Unwrap the Gifts of Leadership

The workplace is like a playground where we get to play with ideas and try out new roles and identities every day. If you approach work with an attitude of having fun and are open to learning new things about yourself and others, you will receive many valuable gifts of leadership. Each leadership gift presents a conundrum, which only you can “unwrap” for yourself. To do so, consider your unique values, strengths, tolerances, and circumstances.

Below are a few leadership gifts that are waiting to be unwrapped by you. Use the questions provided to tear away the gift wrap, revealing a gift that is chosen uniquely for you:

Ego Equilibrium
Definition: The ability to balance service to others and the group while honoring your own vision and values.

Reflection:
• How do you lead without being the focus of attention?
• How do you move an agenda forward without thinking you must do the work yourself or your way?
• How can you be authentic while playing the multiple roles required of a leader?
• How do you commit to your organization without compromising core personal beliefs?
• How can you maintain leader status without losing accessibility?



Flexibility
Definition: The ability to modify, yield, or adapt plans to relevant changes in circumstances.

Reflection:
• How do you position your employees and your company to pivot when circumstances change?
• How do you regularly challenge your own assumptions about what is true?
• When is it more important to forego adapting in favor or stability?
• When is it more important to forego stability in favor or adaptation or change?
• What are your non-negotiables in any given situation?



Humility
Definition: The ability to maintain a modest perception of one’s own importance

Reflection:
• How can you remain confident in your decisions and abilities and legitimately seek feedback from others?
• How do you accept and incorporate personal feedback and remain confident?
• How do you seek input from others and remain decisive?
• Admit mistakes and misjudgments while inspiring confidence?
• How do you ensure others understand your vision without dictating the details for how it should be carried out?



Resilience
Definition: The ability to recover or bounce back from adverse circumstances

Reflection:
• How do you remain optimistic and realistic at the same time?
• How do you reframe specific setbacks as opportunities?



Innovation
Definition: Seeking or introducing new or different ideas and methodologies

Reflection:
• How do you maintain solid operational processes or corporate identity while encouraging “no limits” creativity and innovation?
• How do you accept both success and failure?
• How do you avoid “throwing the baby out with the bath water”?
• How do you avoid compromising for mediocrity?


Throughout this winter season, unwrap at least one leadership gift for yourself and enjoy.

2 Signs You're a Leader Who Kills With Kindness

You see yourself as one of the most caring leaders on the planet. You really listen to your employees and their complaints. You work hard to create good relationships with your direct reports, seeking to be a special type of boss to them.

You do what you can to make things better for a distressed employee, whether that’s:

• disregarding policy to give someone extra leave;
• loaning money to an employee who can’t make ends meet;
• frequently adjusting someone’s work schedule to accommodate their busy personal life even if it doesn’t make sense for the business; or
• allowing an employee to miss a deadline because you didn’t want to be the bad guy.

The current research points to “likeability” (meaning treating others with respect) as a valuable leadership trait. Yet, you routinely go beyond seeking respect when you:

Focus Excessively on the Relationship. You see self as caring and take pride in that. You consider leaders who are “task-focused” to be uncaring louts. However, you take kindness and caring to extremes. To let employees know you are “on their side”, you might find yourself gossiping or leaking bits of confidential information to them. You might even bad-mouth other leaders in the company to curry favor with direct reports. You flatter employees or do nice things for them with a hidden agenda of getting loyalty, recognition or a compliment back. You have a hard time saying “no”.

Consequently, you placate an employee by ignoring applicable policies or work expectations when an individual exception isn’t warranted. You often choose to do a favor for one direct report over the long-term cohesiveness or “good” of the group. However, when others don’t reciprocate your kindness in ways you expect, you feel resentful.

Have Poor Boundaries. Your intent focus on creating a special relationship with others leads to poor boundaries. This shows up as giving unsolicited advice or sharing too much about your personal life in hopes that others will trust you with their secrets, which you believe validates you as a caring boss.

An indication of poor physical boundaries includes putting your arm around someone’s shoulder to show understanding or hugging others when a handshake is customary.  Beyond the physical boundaries, you stay too involved your direct reports’ work assignments and jump into to rescue them by doing the work or solving problems for them when they run into snags.

It feels so good to be the person others go to for help and advice. Ah, the exhilaration of being needed!  Except that when you do for your employees what they can do for themselves, you’ve made it about your competence instead of about their personal and professional growth. Give them permission to fail and to learn from experience. Support their evolution as individuals who are resilient, resourceful and strong.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE?

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Beth Strathman works with executives who are willing and courageous enough to shake up business as usual. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting LLC at: bethstrathman.com.

2 Decisions That Will Revolutionize Your Productivity

“Clutter is symptomatic of delayed decision making”
--Cynthia Kyriazis

Do you keep papers, desktop files, and emails from time immemorial because you are afraid you’ll need them “someday”?

You won’t.

Do you claim the 1000+ emails lurking in your inbox are easier to retrieve that way?

They aren’t.

Stop making excuses for why you don’t have a more efficient and effective way to handle paperwork and information flow. You can make two decisions that will revolutionize your personal productivity.

Decision #1: Decide What’s Important

To determine what’s important, look at your current company and department goals as well as routine tasks and activities required of your role. These the main “buckets” or categories for the stuff flowing through your office. Use these categories to create physical folders for hard copies, computer folders for electronic documents, and possibly email folders for incoming messages.

For example, you may need physical and electronic folders for current projects (“Project XYZ”), meetings (“Weekly Operations Meeting” or “Quarterly Off-Site”), committees (“Safety Committee”), and individual folders for each of your direct reports to store routine or important papers, e-documents, and email messages.

Decision #2: Decide It's Fate

Next, you must decide how you will appropriately dispense with each item coming across your desk. This requires the discipline of allowing information to collect in your inboxes without getting distracted by them being dropped in a physical inbox or by an electronic alert that appears on your screen each time a new email arrives. It also requires the discipline of taking time up to two times a day to go through your inboxes  -- top to bottom -- to handle what's there.

After you assess each item in your inboxes, the dispensation of it might require you to: do something with it (e.g., make a quick phone call, put it on a meeting agenda, sign it and forward it on, etc.), appropriately re-route it to someone else, schedule it for a later time or date, or discard/delete it as unimportant or not relevant.

Other tips for deciding:

• Let email rules decide for you. Set up email rules for automatic handling of incoming email. (In a corporate setting, I really liked having a “CC” rule that automatically routed email I was merely CC’d on to a special folder.)

• Limit the time you spend looking at the stuff coming your way by checking your inboxes no more than twice per day. (Better yet, train an administrative assistant - if you have one - to screen your inflow, so you see only what is truly important.)

• Don't worry about discarding or deleting most things -- if it's that important to someone else, they will follow up with you about it, and can usually send you another copy if needed.

Once you decide what’s important and decide how to dispense with each item as part of a regular routine, you will feel more on top of things and will have revolutionized your own productivity.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE?

You can, as long as you include this information with it:

Beth Strathman works with executives who are willing and courageous enough to challenge business as usual. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting LLC at: bethstrathman.com.

5 Reasons Your "Team" is Not a Team

“Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.” 

-- Casey Stengel

Although there are countless books about creating better teams, participating on and leading teams remains a top frustration in most companies. Here are 5 reasons your “team” might not actually be one:

1. There are no shared goals or values.

Your “team” may believe it is working together and headed in the same direction, but when push comes to shove, each of you pursue activities that serve your individual interests and behave without accountability to each other. In other words, your oars are rowing in different directions.

In contrast, you know you are a team when you are a group that shares a few core values and pursues a measurable goal that will define the team’s success. Once a measurable team goal is set and values identified, each of you ensure every person on the team understands how to behave according to those values and is held accountable to do so. Further, you understand how each person contributes to achieving the team goal through individual competencies (e.g., ability to build consensus, drive for results, etc.) or technical expertise.

2. There is low trust or no trust.

With little or no trust, members of your so-called “team” withhold their best and secretly look for ways to “win” at someone else’s expense without regard to a common goal. 

Team trust is strongly correlated with team commitment and follow-through on promises made to each other. To work together effectively as a team, each or you must believe the others have your back.  Also, when setbacks occur (and they almost always occur), you have to believe/trust everyone else is doing his best. This helps your team avoid the blame game and to get back on track quickly.

3. There is not a clear path to achieve the team goal.

When you only have a destination but no map to get there, a group of individuals will spend precious time wasting uncoordinated effort in different directions.

Mapping the route to achieve the common team goal assists your teammates in understanding how and when all team members’ contributions come together to achieve success. A clear path often includes quick wins to gain momentum and milestones to mark the way.

4. Communication is not open, honest, and transparent.

If people on your “team” are more concerned with withholding information and opinions while masking what they really see happening, team accountability and effectiveness are severely hampered.
To behave as a team, you must communicate in a forthright manner to get on the same page, to stay on the same page, to coordinate action, and to hold each other accountable to team commitments and values. 

5. “Team” members are overly focused on their own contributions, wins, and reputations.

Ever seen a scoring basketball player point to the teammate who passed him the ball? Acknowledging contributions by teammates reinforces the notion that each person’s success is dependent on the contributions of others, no matter how small or behind-the-scenes.  No one does it alone. Recognizing each other’s contribution to the team fosters better relationships and, in turn, more trust.




WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman is the adviser for senior leaders who want increased productivity and profitability by becoming firebrands in their own companies. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting at: bethstrathman.com.

What Top Leaders Know about Eliminating Frustration at Work

“People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” 

--Men in Black

Did you know that most of the drama going on in your workplace started with a thought that probably isn't even true? 

When you accept your thoughts as true, they become beliefs, even if they are untested, inaccurate, and flat-out false.  You make up a lot of stuff about what’s going on in the world based on your beliefs.

When beliefs are connected to an emotion, you act on them whether they are objectively true or false.  An employee who believes her manager is out to get her might feel fear and behave disrespectfully toward her supervisor or refuse to meet with her.  A manager who believes she is not knowledgeable or is unprepared may feel threatened and behave in a manner that is overly aggressive or perhaps dismissive of others.  If employees believe senior management is clueless, they might feel insecure and find other jobs, resulting in higher than average turnover for a company or contributing to a culture of passive aggressiveness where employees pretend to go along but actually subvert company goals.

Thus, although you like to think of yourself as a rational, logical being, you are closer to the “dumb, panicky dangerous animal” described by the character Kay in the 1997 film Men in Black.  You allow your emotions (based on your beliefs) to dictate your behavior without investigating the degree to which your beliefs are supported by factual data.

In the end, you may end up manipulated by your beliefs and act like someone you don’t necessarily want to be.

To test your beliefs, a process like that pioneered by Byron Katie is a good place to start when examining issues or people that really frustrate you.  Use these steps to start unpacking and eliminating these frustrations:

1. Describe the Frustration as Judgmentally as Possible.  For example, “I’m frustrated with my team because they are so incompetent that I need to babysit them all the time or else nothing will get done.”
2. Take Stock of Your Behavior. What do you do or say when you believe this thought? Maybe you micromanage your team. Maybe you talk down to them or berate them.
3. What’s the Payoff? How is this thought serving you, your team, or your company? What are the positives that come from having this thought?
4. What are the Facts? What data supports the truth of your thought? Is there any data to suggest your belief is false regarding this frustration?  
5. Other Possibilities. How would you act if you believed the opposite of your current frustrating thought?
6. Alternate Feeling or Emotion: Instead of frustration, what feeling would you rather have regarding this situation?
7. It’s Your Choice: Who do you want to be in this situation – the person who believes the thought or the person who doesn’t believe this thought?  Is there a productive reason to keep believing this thought?

Regardless of the frustration, examining your underlying beliefs will help you become aware of the limitations that keep you stuck in your reactions. You may come to see that the frustration comes from your interpretation of the situation, not the situation itself. When you become aware of your beliefs, you take a giant step toward becoming a more centered and clear-headed leader.

5 Steps to Masterful Confrontation

Handled appropriately, confrontation done well allows you and your team to consider differing opinions, ideas, and assumptions with passive aggressive or victim-y behavior less likely to come into play. This, in turn, leads to greater buy-in and accountability.

Still, you are so trained to avoid confrontation that you probably haven’t taken many chances to practice it.  If you’re rusty on your confrontation skills, here’s how to confront issues and assert yourself without completely alienating everyone:

1. Be humble enough to know that you only have part of the story. When you decide to confront an issue, realize you may not have all the information and that you will learn more as you talk to the other person(s).  While the information you have may be troubling or disappointing, remember that you have interpreted the information you gathered and created a narrative in your head that is consistent with the way only you see the world.  There may be missing pieces that add a completely different spin on the issue.

If the information you have initially makes your blood boil, take at least a day to cool off and focus on the actual facts you have with the idea that the purpose for confronting this issue is to make sure you are seeing the issue from angles other than your perspective to round out the story.

2. Open with the facts.  As you start the confrontation, and after the usual “thanks for meeting with me today”, open with the facts.  These facts may come from your own observations, collected data, or from others’ reports or complaints.

Facts are different from your interpretation and include who, what, when, where, and how.  Starting with facts will help you set forth the context the issue surrounding the issue, the words and deeds of those involved, and the resulting impact those words and deeds had on the company, the team, customers, or others.

When you open with the facts, you need only recite what has transpired. This simple starting point helps you get over the awkward speed bump of what to say first and is grounded in concrete information that isn’t merely your opinion or hyperbole. Also, the facts focus the other party’s attention on exactly the issue at hand, which tends to cut off his/her options for deflecting blame.

3. Test the facts. After putting forth the facts you have, turn over the conversation to the other person with a question, like “Do I have this right?” or “What was going on?” or “Did this situation go as planned?”  This allows the other person to agree with the facts you have, add more, or tell you they experienced the situation differently.

4. Listen for others’ reactions.  As the other person talks, instead of listening for how you can argue back, listen for what’s at stake for him or her or any commitment that comes through. You may find that what you thought was a big issue, isn’t. Or if there is indeed an issue to address, you can then use the information provided to help paint a bigger picture for the other person, so you can both get on the same page. From here you can renew or establish commitments to each other.

5. Agree on a plan of action and follow up. Before you leave the confrontation, schedule a future meeting to follow up on the issue and any commitments you made to each other.

Confrontation does not need to be an angry exchange.  Healthy confrontation helps clear up misunderstandings or misinterpretations and get those involved back on track.  When you master confrontation, you increase understanding among co-workers, which increases the ability to work together productively.

Why Confrontation is the Secret Ingredient of Success

You dream of working easily and seamlessly with colleagues with little or no contention.  Who really wants to work in a contentious environment? Surprisingly, little or no disagreement/conflict is a sign that your group is not as good as you think.  When there is little if any open disagreement about matters of importance (mission, values, projects, and goals), your nice and easy culture is in trouble of complacency and of becoming irrelevant.  The group becomes vulnerable to “group think” without the ability to thoroughly vet ideas and does not adapt quickly and strategically to changing conditions nor does it evolve rapidly enough to face handled new challenges. And you know without little outward disagreement your colleagues are expressing disagreement and discontent out of the light of day among themselves.

“Easy” working relationships and interactions tend to be superficial, Stepford-type communications that present a good face while hiding what you and your colleagues really think and feel. When you don’t express your real thoughts and concerns, interactions in the workplace are coated with the waxy build-up of unvoiced concerns, resentments, passive-aggressive behavior, disengaged employees, gossip, and scapegoating others.  This sets you up for poor decisions based on untested beliefs and untried assumptions, which in turn increases stress, smothers innovation, derails growth, and allows incompetence to go unaddressed.

The result is a toxic culture with low trust even though you and your colleagues are outwardly nice to each other while putting down each other behind your backs.

The secret to turning this around? Confrontation.

Whoa!  You have been raised to be non-confrontational.  How can confrontation be good?  Confrontation can be done in a respectful way where the emphasis is on really digging into the content of what others are proposing rather than attacking others personally.

Confrontation doesn’t need to be loud and forceful. It isn’t about making someone else wrong while you are right nor is it about winning.  Instead, confrontation done right is about using the data that is known to question a process, a decision, an opinion, performance or behavior. Confrontation done right highlights other possible perspectives or interpretations without demeaning others. By confronting the completeness and interpretation of existing data, you stand a greater chance of having deeper, more meaningful discussions while de-personalizing the issue at hand.

Disagreement is natural when interacting with others because we don’t all think, believe, or act the same.  Sadly, whether you’re trying to be PC or whether boat-rocking in general makes you queasy, the idea of confrontation gets a bad rap, mostly because you have seen it done badly for so long.  The typical scene that pops into your head when hearing the word “confrontation” probably involves someone losing her cool by yelling, pounding a fist on a table, and/or even throwing something. That’s not the type of confrontation that is productive.

Handled appropriately, confrontation done right allows a department, work group, business unit, or team to vet differing opinions, ideas, and assumptions, which leads to greater clarity before a course of action is chosen.  The result?  A collegial climate in which you feel you can be transparent and vulnerable because the focus is on the good of the group rather than on protecting your ego by looking like a hero. Healthy confrontation creates an atmosphere where people are willing to forego the short-term relief of staying in a familiar rut in favor of long-term, meaningful impacts that will enable your company to adapt and thrive.

And that is why confrontation is the secret to your success.



WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman is the advisor for senior leaders who get an edge on the competition by staying sharp and adaptable to increase productivity and profitability. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting LLC at: bethstrathman.com.

How to Protect and Maximize Your Time

What is your most precious asset as an executive?

Some say money and investments. Others believe their professional relationships and networks top the list. Still others put personal health, vitality, and energy as number one.

However, there is one asset that is not renewable and that makes it more precious than any other:  Your time. Every second you use up is a second you cannot get back.

While money, relationships, and health are valuable and even precious, they are all renewable to some extent. For instance, you can earn back lost money and can find new opportunities and investments to replace others that went south. You can renew relationships by repairing strained ones and by meeting new people to bolster your network. Additionally, you can make healthy choices regarding diet and exercise and can manage stress to enhance or maintain your health, vitality, and energy.

You know time is precious. Yet, at work, you act as though you have all the time in the world. You insert yourself in situations that are more suitable for or best left to others. You waste time doing things that are not essential to further your career or to achieve your company’s strategic priorities. You spend time handling tasks that are not the most important things for your particular leadership role.

The results? You feel overwhelmed. You lose focus. You fail to move the important or high-impact items forward. Consequently, your other assets suffer as well. The stress of too much to do causes a corresponding loss of energy and vitality. You do not relate as well with others because you are distracted and cannot give your full attention. Ultimately, you are apt to make poor decisions that cost money.

Time is indeed your most precious asset. To protect it, treat it as respectfully as you would your money, relationships, and health by doing the following:

1. Measure how you use it. You routinely use data when analyzing the performance of your company, your employees, and yourself.  In the same way, gather data to measure how strategically you spend your time. Two or three weeks’ worth of data is usually enough to get an idea of the types of activities you pay attention to. Go longer to get a fuller picture. You may be surprised at what you think you spend time on versus what you do in practice.
2. Analyze your decisions regarding how you use it. Based on your company’s strategic priorities, are you spending time on role-related tasks that move those priorities forward? Chances are you could create better alignment.
3. Make more strategic choices going forward. Adjust the use of your time to reflect the things that are most important for your life, your role, your career, your company at present. This might mean you decide to delegate tasks to an administrative assistant or other direct report. It might mean you intentionally schedule appointments with yourself in your calendar to define and protect the time necessary to attend to priorities that are important for you.
4. Do what it takes to set boundaries to execute those choices. Some of the biggest time wasters are interruptions, “emergencies” (usually not yours), poorly run or otherwise unproductive meetings, poor work processes, and hours spent perfecting your work product, such as memos or other reports that don’t need to be perfect.  Also set boundaries by signaling your unavailability when you need time to concentrate by shutting your door or by using your administrative assistant as a gatekeeper.

In the case of time, sunk costs are truly sunk forever. For more impact, maximize the time you spend at work. You will be surprised at how your personal productivity increases.


WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman is an executive coach for senior leaders who want to get clear and focused and see better results in productivity and profitability in their organizations. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting LLC at: bethstrathman.com.

3 Reasons Your Strategic Plan Could Be a Waste of Time and Money

Most people agree that having a plan for the future is a good thing. That's why most leadership teams do spend time and money discussing and creating a strategic plan. Yet most leadership teams do little or nothing with the plans they create other than referring to them from time to time as they gather dust on the shelf. Why?

Simply stated, the plan they created was incomplete.

There are huge costs associated with an incomplete planning process:

• Losing market leader status and falling behind;
• Getting poor or lackluster financial and operational results;
• Wasting time, money, and resources on a strategic plan that went nowhere; and
• Losing credibility as a leadership team.

Useful strategic plans include three components.

If your leadership team omits or fails to execute one of these 3 key components, you won't get the results you planned on. In the end, your strategic plan will be one big, costly "fail".

One: The plan answers the "big" strategic planning questions in plain language - without using jargon from an overly expensive consultant. These "big" questions include:

• What legacy do we want to leave when all is said and done?
• Who are our customers and how can we better serve them?
• Who are our competitors and how can we beat them or do what they're not doing?
• What do we do best and how can we build on that edge?
• What opportunities can we seize?
• How will we recognize and respond to potential setbacks?
• What are potential scenarios that we need to consider for the future, and how will we prepare for them?

Unfortunately, many leadership teams get mired down in philosophical discussions about these issues. Others come up with brilliant answers to these questions, but can't quite bring their ideas into reality with clear, concrete, actionable initiatives that get done.

These big strategic planning questions are worthless if they don't result in a few clear, compelling strategic initiatives to move the company forward.

Two: The plan must set a few clear priorities and an overall strategic theme. A critical outcome of the beginning stages of the strategic planning process is to determine the most important priorities for the organization. After generating what might be a very long list of potential priorities, your leadership team must determine the relative value of each and hone in on only a few key priorities. The discussion that pares down the list of possible priorities can lead to greater clarity about the big strategic planning questions, especially about what the organization actually does best.

Once a list of no more than two or three priorities is agreed upon, the leadership team can come up with a unifying strategic theme. This is a one-line statement that conveys the overall strategic push for the organization, such as: "Beat ABC Corp.!" "Expand to India." "0% medical errors." "Become a magnet for talent."

Here is one big mistake to avoid during this phase of planning: Trying to please everyone by settling on a long list of priorities. While a long list of "priorities" makes everyone feel included and valued, it makes it highly unlikely that you will get anything done completely if at all. Be a leader and make strategic choices.

Three: Have the guts to implement it. The biggest complaint I hear about strategic plans is that they never seem to get executed. There are a few reasons why:

The leadership team . . .

• Neglected to commit essential resources to the plan, including capital, training, technology, and people.
• Failed to take things off the plates of busy employees, and instead just stacked more work on them.
• Lacked the will to call a halt to old initiatives that compete with the new.
• Failed to set clear roles, responsibilities, accountability, and rewards systems in line with the plan.
• Wimped out after a few setbacks or initial resistance.
• A sound strategic planning process spends as much time on implementation planning as it does on the more lofty work of answering the key strategic questions and setting priorities. Otherwise, the plan stays in your head and never becomes real work with measurable results. 

Some leadership teams are great at asking the big picture questions, but fail to follow up. Some set too many priorities, and can't say "no" to good ideas, despite limited resources. Others are strong at executing, but lack the vision to develop compelling strategic initiatives.

Which of the above areas is weakest for you and your leadership team?

Click here to get my FREE Strategic Assessment.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman is a leadership coach who works with executives who want to increase their influence for greater confidence, influence, and enhanced leadership presence. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting LLC at: bethstrathman.com.

The Anatomy of Inspiration: Dissecting Your Communication to Find the Right Approach to Influence Others

“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”

---Kenneth Blanchard

Are you as influential as you could be? If you’re like other leaders, you typically use only one style when it comes to influence, regardless of the situation. Sometimes you get lucky and it works. However, by developing greater flexibility and range of communication when interfacing with others, you can be even more effective. Assess the breadth of your conversation toolkit by associating different parts of the body with different influence styles you need to influence a variety of personality types.

Left Brain. The left brain is where facts, logic, analysis, information, and data are processed. When you are an authority, or when you know data matters to the other person, using left brain language can help you convince the other person that your idea makes sense. Often overused, there are limits to left-brain facts and logic. For example, when was the last time you were inspired by a PowerPoint presentation? “Bueller. Bueller.”

Right Brain. The right brain houses big picture concepts, images, stories, metaphors, and pictures. It is an entryway to the other person's subconscious. Adding right-brain stories, images and graphics to data can help you connect with people at a deeper level than you could with the left brain alone.

Gut. The gut is your instinctual center. This is where you come from when you set boundaries that allow you to take a stand, negotiate, be assertive, or create a contract. For example, when you influence from the gut, you tell an employee what you like and don’t like about their performance. It’s also where you come from when you set expectations or create incentives to encourage compliance or performance.

Heart. Coming from the heart is critical when you seek an authentic connection or commitment from someone. This is where you show some vulnerability. When communicating from the heart, you shift to asking for advice and help, listening for and tapping into the other person’s aspirations and goals to come up with a mutually appealing solution while showing flexibility around how things get done. When you come from the heart, you don’t have to be wimpy, especially on the final outcome you want to achieve. Instead, you remain open to new ideas about how the other person can improve and the way to get to the goal.

Spirit. When appealing to another’s spirit or coming from your own soul, you communicate about shared values and experiences. Here, you talk about common ground and the ties that bind you together. This is a great approach when forming teams and getting everyone to pull together to head off in the same direction.  

Vision. Vision is used to describe that point on the horizon where you are heading. When using vision you paint a vibrant and inspiring vignette about where the group can go. You then invite others to join you and to add to the vision.  The vision approach is great for a team that is kicking off a project, or when people need a boost to move forward through challenges that are holding them back. Combine vision with right brain and spirit, and you will create compelling communication that aligns a team so they become unstoppable.

Legs. If a conversation starts to go south on you due to emotions or you aren’t making inroads with another, use your legs and gracefully exit the conversation. Without giving up, take some time to re-group by excusing yourself and agree to meet again at a later date or time. The Harvard Negotiation Project calls this “Going to the Balcony”, and it prevents a meeting from spiraling downwards.

By tailoring your conversations using these "body part" communication techniques, you will become more skilled at having the right conversation using the right appeal with the right people. You’ll achieve your goals while effortlessly influencing others.

Download my FREE influence planning tool by clicking here.


WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman is a leadership coach who works with executives who want to increase their influence and powerbase for greater confidence, influence, and enhanced leadership presence. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting LLC at: bethstrathman.com.

How to Scale Your Own Leadership “Dawn Walls”

“I don’t know if it’s possible; I’m just going to keep working on it.” --- Tommy Caldwell,  El Capitan Dawn Wall Climber

In recent weeks, I marveled at the tenacity and audacity of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson as they free-climbed the Dawn Wall of El Capitan, following their 3-week, 3000-foot climb up the mountain’s sheer granite face.  What we didn’t see was the behind the scenes hard work that made the end result possible: the 7 years of planning, the obstacles identified and analyzed, the attempts to climb daunting patches of the wall over and over again. Imagine the focus and attention Caldwell and Jorgeson had to use each second of the climb!

To me, this Dawn Wall climb serves as a larger than life reminder of the approach to take when confronting personal and professional challenges – small and large.

Most of us go to work each day, subconsciously replicating the same experiences for ourselves and our employees without really being present and using the conscious attention and focus that could take things to another level.  The Caldwell/Jorgeson climb serves as a reminder of the conscious reflection, planning and attention required to become great at anything, including leadership.

Here’s how we can scale the Dawn Wall of our own leadership, using experiences to evolve ourselves with each challenge that presents itself to us:

• Reflect on where you’ve been and how far you’ve come along as a leader.  No matter where you are as a leader, if you look back on your development, are you making progress toward a better version of your leader-self? As with Caldwell and Jorgeson, how well have you planned and executed your development? What obstacles, challenges, and setbacks have you run into? What did you do to overcome or adjust in response? Did you have to back-track and find a new way to get where you are now? In what ways have you become clearer about your leadership style and capacities? How has your perspective changed regarding what leadership is for you?

• Identify your next challenge (aka “Dawn Wall”).  There is always a challenge to overcome, whether it’s a new market to explore, a new alliance to form, a new way of interfacing with direct reports, or a new definition of your work as you enter a different phase of your career or life.  These challenges provide the impetus for making changes in the way you lead and relate to others. What’s the challenge in front of you now that you will commit to take on?

• Identify new capacities you need to be able to scale this newest challenge. Often, we are more concerned with the new capacities employees need for business endeavors to be successful, and we forget that each new challenge will require us as leaders to raise our competencies as well. Failing to grow along with a challenge is usually an invitation to be passed up and passed over as change occurs around us.  Constantly evolving into a better and better version of you not only keeps you relevant and competitive, but it makes you personally more adaptable and capable and more valuable because of that.  Think of the challenges that come your way as tailor-made growth opportunities. 

These growth opportunities may come in the form of eliminating behaviors and/or beliefs that are no longer serving you, capitalizing on an existing strength and taking it to a new level, or developing a new skill, like the ability influence others who don’t report to you. Whatever your current challenge is asking of you, whatever your potential areas for growth are, be open to them. You’ll evolve while serving as a role model for the importance of on-going personal and professional growth.

• Create your professional development plan. Yes, you need a professional development plan, too. And as with other employees, it’s really effective if it’s strategically tied in some way to your organization’s strategic goals and those current challenges.  What new experiences do you need to grow? What existing strengths can you build on? What knowledge and skills do you need to gain? What attitudes do you need to change or let go of?  And what’s the action plan to accomplish the areas for growth you’ve identified?

Whichever challenge comes your way, working on it can pay off big for your business and evolve your leadership capacity.  You’ll be better than you were before and ready for the next challenge.



WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman is the advisor for senior leaders who seek to evolve their leadership capacity by solving current business challenges for better productivity and profitability. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting LLC at: bethstrathman.com.