|
Hey my dear, What do these examples have in common with you?
 Have you hit a bump? The truth is, while sometimes things roll along smoothly, we often hit a bump as leaders, and that bump creates a small or a big, mess in our lives.
How are you approaching your bump? How you get through each of those situations, defines the future of your leadership journey. ✅Your style of communication ✅The resources you reach for ✅The strategies you use to grow The type of person and leader you become are shaped by how you approach each bump along the way. Can you learn anything from how we approached our bumps? Each of us approached our bumps in our own ways.
This is how our approaches shaped us. Do they sound outcomes you want? How each of us approached our bump, has shaped the type of leader we are today.
The question for you today is: What’s your current bump and what’s your approach to dealing with it?
⚠️Leadership is a hard journey⚠️ I don’t want you to go through it alone, in fact... You should NOT have to go through leadership feeling alone and isolated! ❣️You should have friends, mentors, resources and coaches! ❣️You should have a shoulder to cry on and someone to kick your butt into gear when you need to take responsibility for the change. Don't do this! I've coached and mentored hundreds of women and what I see often is this:
Struggle and doubt are part of the leadership journey. Leadership will have tough days. Period. There will be many amazing, insightful, exciting and enjoyable days too. But there will be tough days. It’s how you deal with the tough days, that will shape your leadership character! Create your pit crew: Your pit crew is a list of people that, when you hit a bump, will be there on the side of the road for you!
️DO THIS: Make a list of those people that you can call lean on, or ask for help when you need them.
Hint: It doesn’t need to be a real call. I have on my list, people I’ve taken virtual training with. When I hit a block, I’ll say to myself: What would Simon, Brene, Brian, Joni, Amy, or the Kathy I’m becoming tell me to do? Leadership is full of difficult meetings, tough conversations and challenging moments. But you’ve got this, my dear. You can do this. It just takes a little help from your friends - AKA your pit crew. Kathy 
Here are the two main links: Not yet a member of The Training Library? Find out if it's right for you here.
0 Comments
Would you like to feel confident that you will be able to maintain your composure in your next meeting or conversation? If you are like most leaders... You have a tough conversation or meeting coming up.
But what you deeply desire is to feel composed. You want to walk away feeling like you didn’t get your panties in a knot; unruffled and clearheaded.  What gets in the way of that: Unmanaged thoughts and emotions. That’s the bottom line. When you feel flustered in a meeting when your nerves get the better of you, and you feel anything but composed, it’s because your thoughts and emotions have gone crazy. Your thoughts and emotions are in control of you instead of you being in control of them 🥴
I felt that way too! I know, me too! I spent years worried I was not in control. That left me feeling incompetent, afraid and wondering if I was cut out for a leadership role. Over time, I learned how to regain that feeling of being in control. Being in control of my thoughts and emotions gave me the courage, confidence to lead. Let me show you how, so you can lead your amazing team and make the difference your org can make! So, what exactly is composure? Being composed is when you are in control; in control of your thoughts, emotions and behaviour. Being composed is feeling calm, confident and in control! How do you get more composure? You get control of your thoughts and emotions by training your brain, which will help you become Emotionally Intelligent. 🔸Emotional Intelligence is being able to both recognize and manage your thoughts and your emotions. Training your brain, your thoughts and the subsequent emotions requires willpower. Willpower, or lack of it, will either give you a sense of composure or leave you feeling anything but composed in tough conversations. If you want to find yourself feeling calm, confident & in control in your next meeting, learn to develop your strength of will. 🦉Daniel Goleman defines willpower this way: "Willpower is the ability to consciously regulate what you feel and what you do". Think of any strong, competent and composed leader you know, and I bet they can regulate themselves! The good new is you can also learn to regulate you what think, feel and what you do too! If you want to become a more composed leader, grow your willpower! 
Ongoing training to grow women leaders in 🇨🇦 Canada's Nonprofit Organizations. Not a member of The Training Library yet? Join for $24.97 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 What if I told you that your ability to lead with integrity is only as good as the management of your stress? It's true! Consider these questions:
I'm guessing you'd say no to those questions. However, if you are like most leaders self-care, wellness and your health are often put on the side while you put out fires, juggle crisis and focus on just surviving this meeting, just getting through today, or coping with this busy time. Keep reading to learn how you can gain the trust of your team and have them judge you as being a leader with integrity.  Leading with Integrity Remember, the #1 thing people are looking for from their leaders is integrity. They want to know that they can trust their leaders. They want to be able to TRUST YOU!
Stress and Integrity When our bodies are under incredible stress, which is pretty much every leader, our bodies shut down many of their functions. Things like empathy, compassion and strategic thinking go out the window. Stress causes us to have tunnel vision, focusing only on the tiger in front of us and not the tribe around us. Stress causes us to be nearsighted.
Nope. It's not possible. What you will be, instead, is what I was when I was overwhelmed with the responsibilities of leadership and not taking care of myself; Bitchy, grumpy, exhausted and anything but motivating, inspiring and in integrity! Do this: Take care of yourself, my dear. You must! To be a great leader, who leads with integrity, you need to get solid sleep, eat healthily, move your body, restore your spirit and learn to use your breath to calm your body, mind and soul. It's when you practice self-care, not just at the end of the day, but throughout your work day, that you'll find you can lead with integrity Living and leading with integrity takes some time and effort on your part. You need to get clear on what you believe, what your values are, and what hill's you'll die on. You'll never do that work to get that clarity when you are just barely getting through your days! 
Ongoing training to grow women leaders in 🇨🇦 Canada's Nonprofit Organizations. Not a member of The Training Library yet? Join for $24.97 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 Do you ever find yourself about to enter a tough talk and wonder if you've got what it takes to pull it off? If you have read the first chapter of my book, you know I have! One particularly challenging meeting, that's hard to forget, I wondered if I was about to upchuck my morning oatmeal...but I digress... ️If you are really curious to hear the whole story, you can listen to the first part of my book for free here! If you struggle with tough talks and want to learn how to prepare for them, keep reading!  3 Kinds of Tough Talks! There are certainly more than 3 kinds of tough talks, but let's look at what might constitute a tough talk.
What makes these talks tough? What makes these talks tough for you or me or anyone for that matter? For any talk to be considered "tough," they all have one thing in common. Do you have any guess what the one thing is that makes talks tough? The one defining factor is... The thing that they have in common is that you THINK they are tough. That's it!! Each of us can enter the same meeting, and some of us will think that it's going to be a tough meeting and some of us will think it will be just fine. It's your perspective on it that makes any conversation tough It's time to turn it around If you want to enter your next meeting or talk and not see it as tough, you need to change your perspective. I am not suggesting you snap your fingers and say, "It's easy peasy!" No. A perspective change is about seeing in a way that is ALSO true. 3 ways to change your perspective about upcoming talks To change your perspective, do these 3 things:
Want more practice? Not convinced? No, perhaps not. This work takes practice. But please keep at it. This is why I am always harping about the need to do the inner work. Practice makes progress! ️If you need more help with preparing for upcoming tough talks, I encourage you to check out this webinar inside of The Training Library: Preparing for a Tough Talk: So you can handle it with integrity! Here's the bottom line: I believe you can handle tough talks with your confidence intact? Do you? 
Ongoing training to grow women leaders in 🇨🇦 Canada's Nonprofit Organizations. Not a member of The Training Library yet? Join for $24.97 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 3 Ways to connect to your inner world, so you can make a BIG difference in your outer world.18/7/2019 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!  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?
How do you feel about your score? Try these:
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.
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. 
Ongoing training to grow women leaders in 🇨🇦 Canada's Nonprofit Organizations. Not a member of The Training Library yet? Join for $24.97 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
Why are women not rising to the top as equally as men in nonprofits? Because we are not! Here are the statistics in Canada's Nonprofit"
What is holding women back?
Charity Village recently is offered a free webinar in which the Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN) shared key findings from their recent report Decent Work for Women and the 10 solutions ONN is working on. This session was relevant across the country as we all work together to change things.
Change though, won't come from a report. It will come from action. The challenge is, that many women continue to feel oppressed, bullied and lack the confidence to step forward.
We need to take this part into consideration as well:
Before many women are ready to come forward, they need to develop their courage and confidence. For many women, they will do that when they find their authentic leadership style and owning it.
It's about leading with confidence to be ourselves.
We need to become the female role models for the future generation of women leaders
For far too long we've been mentored by men, had male role models and seen bits of success by acting like men leaders, but feeling like frauds. That inner turmoil between who we really are and how we want to lead with how we think we SHOULD lead has cost us our confidence, career advancements and quite frankly, our sanity. You know I have been a strong advocate of leading aligned with your values, belief, morals and ethics. I've also been known to get on my soapbox more than once about how you need to do the inner work to get there. Well, back up on the box I get.... MY RANT: Here is the thing, my dear, authentic, compelling, impactful and enjoyable (yes, you can enjoy your role) comes when you are "in character" not out of character. When you are "acting" like someone you are "supposed" to be, you'll continue to find that you feel overwhelmed, under-appreciated, and lack meaning in your work.
I'm so passionate about this that I've devoted this month's webinar to helping you compete authentically with men for the leadership position and respect you desire by learning to lead with your leader character.
Not convinced character is critical for you? Let me ask this:
Which list of Character Traits do you aspire to?
Character matters, BIG TIME!
Have you ever been so engaged in a conversation you've lost track of time? Has that ever happened at work? Are you engaged No. Not the kind like you are going to get married. But yes, committed. Hooked. Engaged might mean deeply engrossed in a project or conversation. You lose track of time. This level of engagement usually means you want to be there. That perhaps, yes you even enjoy being there.  Most people are disengaged
Did you know that less than 2/3 of the people in most organizations are NOT engaged?
As a leader, most days for me it honestly felt like
I think we can both agree there is something wrong with that statistic and with leaders feeling so frustrated. It needs to be changed! Let's take a look at what it takes to turn that around. Do you listen to the sermon? My minister often jokes that we can take a nap during his sermon. Sometimes, I'll be honest, my mind wanders, and I think about all of the other things I could be doing. But more often than not, I tune in and am engaged in what he's saying.
What if workplaces were Magnetic? When I listen to my minister, he draws me into his message, vision and ideas. Imagine if leaders and organizations were magnetic and pulled people in like that? What if you could be more engaging with your team? My magnetic experience I remember one particularly difficult time when my team and I were working on a proposal.
I've been working with colleague Bill Scott over the last few years to create organizations that are Magnetic! We've just launched our website: THE MAGNETIC WORKPLACE. If you pop over there, you can grab our tips for engaging your team. Make sure to check out the page Understanding the Workplace Continuum where we explain the range of cultures in organizations from toxic to tolerable and then to yes, you guessed it... Magnetic! Do you secretly love getting gifts as much as I do? Just little things, like a note from my granddaughter, a book from a friend or flowers from my daughter. These are little surprises that warm my heart. I received a special gift! You can then see how, when my boss showed up one day at my office with a gift for me, I was a little excited. I always felt like he didn't really appreciate me or notice me. To get a gift perhaps meant I'd done something worthy of standing out You can imagine my surprise when I reached into the gift bag and felt....Ooooh, perhaps a mug! Oh, I do love mugs The excitement was building, although I tried to temper it. One shouldn't seem too eager right? I pulled off the tissue paper and discovered it was indeed a mug. However, the smile of anticipation quickly slid off my face. I tried to smile, but I'm sure it was clear that the gift hurt my feelings.  Would this gift annoy you? The inscription on the mug read: Pessimists Mug on one side. The opposite side had a line indicating "The glass is half empty now." That mug sat on my bookshelf for a long time. It annoyed the crap out of me each time I looked at it I DID NOT want to be seen as a pessimist: A person who habitually sees or anticipates the worst or is disposed to be gloomy. The last thing I wanted was to be considered the team party pooper! I set out to change that. In my journal a short time later I wrote:
It must have worked because fast forward a couple of years, and that same boss didn't say I was optimistic, but he did write this about me:
Which way do you see me? Fast forward a few more years...this week to be precise and our annual awards banquet at Toastmasters. I received an award for “Enduring Optimism” Yeah! THAT is the impact I want to have on others. None of this happened by accident. I created a plan. I began reading books that helped with my attitude, outlook and view of myself and the world. I took training that helped me see problems from new perspectives. I journaled and started a gratitude practice. I became Response-ABLE!
What is holding you back?
What have you been waiting for? Someone to give you permission, or pay for your training? Have you been waiting for the right time? You need to stop waiting and become response-able! You can respond and change what you don't like about yourself, your work or your world. You must decide though and begin taking steps. I set out to change myself in many ways. I completed my degree, lost weight and developed leadership skills. But the thing I am most proud of is becoming the TYPE of person I want to be. I want to be a positive influence in the world, in your life and in mine. That started when I decided to work on my character traits. It's a journey I continue to this day. Do want to work on your character traits as well? To understand more about character development and how you can shape yours read this blog and watch this interview series from other women leader's who are working at it as well! You must do the inner work! That is truly what will make a difference in your life and your leadership!
You want to feel capable, credible and in control Confident & Competent! Yet some days you find yourself feeling fearful, flawed and foolish!
It’s time to get you going down the right path! This week’s training will plant you firmly in front of the path to confidence and competent leadership! 
LINKS FROM TODAY’S SESSION
Grab this week’s Guide sheets:
Join the CONFIDENT WOMEN LEADERS COMMUNITY here: Find MY BOOK - Mastering Confidence: Discover your leadership potential by awakening your inner guidance system
Do you want to learn to see possibilities where others don't? You become that type of leader when you cultivate the character traits associated with the virtue of transcendence.
LINKS FROM TODAY’S SESSION
|
Available on Amazon
Kathy ArcherWomen leaders often hit a point where they find themselves in over their heads and wondering if they have what it takes to lead. Archives
March 2021
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
Listen to the Podcast
For you: |
My Core Beliefs!I believe every woman should have the opportunity to go to work at a place where she:
My ServicesSearch the Website |
Read Mastering Confidence
|