My first management experience was a disaster. I had a poor manager myself and was told to “be in charge” of a group of my peers, who did not report to me and had no particular reason to do what I told them to do. It turned into a backstabbing circus within hours.
What I learned from that experience is that “management” comes in all forms and that reporting relationships are only one of many dimensions that matter when it comes to getting things done and building a professional reputation.
[Tweet “Managing people, below us, alongside us & above us, is all about relationships.”]
Over the years, and working with professionals in many professions and at levels I have come to understand that the very term “managing” can be misleading if we assume that it has much to do with “control.” Sometimes we do control resources, budgets, job descriptions and other assets, but we never control people.
When things are bad at work, who’s job is it to fix it? The higher you are, the more that task sits on your shoulders. Henna shares with us what it feels like when you forget this. – InPower Editors
True story about one of the biggest regrets I have in my corporate career. At one point, I was part of a C-level leadership team where the business was facing immense challenges. Our prior two CEO’s had been fired within 18-24 months of one another. We were behind our competition in innovation. We had major supply issues which made our customers unhappy. Employee morale was low. Many of us were new and there was lack of trust within the leadership team as each of the regions fought to get their customers the limited supply of product.
As I look back on my career, one of the bigger regrets I have is not stepping up to stop the dysfunction. I’m not sure I had the skills. I’m not sure that I thought it was my job. At one point, the trust was so low, I’m not sure that I cared enough. It was a career low. I was one of those insidious 30% “actively disengaged” team members that engagement surveys talk about.
Often the lack of trust and engagement creeps up on us. We don’t even feel it coming. We just know something smells funny. Often we’re not sure what to do about it. We’re not even sure whether it’s our job to do something about it.
My goal here is to share what I learned and hopefully prevent you the career regret:
Do something about it when something smells funny. Even if it’s not on your job description, it’s your job.
If you’re not sure what to do about it, have an honest conversation with the other boiling frogs in the pot. It’s your job.
As a team member you are just as accountable as the rest to create trust on the team – even if that means owning up to the lack of trust you feel with others. That takes courage. It’s your job.
If you don’t think your boss is willing to listen, give it another try. Try another way to talk to them. Find someone else to help you. It’s your job.
Learn how to have difficult conversations that rebuild trust when it is broken. This requires authenticity and accountability. It’s your job.
As one of my C-level clients says “Our job is to manage conflict. Easy jobs don’t pay well”. I hope this inspires you to take some action and save some frogs in the process. We’ll all be glad you did.
This blog post was first published on my Forbes.com blog.
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
Taking unstructured time to BE is a critical tool in your productivity and effectiveness bag of tricks. How often do you use it? Take a day off like Leslie did and see what happens! – InPower Editors
I did a really good thing last week: I went on a 24-hour personal retreat. From noon on Monday to noon on Tuesday, I set down all my ‘shoulds’ and to-do lists and went with a friend to a log cabin in a wilderness preserve about 2 hours from DC. No agenda – just space, time, wooded trails, a journal and some wholesome food.
As we began our retreat, each of us articulated an intention for our time there. Mine was to feel less scattered, to be restored to a sense of inner consolidation and wholeness. It didn’t take long for me to start feeling better. Within minutes of settling on that porch overlooking the Shenandoah Valley, serenaded by the whisper of dry leaves falling, the sharp inner edges smoothed out. I felt spiritually reconnected. I felt relieved to drop down into a mode where I was not making anything happen.
These 24 hours got me thinking about how much my life supports accomplishment and how little it supports personal renewal. Whether it’s in my business, my home, or in my community, the world around me is always calling for me to do more. And I want to answer that call. So I spend most of my time in what I call my ‘executive function,’ the grit side of myself that plans, aspires, organizes, and gets stuff done.
By contrast, there is very little around me that encourages me to slow down, to inhabit a more quiet, receptive mode. I don’t get messages from my environment saying, “Get less involved!” “Be content with what you have!” or “Hey – winter’s coming: time to slow down.” The drive to take things down a notch comes only from within myself – not because “I’m worth it,” but because I need it in order to be at my happiest and best. None of my most creative moments occur when I’m staring at a computer screen – they occur in the shower or on walks. Busyness does not cultivate kindness in me – relaxation does. The harder I’m driving, the less open I am to inspiration or delight.
I don’t know about you, but the world doesn’t tend to hand me renewal time on a silver platter. I’m going to have to keep carving it out for myself.
I am a fan of big breaks, like spiritual, contemplative or creative retreats or even spa get-aways. These can be immensely beneficial – kind of a whole-being reset. But these big breaks can also be beyond reach for many of us. No worries. Even the smallest reconnection with our ‘grace’ sides can have profound effects. So we have to reclaim and build renewal time into our daily lives, structuring in no-cost, low investment micro-retreats. Here are some ideas:
Breathing breaks. Unless the building’s on fire or your kid needs to go to the emergency room, most of us can take 60 seconds out to simply pay full attention to our breath. The breath is an express train into the present moment, which is actually the only place where stress does NOT live. Most stress is a fabrication of our minds, which are either fretting about the past or worrying about the future. For one minute a couple of times a day, be. here. now.
Mealtime meditations. When was the last time you sat down to a meal and brought your full attention to the act of eating? When was the last time you really tasted your lunch? Noticed the color, shape and textures of what you consumed? Chewed instead of shoveled? Even eating at your desk can be transformed into an opportunity to cultivate receptivity and presence.
Gratitudes. I don’t know about you, but once I get into task mode, I can tend to feel put-upon – even if I’ve put everything upon myself! It can be a game changer to take a second to register one thing that you’re grateful for, one way in which you feel blessed. Research has proven that a gratitude practice yields significant psychological and physiological benefits, and it’s easy to do. You can weave it seamlessly into your day – maybe doing it every time you’re standing at the elevator or walking between meetings. Maybe you write down one gratitude as the first note you take in every meeting. I have two ‘gratitude buddies’ – we try to email each other each day with five things we’re grateful for.
Nature time-outs. I have a client who sets a chime to ring on her computer two or three times per day. It reminds her to go outside and connect with the natural world for a minute or two. Nature returns her to a larger sense of perspective and a more gracious orientation to time. Nature’s often closer at hand than you think. Step out of your office and walk around the block. At your daughter’s soccer game, take your attention off of how she’s doing for a few seconds and just feel the sun on your face. At a stoplight, turn off the radio and open the window.
Music retreats. Music can change your state almost instantly. Put on a quiet piece of music in your office and just listen. Or shut your door and dance around to a favorite boogie tune.
What about you?
What happens to you when your life becomes all doing (grit) and no being (grace)? How does it affect your health, outlook and energy? How does it affect the quality of your relationships? How does it affect your effectiveness at work and at home?
Have you ever established grace-supporting structures or routines in your life? If so, what were they, and what impact did they have on you?
What impact did they have on those around you?
What enabled you to sustain these structures? What got in the way?
Given the reality of your life these days, what are two things you could do on a regular basis to give your grit-ful ‘executive function’ a break?
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
We talk so much about “authenticity” at work, but what does it really mean to be an authentic leader? Laurie takes us on a deep dive and shares her own experience with authenticity in today’s post. – InPower Editors
Authenticity is all the rage these days.
Be your authentic self. Let your freak flag fly. Remove your masks.
That may be fine for creative entrepreneurs and your crazy cousin Pepper who lives in Vermont, but does it fly in the workplace?
Yes. In fact, authenticity is essential to a high-performing team, growing companies and your own fulfilling, high-energy life.
What Does It Mean To Be Authentic At Work?
I’m not suggesting you wear beads in your hair, your tie-die shirt or a Harley jacket to work. I’m also not suggesting you hug everyone, drop f-bombs or crochet during meetings.
Authentic is defined as “of undisputed origin.” Authenticity therefore is to be of your undisputed origin. That means authenticity isn’t about what you wear or even your “personality.” Authenticity is who you are as a person at your core.
After years of trying to please others, be right, look good, be safe and many other things we work to do to “keep it together” and get ahead, it’s easy to draw a blank when posed with the question “who am I really?” It’s funny that this is such a hard question to answer. But face it we all come into the world in the same way. We are a unique, magical, biological amalgamation of DNA. Yet we strive to be different, special, loved, cherished, honored, and respected. In this effort to be something we are not, we lose touch with our authentic self.
Being authentic isn’t about removing masks. Being authentic is about:
dropping the judgments (about yourself and other)
ending the tiresome pursuit to please others
accepting there is enough to go around and you don’t have to fight others for limited resources
recognizing you are good enough and you deserve respect (without demanding it)
accepting that you everything you need within you
In short, being authentic is about being free and open enough to connect with others and to tap into your inner wisdom and energy.
Why Authenticity In The Work Place Is A Must
The success of your company, your team and you depends on every employee, including yourself, being authentic.
I know this may sound a little woo-woo, but bear with me.
A workplace is made up of individuals. For that workplace to be successful and achieve the desired results, the individuals must work together and that means they must connect with each other. If you aren’t connecting with your co-workers you aren’t getting things done to your fullest potential. As Helen Keller says, “ Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
Inauthenticity, on the other hand, breeds fear, fighting, and fatigue. Some of the price of inauthenticity in the workplace therefore is:
less then maximum revenue growth
unhappy customers and clients
product defects and design flaws
lost opportunities
silos in which employees don’t communicate, collaborate or support each other
employees or teams undermining each other
Companies spend thousands, if not millions of dollars, each year trying to get their employees to work better together. Yet they don’t address the heart of the matter and that is creating an environment that fosters authenticity. If you want a workplace where people collaborate, are energized, creative and innovative, provide excellent customer services and bring their best, start by being authentic.
How Can You Be Authentic At Work?
If you are not being authentic at work, it’s a scary idea to consider. I can tell you that the first time you are authentic it’s frightening.
The first time I was an authentic leader at work was when I asked our CEO if I could present an analysis to the executive team of how we could create stronger client relations after we had a massive, costly failure. There were many reason I shouldn’t have done the analysis, much less presented it. For one, I wasn’t responsible for client relations. I also wasn’t on the executive committee.
Then there were the internal reasons I shouldn’t have boldly spent late night hours thinking about and creating the presentation. The internal reasons were all the internal conversations I was having:
Surely no one would listen to me. Who was I” to be doing this analysis and presentation, I was just the lawyer and no one listens to lawyers? What if I step on someone’s toes? What if they thought my analysis was stupid or wrong and I got fired?
Here’s the thing about that negative chatter. It’s rarely right. None of that awful stuff happened, the presentation was well received and changes were made. A few years later I was even overseeing client relations.
Despite success stories, I find most people are still wary of speaking their mind and being authentic at work. The key to being authentic is quieting the voices in your head and speaking up with your ideas, your thoughts and your creativity. The key is taking a risk that you know better than the gremlin in your head.
Being authentic is no stopping even when you get shot down time and again. As the saying goes, if you don’t succeed, try again. Change your approach. But don’t give up.
How will you be authentic today and move you and your company forward today?
Note from the Editor: The staff of InPower women is taking some time off this week, as we hope you are, so we are reposting this popular post you may have missed. Happy Holidays!
I’d like to banish the widely held myth that women are uncomfortable with power, that we aren’t in touch with our power or don’t like wielding our power. These statements are not true, and they damage the credibility of women.
I do believe it’s true that women give away their power. But first we have to have power in order to give it away.
I also believe it’s true that women don’t like to publicly acknowledge their power. We don’t tell other people that we enjoy having power, and we brush off compliments about the power we demonstrate. We do this because we still face criticism in social and business situations if we admit to enjoying the feeling of power. (more…)
The discussions about women in leadership usually don’t point the finger at sexism by men directly these days, and with good reason. This article from Kathryn helps us understand how today’s sexist cultural trends are much more complex than it’s “Mad Men” stereotype. We can’t just blame the men anymore. – InPower Editors
There are many interesting discussion points in this article about gender roles in marriages and families, how the higher spousal income can determine parenting responsibilities, how the real impediment to “work-life balance” is affordable child care, and more…but what draws me into this article most is Marche’s assertion that men are not overtly the bad guys when it comes to women getting ahead in business. He talks about “a hollow patriarchy: the edifice is patriarchal, while the majority of its occupants approach egalitarianism.”
Though my expertise does not extend to social research, my sense is that, for the most part, there is indeed a hollow patriarchy–a holdover from another time. I have to believe that most men, in 2013, do not have a problem advancing the contributions and careers of their wives, their daughters or other women.
People who actually do the research support my view. Marche notes:
In 2009, Pew reported that 54% of men with kids younger than 17 believed that young children should have a mother who didn’t work. Just four years later, that number has dropped to 37%.
Although stay-at-home dads are still very much in the minority, Marche also notes that their numbers have doubled in just a decade’s time. (This suggests that more and more men are ok when their wives are the major breadwinners.)
Add in the fact, as Marche reported:
Of the 15 fastest-growing job categories in the United States, 13 are dominated by women. (Who I can only assume work with the blessing of their husbands.)
And then there is the Gallup 2013 Work and Education survey I read about in a Human Resources Executive online article (“Women Don’t Feel Held Back at Work“) that shows a vast majority of women, 85%, saying “No, [I] have not” when asked “Have you ever felt you were passed over for a promotion or opportunity at work because of your gender, or not?”
Despite this statistic, no one can argue that the top of corporations still resemble old boy’s clubs–and Marche also reminds readers that the female board membership rate is at only 12%. But is this all because:
a) men are barricading the doors to the C-suite?
b) women move forward with trepidation, expecting gender discrimination—that is perhaps imposed only by a minority of unevolved men stuck in the year 1952?
c) even the most successful women suffer from a lack of confidence and the “imposter syndrome” as described in Mary Kopcynski’s great article, “Don’t Just Lean In, Speak Up”?
I’m going with “c” and “d” because I just don’t buy “b”, the widespread discrimination theory. In my view the corporate patriarchy is indeed hollow because I believe most men (except some in the “1%” who have overpowering incomes and egos) do support the idea of a working woman.
Why wouldn’t they?
After investing as much as $250,000 in tuition, why would fathers watch proudly as their daughters graduate from college, and then expect them only to work for a year or two before exiting the workforce to raise a family?
Why would these same fathers feel that their daughters are not entitled, through hard work and accomplishment, to an equal opportunity of building a lucrative and rewarding career?
Why would the vast majority of husbands who have experienced economic downturns—those who have suffered their own job loss or watched others struggle with unemployment—discourage wives who want to work and believe that only one income is a wise long-term financial strategy?
Where are the men who feel that any company is justified to pay a young daughter less than her male counterpart for an entry-level job?
Which men think it’s ok for their well-qualified wives to be passed over for a promotion or a raise because she’s not one of the guys?
No, I don’t think the vast majority of men are willingly standing in the way of women in the work world. I do think, as Marche says so insightfully: “Today, men and women are not facing off on a battleground so much as stuck together in a maze of contradictions.”
In that maze of contradictions I believe women are held back by the misperception that they are not welcomed or valued by male colleagues (read Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s new book to see how so many successful women have male sponsors)—and by the universal lack of understanding about gender differences, complementary work styles and diversity. Women share in the responsibility to collectively move their gender ahead–there can’t be a wholesale blaming of men for sputters and stalls.
The reality is that the patriarchs and the matriarchs will share power and advance in step when more men and women learn how to push the right relationship-building buttons, recognize complementary strengths, generally respect each other’s differences and learn the value of helping each other succeed. –KAS
We have opportunities to push ourselves all the time in life. What do you do with those opportunities? Do you grab them and go for it or hang back and wait for something easier? Dana comes clean on her lifelong patterns and steps up to new ways to Do Hard, which is one of the strategies she gives you in her new eBook on going higher, faster! – InPower Editors
“Do Hard.”
This was the answer a woman who sat on several large company corporate boards gave when she was asked how to get noticed for board seats. “Do hard.”
Those words really stuck with me because as she talked about what it meant to “do hard” in her corporate environment, such as taking overseas assignments and asking her husband to leave his job, I realized that in my corporate life I’d chosen many times not to “do hard.” I’d chosen not to build up skills I didn’t enjoy in favor of those I did. I’d chosen not build relationships that would have forced me to travel more when my kids were little. And every one of these had been a choice.
I actually thought that by getting out in entrepreneur-land I was “Doing Easy.”
I was so wrong. Simply surviving as an entrepreneur is hard work and constantly puts me in my discomfort zone. I’ve learned to set aside fear of rejection, disapproval, failure and so much more out on my own. It’s like running a constant obstacle path to learn to set aside fear, doubt and a bunch of other stuff in my way.
Here’s what I’ve learned about Doing Hard. It doesn’t matter whether you travel or don’t travel, become a specialist or a generalist, or work for yourself or someone else… if you’re in your stretch zone, you’re Doing Hard and your career and life will benefit.
What hard thing are you doing today?
“Do Hard” is Tip #2 in 7 Strategies to Attract and Executive Sponsor: 21 Action Items to Help You Go Higher, Faster! Download this free ebook and video mini-series today and join our May 30 telecon on How to Attract an Executive Sponsor! (Already registered at InPower Coffee Break? You can get your copy now when you log in!)
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
Becoming an InPower leader means becoming mindful. But what does that look like? Feel like? Emily does a great job explaining why sometimes those questions are so hard to answer! But so important to pursue. – InPower Editor
If there’s one question I get asked more than any other, it’s how you’re supposed to know when mindfulness is working.
The answer, I’m afraid, is not very satisfying.
Truth is, mindfulness is working when nothing happens.
If you’ve read Who Says It’s a Man’s World, you’ll know this is what I meant when I said you have to “cut the crap” in order to “call in the good stuff” – meaning you have to ditch the behaviors that don’t serve you to make room for the ones that do.
And when you get that right, I promise you nothing happens.
Of course, by “nothing” I’m referring to a deep sense of spaciousness and freedom from roller-coaster emotions or – to put it another way – to feel like you’re mentally at the beach versus mentally trapped in, say, a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.
What troubles me is that some of us are actually drawn to the chaos of Chuck E. Cheese, which is to say that we are hooked on drama, emotion, and busy-ness either because it’s what’s familiar to us based on long-ingrained behavior patterns, or because it’s what makes us feel alive.
Indeed, over the years I’ve had a lot of people tell me they respect what I do (insert fictional head pat) but they could never stop the freight train of their lives long enough to take conscious pauses throughout the day or go through the discipline required for a serious professional development, yoga, or meditation practice.
To which I reply, “That’s fine, but do you love the life you’ve built?”
For the record, this is NOT the same thing as asking, “Do you have a big house, wine in the cellar, and fashionable clothes?”
I’m not knocking those things – I adore them myself – but what I really want to know is whether they are living deeply, with positive impact on others, and through all five senses.
To live the life you truly deserve, you can’t just go through the motions regardless of how big your house is.
So…. when you’re finally ready to ditch external running and chaos for internal strength and stillness, that’s when you know you’re ready for mindfulness.
And when you’ve actually done it, well, that’s when you know it’s working.
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
When you’re leading a team, sometimes it tough to know when you’re doing things right. We like Paula’s simple descriptions of happy employees because it’s easy to recognize success through her eyes. Are your employees happy? – InPower Editor
When was the last time you jumped out of bed, excited that it was Monday morning, ready to head to a job you couldn’t wait to get to? It’s been that long, huh? If your jump out of bed looks more like a stop, drop and roll, it’s time to think about some different strategies for injecting a little happiness back into your day.
After I burned out toward the end of my law practice, I knew there had to be a better way. I’ve spent the past four years studying, teaching, and training stress management techniques and resilience-building skills to thousands of different professionals, and here are specific things happy employees do differently:
They job craft. Employees rarely land the perfect job, but they use specific strategies to create a better work environment. Job crafting is the process employees use to increase job satisfaction, engagement, resilience, and thriving at work. Happy employees have the autonomy to customize their jobs by changing tasks and interactions with others in order to maximize their strengths and passions (Berg, Dutton, & Wrzesniewski, 2008).
They have hope. Happy employees have hope, and that translates into bottom-line benefits for business. Companies lose billions of dollars each year when employees fail to show up for work. In a study of mechanical and electrical engineers at a Fortune 100 tech company, the high-hope engineers, on average, missed less than three days of work in a twelve-month period. The low-hope engineers missed, on average, more than ten days of work in that same period of time (Avey, Patera, & West, 2006). Hopeful employees are also productive. According to Dr. Shane Lopez, “Hopeful salespeople reach their quotas more often; hopeful mortgage brokers process and close more loans; and hopeful managing executives meet their quarterly goals more frequently” (Lopez, 2013).
They leverage humor and positive emotion. Humor builds positive emotion and helps reduce feelings of anger, depression, and anxiety (McGhee, 2010). Positive emotions also predict increases in both resilience and life satisfaction (Cohn et al., 2009). As a former practicing attorney, I used to keep a book of lawyer jokes on my desk for days when I took the world way too seriously.
They manage pessimistic thinking. Optimistic thinkers think in a very specific way when setbacks happen. Specifically, they are solution-oriented and see where they have control and/or influence, know that the adversity won’t last forever and “this too shall pass,” and they compartmentalize well so that the setback doesn’t bleed over into other areas of their life (Seligman, 2006). More importantly, optimistic thinkers are healthier (Cohen et al., 2003), happier, and less depressed (Abramson, 2000) than their pessimistic thinking counterparts.
They have self-efficacy. Knowing that you can manage life’s challenges effectively and produce results is a pillar of resilience, and when employees are at their resilient best, they are more confident, creative, and open-minded (Skodol, 2010). As a result, they have the confidence to solve problems and pursue tough assignments and challenging roles.
They focus on the upside of stress. Health psychologist Dr. Kelly McGonigal discussed the latest stress research in her June 2013 TED talk, “The Upside of Stress.” Specifically, new research shows that how you think about your stress response actually has a huge impact on your health. According to Dr. McGonigal, people who learned to view their stress response as helpful (rather than harmful) to performance were much less stressed, less anxious, and more confident.
They stay the course. Grit is perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Researchers studied an incoming class of cadets at West Point and found that the group who was most likely to make it through the training was not more athletic, well-rounded or smarter – they were grittier; in fact, grit was a better predictor of success for these cadets than IQ or standardized test scores (Duckworth, et al., 2007). Gritty people pursue goals with passion, don’t back down from challenges, don’t allow a failure to define who they are as a person, and simply put, don’t quit. You can measure your grit using the Grit Scale found at www.authentichappiness.org.
Happy employees have developed a specific set of strategies over time that causes them to work differently, and we need that in today’s workplace. The most recent Gallup survey on employee engagement showed that 50% of workers report being “not engaged” while another 20% report being “actively disengaged” (Sorenson & Garman, 2013). We can do so much better than that.
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
Research continues to show us that mentorship isnot enough to help women get into senior executive leadership in significant percentages. What the research says is that in addition to cultivating mentors to help them “learn the ropes,” the folks that leapfrog their peers into the executive ranks have sponsors working for them behind the scenes. Dana took a look at this phenomenon and created 7 InPowered strategies you’ve probably never heard – but totally should try! – to help you attract an executive career sponsor.– InPower Editors
Future-proof your career development stay competitive in the job market.
