Letting Go

Surrender: The Secret to a Great Leader

Great leadership has nothing to do with making everyone do what you say. It’s not about controlling anyone or anything.

Great leadership is about letting go – surrendering to what is.

“To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!'”— Lao-Tzu

Misconceptions About Great Leaders

In some cultures, people think leadership is about commanding, issuing orders, and making everything fall into place.

Or else.

That may have been effective in the 1950’s or in the modern-day military, but great leaders in organizations today are those who know that letting go fosters innovation, collaboration, and a sense of belonging, being a valued member of a team.

letting go

It remains prevalent today where control is viewed as strength while surrender is viewed as weakness. Yet as Mike Myatt points out in Forbes, “Society has labeled surrender as a sign of leadership weakness, when in fact, it can be among the greatest of leadership strengths.”

Myatt makes it clear: Surrendering isn’t about giving up.

It’s about letting go – getting out of the way – and by doing so, allowing others to be influenced by your example.


As a result, the walk-on-eggshells atmosphere of a controlling leader, where employees feel squashed by micromanagement and worn from being treated as misbehaved children is replaced by a positive and collaborative environment. Employees feel valued, their confidence buoyed – and innovation, initiative, and talents shine.

Avoid Scripting the Duties of Your Employees

Some leaders – who, in fact, are mere managers in this case – choose to lead by making their employees follow prescribed rules and regulations…much like an instruction sheet for putting together a gas grill, for example.

For most people trying to follow well intended step-by-step directions, the project falls short: instead of a sense of satisfaction from a completed job, frustration, annoyance, and irritation is the result.

Many employees feel that way about their jobs in the workplace.

Leaders may have good intentions by implementing flow charts, rules and directives and censoring any questions to their orders.
Yet all that results in is poor performance, high employee turnover and poor customer service.

A shining testament to letting go as a leader can be found in Jim Bush, who transformed American Express’ call centers. In Harvard Business Review, Rob Markey writes of Bush’s novel approach.  His was unique, as American Express already had a high level of service for its call centers – he wasn’t hired to ‘fix’ anything.

But Bush could see even better. Like many companies, American Express had specific guidelines for call center employees, always with a watchful eye on reducing call time but increasing customer satisfaction. Yet turnover was high and employee morale low.

Bush decided that American Express needed to build relationships with their call customers.  Rather than feel like they were talking to a computer, Bush wanted callers to feel as if they were talking to a human being – one that cared.

Impactful Leaders Lead by Letting Go

Bush led – by letting go. How?

He:

  • Tossed the call center scripted guidelines.
  • Stopped limiting the time – allowing customers to speak – as human beings talking to real human beings.
  • Modified the hiring practices, choosing employees with hospitality and retail experience.
  • Renamed the job titles: switching from customer service reps to customer care professionals.
  • Allowed reps to gauge their own time for each call.

The results? Customers were more approving, employee turnover dropped, and AmEx continues to win the J.D. Power customer service award in credit cards.

Great Leaders Don’t Need to Seek the Spotlight. They Naturally Shine

Letting GoSociety, as Mike Myatt points out in Forbes, is captivated by celebrities.

As a result, “the practice of servant leadership is antithetical to our human nature and our current culture.”

Personal success, he writes, is linked with how much we help others – rather than what we do for ourselves.

What’s holding you back from becoming a great leader, asks Myatt? 

YOU.

Effective leadership isn’t about control. It’s not about power.

“Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front”. – Nelson Mandela

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Self-Compassion is What Makes Good Leaders the Greatest

Smart people tend to want to prove themselves by accomplishing a lot within a short period of time.

In holding our feet to the fire, we also tend to be extremely hard on ourselves. For many, there seems to be a deeply rooted belief that in order to be a highly successful leader, continual stress comes with the territory.

We tell ourselves this is how we “get good.” And, admittedly, it may have worked for a time. But it becomes a cycle of never enough and of never-ending stress.

And it’s not a long-term strategy. How could it be? Stress, fatigue, burn-out and plain ole discouragement from our stinkin’ thinkin’ would take its toll on anyone – at best, slowing us down and, at worst, setting the stage for longer-term unproductive struggles in our work and personal relationships.

If left unchecked, it negatively affects performance in the workplace. And it doesn’t have to be like this.

Self-Compassion is the Foundation of Leadership

“Try to feel compassion for how difficult it is to be an imperfect human being in this extremely competitive society of ours…
We’re told that no matter how hard we try, our best just isn’t good enough.”

-Kristin Neff

Our workplaces have become full of discontentment. According to Gregory Stebbins and co-author Marcos Cajina, writing in the Huffington Post, a 2013 Gallup poll revealed shocking results:

-87% of capable employees reported being disengaged

We need to let go of the old ways of leadership. And that means, say the authors, opening the door to self-compassion.

Compassion Makes Leaders More Resilient

Many professionals are experiencing unprecedented record stress levels, brought on not only by the global pandemic and its far-reaching effects, but the political unrest in the world as well.

We’re a world hungry for compassion.

Writing in Forbes, Rebecca Zucker relates her conversation with Kristin Neff, author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself and also The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook, noting how vital compassion is during these tumultuous times. While offering it to others, we must also offer it to ourselves. Zucker notes:

“…self-compassion is a muscle we can build that makes us more resilient over time and allows us to be more optimistic.”

According to Neff, self-compassion consists of three components:

  1. Become mindful and aware of your suffering and acknowledge it.
  2. Be kind to yourself, showing the same care and concern you would give to a child who is suffering.
  3. Realize and remind yourself that you are part of this large community that is humanity. Oftentimes, we feel as if we are suffering all alone when, in fact, we are one among many.

Neff states that when we are aware of our suffering, it is then that we should do something kind for ourselves, like taking a day off, indulging in a nap, or even a long walk. And it’s also good to have support from others.

There is often a cultural roadblock to self-compassion, that somehow being soft with ourselves means we won’t get ahead or be successful. But, it’s actually the opposite that is most often true:

Self-encouragement is shown to be a more effective motivator than self-criticism.

There are gender barriers as well to self-compassion. Women, socialized to care for others, often believe self-compassion is a selfish act, while men can view it as a display of weakness.

Self-Esteem or Self-Compassion?

There is a difference. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Serena Chen notes self-esteem generally involves judging one’s self in comparison to others. Self-compassion has no judgement involved:  it creates a sense of wellbeing.

Kristin Neff digs deeper. Self-esteem is how we judge ourselves positively, how much we value ourselves in comparison with those around us. Self-compassion, meanwhile, is how we relate to ourselves. it shows the interconnection with other humans, instead of a separateness.

As a result, Neff states, with self-compassion:

  • We don’t have to feel better than other people to feel good about ourselves.
  • We don’t need others to feel good about ourselves.

Self-compassion shares many of the same benefits as self-esteem, and though it may not seem so at first, helps us to ultimately focus on a “we” rather than a “me” mentality – as we begin to sense our interconnectedness with all others.

Self-Compassion: A Solid Foundation for Authentic Leaders

self-compassionCarol Dweck, psychology professor at Stanford University, states self-compassion supports what she calls a ‘growth mindset.”

Those with a growth mindset:

-view personal abilities and traits as changeable, see potential for growth and are more likely to maintain positive and optimistic outlooks.

Those with a fixed mindset:

see personal abilities, including their own, as set in stone, believing people will be the same five years from now.

In her research, those who were encouraged to have compassion for themselves in situations where they felt they did wrong reported being more motivated to make amends and not repeat the same error.

Most importantly for leaders, a self-compassion mindset spreads to others. Having compassion for oneself in turn encourages compassion for others. All the characteristics of compassion, like non-judgement and genuine caring, are absorbed by others.

Chen cites research by Jia Wei Zhang that shows that leaders who take on a growth mindset – who believe that change IS possible – tend to notice changes in employees’ performances and intervene to give feedback for improvement.

Employees, in turn, can discern this mindset in their leader, and as a result, are more likely to adopt growth mindsets, too. Truly, this is leading by setting a good example.

Cultivating Self-Compassion is a Skill

Like anything, developing self-compassion it is a skill that needs practice. Chen identifies a psychologist’s checklist for self-compassion: Ask:

Am I:

  1. being kind to myself?
  2. aware that everyone has shortcomings and makes mistakes?
  3. keeping uncomfortable feelings in their proper light?

An easier method, Chen also advises, could be: write yourself a letter in the third person – write to yourself as if you were writing to a dear friend in need of compassion. What would you say to him/her?  What tone would you use?  How would you like this dear friend to see him/herself?

“A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” M.D. Arnold

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To Become a More Intentional Leader, Start Journaling

The achievements of John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Ernest Hemingway, and Marie Curie are well-known to many of us.

As diverse as their careers may be, they shared a common practice: journaling.

While writing down their thoughts, visions, and desires, they chronicled their journey through life. Today, we can read through their written history and glean details into their personal selves.

Perhaps they knew long before we did the value of journaling.  On the surface level, it can be a peaceful reprieve from our frantic 24-7 workdays. And, it is also so much more.

“Journaling is paying attention to the inside for the purpose of living well from the inside out.”

-Lee Wise

Journaling: A Healing Ointment for a Hurting World

Although many of us have good intentions to improve ourselves, we oftentimes find excuses that keep us from our self-improvement goals.

Whether it’s taking time to affirm each day, practicing self-care, or even journaling to self-reflect, we make the usual excuses:

  • We’re too busy.
  • Interruptions get in the way.
  • It’s a waste of our time.

We’re only kidding ourselves.

Henna Inam confesses in Transformational Leadership that she too, found many other things she’d rather do than journal – until she read that many successful people, including US Presidents, kept a daily journal.

She admits that got her attention. Inam recommends journaling to all her executive coaching clients. By putting thoughts down on paper, Inam says journaling relieves the mind of mental burdens that left unchecked, can spiral into negative thoughts.

She notes its transformative benefits: we get greater insights into ourselves and others – and it can improve our health.

Inam offers up 10 suggestions for journaling. Here are some key ones:

  1. Purchase an attractive journal. It becomes a central place for our thoughts. No scrap papers.
  2. If you get stuck, write down what you’re grateful for and why.
  3. List out goals and keep track of them.
  4. During difficult days, write down insights into any emotion that comes up.

Deepok Chopra and Kabir Sehgal writing in Make It, noted four benefits journaling can have in our lives:

  1. Leads us to ‘see’ our thoughts and feelings to make better sense of them
  2. Assists in recovering from stressful events
  3. Enhances our problem-solving skills
  4. Helps us to learn deeper lessons more quickly so we can move on to brighter situations.

Experts say that taking just 15 minutes each day, three to five times a week, can have a significant impact on our physical and mental well-being.

Journaling is a gift to ourselves, part of an overall self-care routine.

We can discover more about how we’re really feeling, and what we want to accomplish – both of which are key first steps to greater self-awareness, the first step in leadership. Self-discovery is a powerful tool, and journaling assists us in our efforts as we review daily encounters:

  • Are we reacting – or responding – to triggers?
  • How do we feel about ourselves when faced with stressful conditions?
  • Next year at this time, where do we see ourselves?

How Journaling Can Help Enhance Our Leadership Capability

Great leaders take time to reflect, writes Nancy Adler in Harvard Business Review.

And what better way to gain insight into one’s self and others than to journal, even for just a few minutes each day?

It’s a quiet time to hear what we have to say to ourselves. Adler suggests asking:

  • How am I feeling about my own leadership?
  • How do I feel right now?
  • What contributed to my happiness this week?

Go beyond your work environment, Adler suggests. Look at a painting and ask, what do I see? If you connect what you see in the painting to your current situation, what new vantage points are revealed to you.

As Adler summed up:

Using a journal regularly will give you the courage to see the world differently, to understand the world differently and to lead in new and needed ways.

In pandemic – and post-pandemic times – our world is craving innovative, inspired leadership.

The New Year is a perfect time to begin journaling.

We can discover ourselves, our inner gifts, and realize out-of-the-box solutions we might ordinarily have overlooked.

“Journal writing, when it becomes a ritual for transformation, is not only life-changing

but life-expanding.” – Jen Williamson

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For Successful Leadership, Leverage the Mighty Power of Affirmations

The simple things in life are the ones we often glance over – without any thought.

And yet, that is where the biggest part of our power lies: in our thoughts.

How many times have we experienced it to be true that the outside world is a reflection of what’s going on in the inside”?

In other words, whatever is going on in our lives is a mirror to how we may be feeling or what we may be thinking: if we are thinking positively and feeling expansively, then we are setting the stage for higher-level circumstances in our lives and work. If we are not, well, then the opposite has a larger chance of occurring.

If we tell ourselves we are incapable of something, we are likely to sabotage ourselves and not accomplish that thing. If we tell ourselves we are not good enough, we will likely find ourselves in situations in which we show ourselves that we are not.

In other words, whatever we focus on in the secret place of our minds, the universe dutifully brings to us.

Indeed, in leadership and in life, many people have discovered a simple, yet profound truth:

What we say verbally (and internally, via self-talk) eventually materializes into our conscious experience.

We can affect what we want to be or do or have by consciously choosing what we tell ourselves.

And, yes, while that might very well sound woo-woo, there is actually quite a bit of scientific research backing it up.

Leverage the Power of Affirmations to Achieve Success

Numerous studies have noted the positive effects that affirmations provide.

Research at the Annenberg School for Communication, collaborating with University of Michigan and UCLA, discovered what happens in our brains while we practice self-affirmations.

Affirmations, like prayer, actually change the brain on a cellular level—in other words, what you think about matters—a lot. “Thoughts have a direct connection to your health,” says Dr. Joseph Dispenza, author of Physics, the Brain and Your Reality:

“Thoughts make a chemical. If you have happy thoughts, then you’re producing chemicals that make you feel happy. Negative, angry thoughts and fearful thoughts also produce chemicals to make you feel how you’re thinking.”

Neurons connect in your brain by attaching to thoughts and memories. Thoughts then become organized into a pattern. For example: The feeling of love is stored in a pattern. Each person builds his/her concept of love from many different ideas and experiences, explains Dispenza.

What Exactly Are Affirmations, Anyway?

 “Affirmations are statements you make to yourself — declarations of what you wish to be”.

– Sharon Janis

 “Every thought you think and every word you speak is an affirmation. All of our self-talk, our internal dialogue, is a stream of affirmations. You’re using affirmations every moment whether you know it or not. You’re affirming and creating your life experiences with every word and thought.”

– Louise Hay

As Bryan Goodwin wrote in Affirmations for Better Leadership, saying affirmations with confidence awakens the subconscious mind, thereby causing it to pay more attention to our affirmation – and less attention to that which we are critical of ourselves for.

While affirmations should be your own words, Rick Clonlow writing in LinkedIn shares some good examples to inspire us:

-I am achieving dramatic success in my work.

-I am a good listener.

-I am working smarter, not harder.

True Leaders Speak Authentic Affirmations

When acknowledging achievements done by their team, authentic leaders offer congratulatory praise that is genuine – and personally directed.

Enzo M. Battista-Dowds PhD. RD noted in The Ascent that when we are not genuine, our affirmations aren’t, either.  After all, our listeners can easily tell – by our tone of voice or by our energy – when we are not being genuine with our words.

For example, a leader may tell an employee that they are brilliant, excellent and exceptional, but as Battista-Dowds states, if they are not specific to the person, there is no depth to these words. They are merely empty words that a person with little self-esteem will most likely disregard. To change this disbelief, Battista-Dowds suggests a double affirmation.

Start with a value affirmation and end with a quality affirmation that is specific to the person. This creates compelling affirmations. Examples from Battista-Dowds:

“Your teamwork is fantastic. You’re collaborative.

Your service is stellar. You’re professional.”

Context is everything, says Batista-Dowds, and “doubling-up” is even more powerful. An employee hears their service is stellar and then acknowledges their work is stellar because they are a professional.

Our world yearns for positivity and compassion. An authentic leader inspires others with meaningful and genuine words of praise, specifically tailored for each team member. Employees are uplifted and motivated – a win-win atmosphere in any organization.

We Can Affirm Our Way to Success With Positive Statements

Affirmations needn’t be complex – they are simply positive statements we make that focus on whatever it is that we desire to accomplish.

To be most effective, they are to be repeated frequently and with a strong conviction to create a fundamental shift in our subconscious so that our inner system truly believes in what we are telling it.

Just as important as affirming regularly is surrounding ourselves with people who support us with empowering thoughts. Amy Morin in Psychology Today says the company we keep says a lot about us: we begin to act like the people we surround ourselves with. This is why it is important to associate with those who raise us up.

Affirmations should be words of our own choosing. We can speak them, too, as if we are talking to a friend. Speak in the present tense.

To normalize the affirmation in your thinking, repeat it 10 times for a few minutes, twice daily.

Be consistent. Remember, we often are uprooting decades of thought patterns that create limiting effects for us. Stay grounded in what you want to create for yourself.

And, as the old saying goes, “Act as if.” Doing so helps influence our subconscious mind more effectively so that it believes in the truth of our affirmative statement.

Yes, it really is true: we do have the power to change ourselves. It is within each of us. As we tell ourselves powerful, positive thoughts, we can be witness as our outer world transforms.

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

—Napoleon Hill

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Career advice for leaders , Smart leadership strategies , Career achievement moves for leaders

Leaders, Try These Smart Strategies to Reach Your Goals

Strong leaders spend a good deal of time focusing on the success of the people who work for them – sometimes at the expense of their own career achievements.

If your leadership abilities alone are not taking you where you want to go in your career, try incorporating the following smart strategies to reach your goals.

Career Achievement Moves for Leaders

Shift Your Leadership Focus – Just like the people they supervise, leaders are more effective when their work feels meaningful. Have you lost the drive for your work? Look for actions you can take to create more meaning in what you do.

Try “job crafting,” says Yale professor Amy Wrzesniewski in a recent Inc.com article on successful leaders. This means being proactive about adding meaningful tasks – however you define them – into your workday and making them part of your job.

Don’t Wait To Be Ready – Even the best of us can create excuses about why we’re not where we want to be. Yet, putting off your career goals means waiting that much longer to actually achieve them. Take some common sense advice from a FastCompany.com career advice article and “ just go for it” – even if you don’t feel ready. Now that’s what I call a bold move!

Lead by Building Up Others – While this may seem like a given, it often takes conscious effort. When you show your confidence and trust in others, you make them stronger and build relationships that can help you reach your career goals. A win-win!

Leaders Practice Accountability – According to a 2015 study done at Dominican University of California, over 70 percent of participants who sent weekly updates to another person accomplished their goal or made steady progress – compared to the 35 percent of participants who didn’t write down or share their progress. As a leader, demonstrating strong accountability skills sets a strong example for your team.

At Authentic Leadership International (www.boldermoves.com), we partner with leaders around the globe to develop effective ways to improve your leadership skills – while keeping your own unique career goals in mind.

Words of Wisdom from Successful Leaders

While we each have our own path, it’s often good to hear how other corporate leaders have achieved success. Here are a few quotes to inspire you from the Inc.com site:

  • Richard Branson: The Virgin Group founder asserts, “The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures, rather than putting that energy into another project, always amazes me… a setback is never a bad experience, just a learning curve.”
  • Emily Hughes:  A business consultant for Google Fiber, Emily’s advice is to talk to a lot of people. “It was a way for me to recognize what skills I had, and also what skills I wanted to learn to be able to do what I wanted to do.”
  • Sheryl Sandburg: “Believe you can do anything. This is important for everyone and especially for women. Don’t let anyone tell you can’t have both a meaningful professional career and a fulfilling personal life. When you hear someone say you can’t do something, know that you can and start figuring out how,” affirms Facebook’s COO.
  • Jim Whitehurst: The Red Hat CEO states, “Find a rhythm where you can have enough time for family and friends, feel satisfied emotionally, and still excel at work, because building a great career is a marathon, not a sprint.”

As a leader, focusing on your personal career goals is never wrong. In fact, it sets an amazing example for your team members on what to do right to succeed.

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