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Creativity

3 Leadership Lessons Learned from Community Musical Theater

Leadership is about having impact. Whether you’re leading a team or an organization, building a business, or running a community volunteer group, you need to be able to move people. Building a meaningful and joy-filled life is about finding the courage within yourself to go for what you truly want.

For years I have been a huge theater fan, especially musical theater. The truth is I have always had a secret hankering to be on the live stage. But I never took it on – and have lived with that regret of “What if…?” for decades.

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June 23, 2022 No Comments
Communication

Lead Conversations That Count Tip 8: Calibrate Yourself

Calibrate is about taking a moment before you even begin that meeting to really tune in and see how are you doing before you get into the room. When you are calibrated, it really gives you a much better chance to make sure that your intention and the impact that your words and your demeanor has with people are in perfect alignment.

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June 22, 2022 No Comments
Communication

Lead Conversations That Count Tip 7: Check Your Blindspots

In the stress of the moment, sometimes people’s focus gets too narrow. This is just the way our brain works. When our amygdala gets fired up and we get under that stress, we literally develop tunnel vision.
What that can look like in a meeting or in a conversation with people is what we’re focusing on the wrong things. We’re trying to figure out and address these symptoms, and not really stepping back and taking that time to figure out, “Well, why are these problems occurring in the first place?” We can get that kind of fixated perspective, and that’s not helpful when you really want to find a sustainable and effective solution.

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June 21, 2022 No Comments
Communication

Lead Conversations That Count Tip 6: Build with End in Mind

With the mix of working environments now, still a lot of work is happening virtually with people. There’s a lot where we’re going to be having hybrid situations. Some people meeting in person, and other people participating in that through some sort of video conference or other systems. There’s a lot more to think about if you want to design a conversation that counts, that is inclusive of everybody, but is smooth for you to run. You can really be present to the people and not be overwhelmed and overloaded with the process and the technology of bringing all of this together.

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June 21, 2022 No Comments
Communication

Lead Conversations That Count Tip 5: Lead with Relationship

Let’s face it, there’s always more work than you have time to get done. Plus we’re trying to do that from this base level of ongoing chronic stress that we had from shifting to working virtually to maybe working hybrid part of the time or different people working in different ways. People are kind of ragged and our emotional resilience is down. We don’t bounce back,we don’t have that same kind of ability to pick ourselves up when we face a challengeThe challenge is that when there’s tough work to do, sometimes we default to , “We just got to get this work done. Let’s focus on the to-do list and let’s check those things off”. To-do lists are important planning, tools and making sure you’re getting everything organized the way it needs to get organized. The thing is, it’s not just about the checklist. It’s not just about the transaction.

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June 20, 2022 No Comments
Leadership

Lead Conversations That Count Tip 4: Set The Bar

I was talking to a colleague recently and she made the observation that so few managers had learned how to run effective and engaging meetings. To which I said, “You know, that’s true AND it’s not their fault..” Let’s just think about it here for a moment. A lot of  managers used to be colleagues of the people that they’re now managing. Maybe some of them got that promotion because they’re really great at the tech skills, but perhaps not so great at the people skills.
Let’s face it, this isn’t something where you can read a book or even go to a workshop once or twice, and all of the sudden… (snap!) you’re able to run a meeting with a complexity of group dynamics that are always going to be at play.

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June 20, 2022 No Comments
Communication

Lead Conversation That Count Tip 3: Powerful Questions

The problem when you’re busy talking all the time and giving all the answers to people, is it’s not a discussion anymore. It’s not really even a dialogue. It becomes more of a presentation, it’s a one-way communication. Honestly, there’s a problem with that. You’re not hearing all the voices in the room, which is really important. As a result, you might be missing some key insights, and ideas, and perspectives that you need to take into account.

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June 19, 2022 No Comments
Communication

Lead Conversations That Count Tip 2: Building Blocks

Let me tell you about what a conversation that counts  is NOT. You might have experienced one of these recently. It is the kind of meeting where it lacks a purpose. Did we need to have the meeting?  When you get in there, there’s always crazy dynamics of how people participate. The loud people are dominating the conversation. There’s a whole bunch of people who are just so quiet, you don’t know where they’re at on an issue. This is true just as much in-person meetings as it is in virtual meetings. It can be really tricky. So how do you navigate those power dynamics?

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June 18, 2022 No Comments
Mindset

Lead Conversations That Count Tip 1: Leader Presence

Gallup’s survey also shows us that actually 35% of managers are themselves not engaged in the work. If you have a manager who is not engaged in the work, and they have such a big role on impact with the people that they’re leading in a meeting, is it any wonder that a lot of organizations are still struggling to keep great people? Going through that hamster wheel of hiring people, on-boarding new people, then how do you keep that good talent. It’s getting tougher,

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June 17, 2022 No Comments

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