Everyday Leadership

Everyone has the ability to be a leader, leadership is not about a title, a role, or a responsibility.  It is about the actions you take.   It is about the words you use.   It is about being true to yourself and others.   Most people do not realize the impact that they have on others with acts that may seem meaningless to them.    Drew Dudley talks about this as being "Everyday Leadership", and I cannot rave enough about his Tedx Toronto 2010 talk on the subject.  For me, its a message that succinctly epitomizes how the world should look at leadership.   The video is less than 7 minutes long, 1.3 million people have watched it so far, so if you haven't seen it already do yourself a favor take a few minutes and watch it here:  http://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership before you even read the rest of this blog.

During the video, Drew tells a story about how he impacted a young woman's life, without ever really knowing or meeting her.   I'm not going to give away the details, as I definitely want you to watch the video but he called his impact moment a Lollipop moment, and this is how he defined it:

"Lollipop Moment - A moment where someone said something or did something that you feel fundamentally made your life better"  

- Drew Dudley

Drew's contention is that we all treat leadership as something bigger than ourselves, and thus make it unreachable.  But he argued that a large number of us have had a "Lollipop Moment" and never told the individual that impacted our lives.   So the fact that we do not believe our words or actions on an everyday basis have an impact; we are wrong.   We are just one of those people that hasn't been told of that impact.

When I sit back and think about "Lollipop Moments" in my life, I am fortunate enough to think of multiple examples and as Drew indicated in a lot of those examples I haven't taken the time out to tell those individuals the impact they have had on me.   One of the first career related ones I remember was during my first job out of college, my boss at the time was great and treated our team well.   He had been freelancing at a dot com business on the side, and knew they had some openings coming up.   It wasn't the right place for him, but he thought that I would be a great fit there.   Here he was, my manager, at a fortune 500 organization and he was advising me to look at an employment opportunity outside of my corporation.   Definitely not the corporate line, but what I learned from him that day is you have to truly invest in your employees as people and not just employees.   What's best for them, may not always align with what's best for you.   I took his advice, interviewed for that job, and had a great run with that organization.   I met some great friends there that I continue to interact with regularly today.  I also got to participate in a variety of experiences that I likely would not have had if I had stayed at my original position.   Although he may not know it, his actions and words, have helped define one of my core principles on how I manage or treat my employees.   I'm always looking at ways to help them succeed, and working on giving them the skills that will help them in the future.  I hope that future is alongside me, but if it isn't I hope that I've prepared them enough to be a bigger success in their new endeavors.  

I do not live my life in a way that I go out and specifically execute actions to impact others.   I am conscious that I have the ability to impact others, so I live to the best of my ability being true and honest with my beliefs.

"Be the change you want to see in the world"  

- Mahatma Gandhi

Some of the greatest leaders I've worked with, I respect because of their actions and beliefs.  How they handle them in situations day in and day out.   I respect those who put others before themselves and understand the impact they even as a single individual in a sea over six billion people can have on a daily basis.

Leadership is not about making an impact or an impression on everyone you touch, its about making an impact or impression on at least one person.   Making their day better, Making them better.   We all have the ability to be great leaders and great people, we need to step up to that challenge and make it happen.

"I've learned people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL." 

- Maya Angelou

What is your "Lollipop Moment"?   Do you think you've influenced others?   What do you do to practice "Everyday Leadership"?  Let me know, I want to be inspired by you.

Reduce Stress and Eliminate Assumptions by finding the Editor within you.

When taking the time to write a book, an article, or even a blog post we benefit from the ability to edit our work prior to publishing it.   Ultimately ensuring better quality, clarity, and understanding of the outcomes we are trying to produce.   In a similar fashion, if we take a moment when caught up in real life situations to become our own editor, we have the ability to separate fact from fiction and reduce unnecessary stress / drama from our lives.  In her book, Reality-Based Leadership, Cy Wakeman describes this technique as "Editing Your Story".   It not only has helped me personally multiple times in the past, but it has allowed me to help others when coaching them through personal or professional struggles.

In its most simplest form, this technique is made up of five steps.

1. Write down your story
2. Cross out things you don't know for sure, highlight the facts
3. Re-focus on the facts
4. Re-evaluate those facts and figure out what you can do to add value to the situation
5. Perform that action.

To help illustrate this technique, let's imagine a professional situation one could possibly encounter.

Step 1 - Write down your story

The industry you have been working in has been going through tough times.   Business is doing well, but it seems as if it has just not been growing as much as your leadership would have liked to see it.   Margins are low, so not much extraneous spending was occurring (e.g. Training and Travel cuts).   Rumors started to go around the office that the company was thinking about doing layoffs.   That morning you went to work, and after a meeting you were walking down a hallway and said "hi" to your boss as you passed by him.   Not only did your boss not say "hi" back but he didn't even acknowledge you and walked on quickly down the hall, something must be going on.    You had planned to have lunch with that boss that afternoon to talk to him about the atmosphere at work, but when you got back to your desk you saw he had cancelled his lunch with you.   Now, your mind started to race.   The first thing you thought was today must be layoff day, and that you must be on the list.   He didn't want to make eye contact with you because he knew he would have to let you go and that's why he had to cancel lunch.   You started to wonder if that meant you were going to be let go prior to lunch, and began to think about where you were going to get the money to make ends meet for the family.   What if this didn't come with any severance?   How soon could you actually find a job, and would a pay cut have to happen?   If so, what sacrifices would your family have to make?   Your stress levels are getting high, your on the verge of panicking, what should you do?

1. Inform your co-workers that everyone is getting laid off today, and that they need to begin preparing for what they are going to do?
2. Start brushing up your resume, calling contacts, and trying to find new opportunities?
3. Take a step back, separate fact from fiction, find the editor within you and edit your story before taking things to far?

Although we maybe tempted to start to do #1 or #2, the best choice for us in this situation is 

#3.   It's not going to take very long to do, and it will help you bring clarity and understanding to your mind before you make any rash decisions.

Step 2 - Cross out things you don't know for sure, highlight the facts

The industry you have been working in has been going through tough times.   Business is doing well, but it seems as if it has just not been growing as much as your leadership would have liked to see it.    Margins are low, so not much extraneous spending was occurring (e.g. Training and Travel cuts).    Rumors started to go around the office that the company was thinking about doing layoffs.   That morning you went to work, and after a meeting you were walking down a hallway and said "hi" to your boss as you passed by him.   Not only did your boss not say "hi" back but he didn't even acknowledge you and walked on quickly down the hall, something must be going on.    You had planned to have lunch with your boss that afternoon to talk to him about the atmosphere at work, but when you got back to your desk you saw he had cancelled his lunch with you.   Now, your mind started to race.   The first thing you thought was today must be layoff day, and that you must be on the list.   He didn't want to make eye contact with you because he knew he would have to let you go and that's why he had to cancel lunch.   You started to wonder if that meant you were going to be let go prior to lunch, and began to think about where you were going to get the money to make ends meet for the family.   What if this didn't' come with any severance?   How soon could you actually find a job, and would a pay cut have to happen?   If so, what sacrifices would your family have to make? 

Step 3 - Re-focus on the facts

Facts are:   Industry is going through tough times, Business is doing well, Margins are low and spending is tight.   You saw your boss this morning, you said "hi" to him and he didn't acknowledge you, and he had to cancel his lunch with you today.

Everything else was part of story you began to write for yourself, by editing it your now down to just what you know to be true.

Step 4 - Re-evaluate those facts and figure out what you can do to add value to the situation

After looking at the facts, in this case, there really is no need to stress out.  All you need to do is really continuing providing your best day in and day out.

We don't know what happened, and really at this point and time we don't need to know.   Although we focused on the negative, maybe just maybe your boss is a real person too.   Maybe he didn't acknowledge you because he was deep in thought because he just got a call from his family about a problem at home and cancelled your lunch because he needed to run home and take care of it.   We really don't know.   There is not benefit in speculating either way.  Stick to the facts, and go from there.

Step 5 - Perform that action.

In this case, send a request to your boss to reschedule your lunch, so you can have that discussion you've been meaning to have and continue to do your job.   

Conclusion

For a simple technique, there seems to be a lot to remember, but really its not that hard.   Separate Fact from Fiction in the story your evaluating, focus on the facts, and act on those and those alone.   Discover the editor of your life story within you, reduce your stress, and begin to make a difference in the quality of your life.

"Begin challenging your own assumptions.  Your assumptions are your windows on the world.  Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in."

- Alan Alda

Have you found the editor within you?  How has editing your story helped you?   Looking forward to understanding if this technique impacts your lives as much as it does mine.