Beats Ltd, Tara Kelly, SPLICE Software, and Cidnee Stephen, Strategies for Success. Each of the speakers brought rich content and value to the event, and the incredible business women that attended!

Your Leadership GPS was the topic I was speaking on, a topic that I am most passionate about, and one that is essential for business owners. "Leadership is a decision, not a position" is a statement by an author I respect, David Irvine. He has a valuable perspective on leadership, building trust, and developing authentic leadership skills. I also spoke about some of the qualities of great leaders, such as leadership maturity, humility, the ability to forgive and to ask for help. Reminding the audience that "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be possible" is a message I love to share, especially since I am a recovering perfectionist. As a leader, your results will give you a pretty good idea of your mindset and your leadership blueprint.

Some tips to enhancing your leadership GPS:

- create a mindset of success
- develop affirmations that are congruent with the type of leader you wish to be
- know your working style and how to work with other's whose style is different from yours
- have the courageous dialogues (the conversations that matter most and are mostly avoided)
- develop your ASK skills
- learn to forgive (self and others)
- systematize what you do


We talked about the importance of mindset, and setting your intention for the day, which is what I call "Framing Your Day". The video I enjoy sharing is titled Jessica's Affirmations, you can watch it here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg

Framing your Day is making an intentional decision of how you intend to
show up in the world, what leadership you will demonstrate and how
you intend your day will go.

Read the article that Alberta Women Entrepreneurs wrote about me here:

http://www.awebusinessaspx/?id=922


To find out more about Alberta Women Entrepreneurs, their services and the incredible conference speakers, visit: http://www.awebusiness.com/


To find out more about the books that I referenced in the presentation, visit:

                  


                   

What is an Authentic Leader?

David Irvine, author of The Authentic Leader, and I enjoyed a great conversation on my Conversations with Charmaine Radio Show on this very topic. David states that leadership is not a position, it’s a decision. His perspective really resonated with me. With many of the teams I work with as a speaker, consultant or facilitator, one of the discussions that comes up is about demonstrating leadership, even if you are not a leader by title.

The authentic leader, according to David, is about inspiring and engaging people to work toward a compelling vision – by seeing the gifts and potential of others more clearly than they see it in themselves and being able to communicate it in their own unique way. He also states that leadership is more about presence and not the position. Authentic leaders, states Irvine, aligns the interests, values, and goals of the organization with the interests, values, and goals of the employee.

We also talked extensively about the importance of trust in an organization, and changing the culture to be more trusting and trustworthy. This can be a significant challenge for even the high performing and healthy teams. One of the teams I worked with had a very moving conversation about trust, the importance of being vulnerable and taking risks. As the team talked about the discomfort with vulnerability, they discovered that this was blocking their ability to communicate courageously (having the conversations that matter most and are mostly avoided). This resulted in the team working pretty well together, but, in times of uncertainty, change and pressure, the sensitive issues were not discussed. In the teams’ desire “not to rock the boat” the boat ended up getting rocked because the little issues became big issues.  The team discovered that little things grow bigger and while discomfort and vulnerability can be a challenge, it is much more uncomfortable to deal with the issue when it has become a crisis.

Some of the ideas the group brainstormed together to build and sustain trust in the organization were:

•        To communicate regularly, openly and intentionally
•        To refrain from gossip
•        To acknowledge one another, individual and team accomplishments
•        To raise issues earlier on
•        To set time aside on each weekly staff meeting for open dialogue
•        Regular team building opportunities
•       Exposure to one another’s roles

They also developed a charter, which is something I always enjoy facilitating. Their team charter set forth agreements about how the team would work together, communicate together, and succeed together. The team established “norms” and expectations around communication, conflict resolution, staff meeting structure, sharing of knowledge. Their charter has become an important document in their team, has provided them with “permission” to hold one another accountable, and most importantly, it was what they used to design their team. I have lots of faith that this team will be highly successful, their investment in team will impact them positively now and in time to come.

And in the words of David Irvine, this team really demonstrated leadership not by position, but by a decision and their presence in the team.

You can listen to the interview with David Irvine and Seanna Collins here.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/charmainehammond/2012/02/15/guests-david-irvine-and-seanna-collins

To find out more about David’s book Authentic Leadership, click here:

Make the Decision to Trust

David Irvine, is known as the Leader’s Navigator™. I had the opportunity to interview David on the launch of my new radio program Conversations with Charmaine. What a fabulous conversation, full of rich content for the listeners. David offered incredible insights about trust, authentic leadership and building a culture where communication, quality and authenticity prevail.


It became clear to me that not only is David a powerful connector and a communicator, he is an expert at building productive, engaging and vital cultures through authentic leadership.

Something that really struck me was David's comment that authentic leadership begins with a decision.

In discussing the concept of accountability, which is certainly a challenge I see lots of leaders struggle with, he described accountability as the "ability to be counted on" and reminded listeners of the importance of one's actions in demonstrating that you can be counted on.

As we discussed the importance of trust in organizations, and in teams, listeners heard not only why trust is essential...but also how to build trust. Many organizations that I have worked with have a long history building, restoring and rebuilding trust. In fact, with many, the old stories of trust (or lack there of) continue to plague the team because it has become part of their culture. David and I discussed a number of ways to restore trust, and like he said... it begins with the decision.

Listen to David's conversation on trust, leadership and authenticity at work at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/charmainehammond/2012/02/15/guests-david-irvine-and-seanna-collins

To find out more about David's book The Bridges of Trust, or to add it to your corporate library, check out: