TesseTalks

 Wild waters are always going to be there. They may not be raging at this precise moment, but the potential for that disturbance and that turbulence is always there. Good Leaders Turbulent Times And How To Navigate Wild Waters At Work, Martin Farrell’s book is an enriching and purposeful read, full of good, uplifting stuff, with a good dose of reality.

 “Suffering happens, pain happens. We'd better get used to living with the turbulence, which has always been there and is now greater.  Leaders need to find ways of dealing with the pain and suffering that comes up.” says Martin.

Help can be very humbling. It is hard to admit I need help right here. When I see someone or something that needs help, my first response is to go help. But is that the best thing in the moment, “What kind of help is needed here”? asks Erin Randall as she notes the seismic shifts that emerged for her as she read The Super-Helper Syndrome.

Systems are greater than goals. If your goal is to be a healthy helper, what are the systems that you need to build in order to make that possible? She muses. Helpfully this compassionate guide addresses the question, how can we encourage or constructively challenge or ask others to remain healthy? How can we find ways out of unhealthy patterns of helping?

The Super-Helper Syndrome: A Survival Guide for Compassionate People authored by Jess Baker & Rod Vincent, serves up a rich meal to underpin what healthy helping looks like.

“Do all things with great love. Avoid helping as a from of rescue, there needs to be reciprocity in helping. People who are helped need to have opportunities where they feel like they can be helpful to others as well.” shares Erin Randall.

A healthy helper is one that is able to help in the way that they desire and see fit. Help has a mental and physical aspect. As a helper, your self worth does not depend upon helping people. Healthy helpers have boundaries that they hold for themselves that aren't porous and that other people are not able to run over.

They are able to sustain themselves as well as the work that they're trying to do. A crucial question is asking, “what kind of help is needed here”? An essential element is the recognition of space. Saviourism is dangerous. The person being helped needs to be treated with respect and dignity while being encouraged to be independent and enabled to move forward in a manner that is best for them.

Fran Borg-Wheeler describes Heart Centred Leadership as being about connection, compassion, care and harnessing the power of kindness in leadership.

“My vision was for young people to be able to have safe place to live and for them to get the support to be able to flourish in life and create better futures. I was starting to experience some mini strokes.  My health was a little bit questionable, but it was very important to me that I didn’t leave my role until I'd completed the mission of raising £1 million.   It took me four years. The project is up and running now and I know it's making a difference to young people's lives. This is an example of an ambitious goal that I managed to achieve by focusing on a heart centred approach”.

So, heart-centred leadership can involve forging connections, showing compassion to others, caring deeply, and leveraging the strength of kindness in leadership.

Excavating Memory, Archaeology and Hope is an invitation by Elizabeth Mosier to listen to the objects speak. The true treasure is not the object at all. Instead, it is the stories the object tells about the people who owned or used it, what the thing tells you about the person and what is of importance to them. Once Elizabeth embraced that concept. It changed everything about the way she viewed objects.

Mountains and valleys, ordinary to extraordinary is a theme that thrills anthropologist Erik Seversen. Erikspotlights the essence of feeling fulfilled and purposeful. Describing himself as ordinary he admits doing extraordinary things, especially after being told he would not be able to do something. He learned to confront his fears and embrace the possibilities and gifts in less than ideal situations. “Challenges are what makes life good. Challenges do make us who we are. Fear is a team effort. Faith wins over fear every time, whether we are in the valley or the mountain top”.

“Mountains and valleys are both stepping stones to shape our lives. Movement in our lives and achieving paradigm shifts is very much related to our mindset. Whenever something bad happens, I always ask myself, what's the positive? What do I see that's the positive, where is the gift? “

Says David Taylor-Klaus , “Vulnerability is a human gem. It's a core part of who we are and it doesn't have to be hard. It just has to be conscious. And when you bring it up to conscious awareness, when you invite it, when you lean into it, it's not hard, it's a practice. Being attentive to your frame and your energy as you're creating something, whether that's your presentation to your board or something other activity”. 

" Leaders who don't bring themselves and their full selves to their leadership are experienced as not genuine, and a disingenuous leader is one that people won't follow".

“Failure is part of the path towards vulnerability”.

People are less familiar with, feedforward which inspires quality performance. That’s because there really isn't any point pointing out to people what they're really bad at, because they probably already know. The brilliant thing about feedforward is that people at the receiving end of feedforward see aspects of their performance that they are less good at - start becoming better! This is because people feel good and are not trying to undo what they are not good at. In pursuit of excellence Two themes emerge - excellence and empathy. Feedforward is a totally different way of talking about performance.

Debra Allcock Tyler reflects on the power of feedback “What is the point of saying something to somebody that they are not going to do anything about? Instinctively as a human being we assume feedback is going to be bad. As managers and as leaders, we have an enormous amount of power of other people. The biggest power we've got is over their emotional state. “Feedback is about the person who gives it and the person who receives it, and both have got to be in the right space. We can wield feedback so inappropriately. We forget how much power we have over those we lead. We can make our staff utterly miserable without thinking about the context of feedback or the support required for it to land well.

“Working with a coach is lovely. In that space a coach can really push and prod and poke, just like the journalist would, but in a much more supportive way. You can't think your way into a career change, because at some point you get stuck. So much is shifting. This isn't a kind of one and you're done. It's not like you decide and you're stuck forever”, says Rachel Schofield.

Rachel Schofield worked for the BBC for 20 years as a journalist and news presenter before training as career and . She has turned her journalist’s passion for asking awkward questions onto the world of work, helping individuals think creatively, embrace the discomfort of change, and figure out what fulfilling and impactful careers look like in our rapidly changing world.