KATHY ARCHER
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3 Ways to connect to your inner world, so you can make a BIG difference in your outer world.

18/7/2019

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What is the thing you want most to accomplish as a leader? I mean most...not get through your ToDo list, clean out your inbox or have people just do what they are supposed to do. I mean, why are you in this job?
​
Beyond the paycheque, why do you do what you do?

Keep reading and find out how you can do that 
👆️​ more!
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Do you want to make a difference?
My guess is that it is to make a difference; To change lives; To do purposeful work. I bet that you work in your organization, deal with the politics, handle the immense responsibility, and put out all of the fires that you do because you want to know that somehow, the work you are doing will make the world a better place.

I certainly know that's why I am here today emailing you and why I worked so hard with my teams over the years. It's because I know that together we can make the world a better place to live in for the next generation.

How would you rate yourself?
If that is your "Why" too, how are you doing? On a scale of 1-10 rate, how well you did that yesterday? 
  • 0 - Purpose? What purpose? 
  • 10 - I was totally on track with the feeling I was making an impact in the bigger scheme of things. 

How do you feel about your score? Try these:
  • In the last week, how would you score yourself?
  • ​The last month?

Are you unhappy with your score?
If you are unhappy with your score, my guess is that you've been spending a lot of time chasing tasks, meetings, emails and projects. My guess is you've spent less time on relationships, people and in your inner world.

Inner world? Yes, inside of your heart and your head...the part of your head that connects to your heart.

You need to spend more time in your inner world
Our inner world is our meaning-making system. It's what we use to make sense of the world we live in. Our inner world is comprised of our values, beliefs and morals. It's this inner world that creates our mental models, those assumptions, perspectives and opinions, and what we use to make decisions. 

Your inner world might be a bit of a mess!
When you rarely visit your inner world, it gets overgrown with weeds! What was once a beautifully clear set of values around how you will treat others in life, has been taken over by the weeds of deadlines, checklists and company policies. 

You are hiding your inner beauty!
You, my dear, have a beautiful heart. 💜You are full of love, compassion and fun. But you don't let it shine enough. You hide that part of you in favour of order, control and fear.
God forbid you let your guard down, or you will lose control of your day, your people and your world. 

But in truth, you've already lost control. 😞
When you chase the task part of your world and neglect your people and your relationships with them, you'll never make the difference you want to make. Your ability to control your impact in the world will be lost.

Connect to your inner world and to your people and your score will go up!
The way to come back to finding a balance between the tasks you are responsible for and the people you are growing is to slow down and connect to your inner world a bit more. When you do, you'll find you naturally find more time to connect to your people and together talk about your united purpose and find more creative, fun and powerful ways to achieve your organizational mission and purpose together.

3 Ways to Connect to Your Inner World
So you can make a BIG difference in your outer world.
Write
For some, this means journaling, but it doesn't have to be.
I find that by writing answers to questions, I find in books, on podcasts or in courses are great ways to get me connecting to the part of me that makes meaning in my world. It's often through this that I find clarity on my values and beliefs. That clarity often helps me to realize where I have been working form mistaken beliefs or unclear values.
  • DO THIS: Find a ton of free worksheets to write your way to clarity in your inner world


Get quiet
If meditation is your thing, great. Do it. But getting quiet doesn't have to be all zen and chanting.
  • DO THIS: Practice just being quiet during regular, every day activities.
    • ️Just eat! 🥗
      • Get rid of the phone beside you and pay attention to chewing and the taste.
    • Just go to the bathroom! 💩
      • I'm serious. Stop thinking and just pay attention to the task at hand...it's called presence 
    • ️Just drive! 🚘️
      • Shut off the radio or audio books. Don't make any phone-calls. Pay attention to the road, smile at the other drivers and enjoy the drive.


Connect with nature
I recently posted about the number of plants I have in my home/office! Can you guess how many? Find out how many here. The point being, nature doesn't have to be the forest. Ways to connect to nature in the office:
  • Watering plants or picking dead leafs off of them ☘️
  • Listening to the birds outside of your window 🐥
  • Stopping to watch the storm release its torrent of rain ️​☔️
DO THIS: Look around you now and see where you could either find or create a connection with nature. Set aside time to do that today!
When you connect more frequently with your inner world, you'll find your outer world more balanced. The tasks you are responsible for are essential. But please don't forget to balance them with the people in your life!

If you want even more help to connect to your inner world, so you can make a more significant difference in your outer world, but are looking for a guide in that process? Check out The Training Library for a ton of mini-courses and training sessions to guide you to deeper understand your values, beliefs, emotions, and how to use those to more effectively lead. ​
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Ongoing training to grow women leaders in ​🇨🇦 Canada's Nonprofit Organizations.
Not a member of The Training Library yet? 
​
​Join for $19.97 and enjoy a monthly webinar plus a library of courses to support your ongoing personal and professional development that is affordable and easily accessible!
Discover the details here
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Listen to how this leader coaches her staff effectively and how you can too!

11/7/2019

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I'm guessing you have on a pair of heels, dress shoes or casual shoes...at least if you are reading this during your workday. On a typical workday for me, I spend the majority of it in slippers  I switch to runners...then back to slippers.
The exception is when you see me face-to-face at a speaking event, I'm rockin the heels! ​
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Recently I needed a new pair of inside runners.
I headed down to the local store and spied this cute pair of polka-dot ones! I grabbed size 7 off the shelf, expecting to ensure they fit and be quickly on my way. They were tight. Too tight!
I tried on a pair of 8's, and they fit just fine. I was hesitant, though. Really? I'm usually a size 7. I wandered around the store with the 8's on just to be sure. In the end, I brought them home and love them!
Just right! 
Putting my feet into the size 7 and finding them too small was feedback. If the lady at the store had looked at me when I walked in and said here's a size 8, no need to try them on, I would have thought she was nuts! It was my own feeling that helped me choose the larger size.

Feedback and constructive criticism are not the same!
Feedback is a critical part of learning and growing, yet so often missed as we develop ourselves and our teams. Far too often, feedback is really constructive criticism!
Constructive Criticism is a scam run by people who want to beat you up.
And they want you to believe they are doing it for your own good!
Cheri Huber - There is Nothing Wrong With You
Ouch! How true is that!

FEEDBACK is an ART
Feedback instead is the art of pulling out the best in people so that they may become even better! It is giving them information they can work with. But when feedback is primarily presented as constructive criticism or advice-giving, it doesn't make the person feel good or inspire them to reach inside to be their best. It often puts them on the defensive and sadly often shut down.

3 Strategies for giving effective feedback
If you want to give feedback that grows and develops your staff in a way that is motivating and inspiring, try these 3 strategies.
1. Get curious
Instead of fixing, solving and giving advice, get curious about the person, and where they are heading.
Ask yourself:
  • What do I want to see more of in them?
  • What are they already doing that is similar to that or where are they already doing that?


2. Ask questions
Don't begin by telling them what to do, what they need to fix, and how they should do it. Instead, ask them questions that help them to provide their own feedback.
➡️Please don't ask: So do you know where you screwed up? 🥺
Try these questions:
  • What worked well for you in this situation?
  • What challenges did you discover?
  • What ideas have you come up with for addressing those challenges?
  • What new ideas might work?


COACHING IS...
By the way, this kind of feedback is coaching! Coaching is different than supervision, which is often about direction giving, fixing and solving. Coaching starts with inquiry, curiosity and questions.

3. Give positive feedback
Tell them about a time when you noticed they used a strength to solve their problem, handle a tough situation or figure something out.
An Example of giving feedback via COACHING in action
The story
Rebecca comes to you because she's short-staffed for the group home this weekend. She wants your help to figure it out.

The initial self-reflection that is often missed by most leaders:
  • What do I want to see more of in them?
    • I want to see her take more initiative in connecting with other Team Leaders to share casual staff✔️
  • What are they already doing that is similar to that or where are they already doing that?
    • I've seen her work with the other team leaders to organize training✔️
The coaching conversation:
Ugh! I get it, Rebecca. This is an ongoing challenge for your group home, isn't it?
Remember we were talking about it a few weeks back when Gary quit and Sasha was sick.
  • Do you remember what worked well for you in then?
  • What is the biggest hurdle you are having trouble with this time?
  • What ideas have you come up with for working to cover the shifts?
  • What are some new ways you might try to work through this?
You were quite resourceful last month when you were trying to get your basic training done for your team. You worked with the other team leaders to coordinate shifts and training schedules. That skill of resourcefulness is one that comes in quite handy as you lead in nonprofits.
  • How might you use that skill today?
Sounds cool right! You can do this. It might take some practice, but you can transform the way you engage with your team into an inspiring and motivating conversation that helps your staff grow into their full potential. 

Do you want to get better at coaching your employees?
If you want some more help with this, join me for this month's webinar: Creating Comfortable Coaching Conversations. 
Picture
Ongoing training to grow women leaders in ​🇨🇦 Canada's Nonprofit Organizations.
Not a member of The Training Library yet? 
​
​Join for $19.97 and enjoy a monthly webinar plus a library of courses to support your ongoing personal and professional development that is affordable and easily accessible!
Discover the details here
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Why you should ask your employee these 2️⃣ questions today!

8/7/2019

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Once upon a time, there was a leader who was struggling with her staff. Let's say her name was Lena.

Lena's Challenge (Maybe you can relate)
Lena's staff would come to her with problems and Lena would tell them what to do to fix the problem with the hope they would learn for next time. Next time came, and the staff would knock at her door and although this time the challenge was slightly different, for all intents and purposes the same. But for whatever reason, the employee couldn't figure out what to do, didn't have the confidence to do it or wanted reassurance. Lena would once again, albeit a bit frustrated with the interruption, walk them through how to deal with the problem and hope this time they would learn. I don't have to tell you what happened. You can already guess!
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What Lena learned
One day Lena was in a session talking about the need to have a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. Lena learned about the two basic mindsets we have. The first is a fixed mindset, the second a growth mindset.

Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University, has been studying mindset. She says that the view you adopt of yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life and I would say lead.

The two mindsets
  • The first is a fixed mindset.
  • When you have a fixed mindset, you have an underlying belief that our qualities are carved in stone. Who you are is who you are. Period. You think that characteristics such as intelligence, personality, and creativity are fixed traits, rather than something that can be developed.
  • The second mindset is a growth mindset.
  • Individuals who have a growth mindset believe that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through effort. With this frame of mind you understand that while people do differ greatly, for example in aptitude, talents, interests, or temperaments, you fundamentally believe that each of those can be changed and grow through effort, hard work and time.


Mindsets applied to leadership
In Lena's session, she learned that when we are working with our employees, many of us have a fixed mindset about employees. When we see them through that lens, we view ourselves as the boss or supervisor. With this view, we feel the need to manage, discipline, control, and direct our employees. We believe it is our job to tell them what to do and how to do it.

However, leadership is about growing, developing and inspiring our employees to reach their full potential. To do that, we need to have a growth mindset. A growth mindset is one that believes that with work and effort, it is possible to grow new skills and develop new abilities. When we believe that about our employees...
  • we start to ask them questions rather than solve their problems
  • we begin to get curious about how they would solve problems rather than fix it for them.


Curiosity and asking questions are foundational
for coaching conversations.

Coaching conversations grow our employees
When we coach our employees, we help them to develop themselves and to grow into their full potential. It is coaching rather than managing controlling and directing that has organizations meet new goals, provide stellar service and keep people motivated, engaged, loyal. This creates workplace cultures that people want to be in, rather than run away from!

How Lena applied this to her leadership
As you can guess by now, that when Lena went back to work and started to ask her employees more questions and get curious about both how they would solve problems and what they need to have the confidence to do that. Lena has seen tremendous improvements!
  • Her employees became excited about their own growth, potential and development.
  • What's more, Lena saw the trickle-down effect.
  • At team meetings, she would see her subordinates coaching their team members. Over time the culture of her team shifted from a crisis and putting out fires model to a proactive growth mindset culture!


Do you want to be like Lena? Try this:
Ask more questions!
👉Here are a couple of questions that you can start with:
  1. What alternatives can you think of? ✅
  2. How can I support you?✅


Coaching Conversations training for you!
If you want to become more comfortable with coaching your employees, join me for this month's webinar where you will learn the 3 Step Strategy for Creating Comfortable Coaching Conversations!

✨✨Remember, our job as leaders, is to bring out the best in our employees and to help them to reach their full potential so that together we can make an incredible difference in the lives of those we serve.
  • We do that when we coach, grow and mentor our team to be their best!
That starts with you and your mindset! ✨✨

It's time to🌱grow 🌱baby🌱grow!!🌱



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Each month as part of The Training Library, I offer ongoing training to grow women leaders in Canada's Nonprofit Organizations, to support your growth and development as a women leader.
Because, here's the thing...if you are not growing,
you will stay stuck right where you are!! 
Personal and professional development is your path to success in both leadership and life!

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    Kathy Archer

    Women leaders often hit a point where they find themselves in over their heads and wondering if they have what it takes to lead.
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    ​In my online courses and coaching I teach them inner and outer tools to restore their lost confidence so they can move from surviving to thriving in both leadership and life.

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