Transformational Leadership with Henna Inam

In my work with my executive coaching clients, one of the most important aspects of sustainable change and getting into flow is to create daily habits that support our energy and focus. One of those habits that I encourage is daily reflection. The impact of a daily reflection exercise is to connect more deeply with ourselves and what matters. 

In this podcast episode, I share two 5-minute guided coaching exercises. The first is a morning journaling exercise. It helps you create focus for yourself for a productive and energized day. It helps you focus your energy toward your purpose and aspirations. It helps you practice gratitude which has been shown to grow resilience. 

The second is an evening journaling exercise. It helps you process your day so you are not bringing the stressors of the day to your home life. It helps you release challenging emotions, get new perspective, and bring a calmer and more compassionate you to the people and activities that matter at home. It also helps you practice self-compassion which has been shown to grow resilience, confidence, and connection.

My recommendation is to start with the morning practice. See if you can add it to an existing morning habit you have. Then add the evening practice.

If you decide to try this practice, I would welcome your feedback.

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Our current state of burnout is a call for us to evolve our leadership, individually and collectively. In my work with leaders and their teams, they are increasingly asking for ways to create more trust and connection so people can feel safety in navigating the challenges of disruption. The cause of burnout is lack of connection to ourselves, our individual and collective purpose, and the people we work with. 

In this short podcast episode, I have created two practices for teams. 

At the start is a 5-minute practice for teams to arrive and create the conditions for collective flow to happen: to bring their attention to now, to grow connection and trust, and to align on their intention for contribution toward collective goals. I recommend this as an essential practice. Many of my clients say it super-charges the quality of trust and ideas in the room.

The second practice (after a 30-second pause) is an optional 2-minute practice done just prior to aligning on next steps and concluding the meeting. It's a way to bring individual and shared attention to the learning and progress during the meeting, to drive clarity and commitment toward inspired and aligned action. 

The topic of my next book is how teams can create breakthroughs in collective flow and I am looking for 15 mighty teams to be part of my Collective Flow Experiment. If your team chooses to use these practices, I would welcome your feedback on how this works for you.

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Many teams struggle with burnout, belonging, and breakthrough innovation. Silos, matrix reporting and disconnection get in the way of results. What if we could navigate some of our most important collective challenges by accessing collective flow? I sat down with Dr. Keith Sawyer, author of Group Genius, who is a pre-eminent researcher on this topic and worked directly with the “father of flow”, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Dr. Keith Sawyer, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is one of the country’s leading scientific experts on creativity.  He has published 18 books and over 100 scientific articles. His research has been featured on CNN, Fox News, TIME Magazine, NPR, and other media.  A popular speaker, he lectures to corporations, associations, and universities around the world on creativity and innovation.  

In this episode Keith discussed some of the most important activators of group flow based on his own experience playing in a jazz band as well as extensive study of improv actors and large teams and organizations that regularly create conditions for group flow. Some of the activators include meaningful shared goals and risks, close listening and attention, trust and connection among the members, blending of ego’s and giving up personal agendas. We discussed both the benefits and the challenges of this in leadership teams. 

If this topic interests you, reach out as collective flow is the topic of my next book and I’m interested in working with leaders and teams who have high stakes challenges that need breakthrough thinking and alignment.

“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile”

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

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Dr. Andrew White works globally with leaders to understand how they can transcend the internal and external strategic challenges they face to ensure they deliver sustainable high performance. His experience comes from being a Senior Fellow in Management Practice at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford where he works with these leaders by directing the Advanced Management and Leadership Programme, coaching several CEOs and their senior teams, and conducting research into leadership and transformation. is also a certified meditation teacher and has developed a toolkit of meditations tailored to the different situations leaders face.

In this episode, Andrew shared examples of leaders who are driving transformation across industries, bringing uncommon thinking. They are able to create breakthroughs because they combine a bigger purpose they care deeply about with the ability to listen deeply to different needs of stakeholders within an ecosystem. He shared insights about how all successful transformations require spaciousness and sensing into what is emerging, a clear and aligned plan, and also empathy to listen closely to the human resistance that often derails the plan. This deep caring and listening to the emotional journey of people participating in the change makes all the difference.

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- Sign up for leadership tips to thrive in disruption

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- Follow podcast host on LinkedIn

Bob Anderson has dedicated his career to exploring the intersections between leadership and personal mastery, and between competence and consciousness. The creator and author of The Leadership Circle Profile, an integrated and innovative leadership assessment tool, Bob is a true pioneer in the field of leadership development and research. Bob is also the author of Mastering Leadership, An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results and Scaling Leadership, Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes that Matter Most.

In our podcast, we discussed Bob’s deep work into the nature of reality informed by quantum physics. We discussed how we can each access the field of intelligent information that is available in the present moment to be agile to the changing and complex landscape we lead in. We are both convinced that this is the future of leadership and that we can evolve ourselves to develop our bandwidth to access new sources of insight and intuition, beyond our rational thinking mind. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone in the leadership development and learning community.

If this interests you we invite you to reach out and collaborate with us.

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Susan Cain is the author of the bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, which has been translated into 40 languages and spent seven years on the New York Times best seller list. Her record-smashing TED talk has been viewed over 40 million times. And her new book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole opened #1 on the New York Times best seller list.

In this episode we spoke about how making room to be with bittersweet emotions, individually and collectively, opens up space for compassion, connection and creativity. She shared research studies and  neuroscience around how human beings are actually wired for compassion and when we turn toward our loss and longing we can learn to thrive in the midst of disruption. She invites us as leaders to make room for these tougher emotions of grief and loss in the workplace and gives us specific practices to invite the creativity that we can have access to when we pause and make space for our humanity. You can learn more about her new book, course and sign up for her newsletter here: https://susancain.net/book/bittersweet/

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Susan Cain is the author of the bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, which has been translated into 40 languages and spent seven years on the New York Times best seller list. Her record-smashing TED talk has been viewed over 40 million times. And her new book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole opened #1 on the New York Times best seller list.

In this episode we spoke about how making room to be with bittersweet emotions, individually and collectively, opens up space for compassion, connection and creativity. She shared research studies and  neuroscience around how human beings are actually wired for compassion and when we turn toward our loss and longing we can learn to thrive in the midst of disruption. She invites us as leaders to make room for these tougher emotions of grief and loss in the workplace and gives us specific practices to invite the creativity that we can have access to when we pause and make space for our humanity. You can learn more about her new book, course and sign up for her newsletter here: https://susancain.net/book/bittersweet/

Kevin Cashman is a best-selling author, global thought leader and CEO Coach, keynote speaker and pioneer of the ‘grow the whole person to grow the whole leader’ approach to transformative enterprise leadership.  He is the founder of LeaderSource Ltd, and the Chief Executive Institute recognized as one of the top three enterprise leadership development programs globally. In 2006, LeaderSource was acquired by Korn Ferry, where Kevin is now Global Leader of CEO and Executive Development across 130 offices internationally that touch the lives of 100,000+ leaders monthly. 

In this episode Kevin shared his personal experience of loss during the pandemic and what differentiates truly great leaders: "They have the unique ability to convert loss to learning that serves them and their ecosystem". He also shared the importance of an elevated mindset and "Being Mastery", how leaders confront challenges and bring compassion to pain and suffering, how they prepare to meet the unknown, and step up and step into purpose. "The growth of a CEO is critical to the growth of the organization...I view leadership as the force that can change everything for the better...ultimately we have to become ecosystem leaders". 

His story-telling and Korn Ferry's 2-year research is sure to inspire you. Take a listen!

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Adam Symson is president and CEO of The E.W. Scripps Company, the fourth-largest local TV broadcaster in the U.S. Prior to becoming CEO in August 2017, Adam was Scripps’ chief operating officer, overseeing the company’s broadcast TV, radio and digital media divisions.

In this episode, Adam shares the story of what it is like to lead during the pandemic as CEO and how to make decisions in ambiguity. He also shares his experience of managing multiple stakeholders (employees, shareholders, the public at large, etc.) in a turbulent time, the importance of aligning with core values, and how we must disrupt ourselves in times of disruption. He and his team undertook a multi-billion dollar acquisition in the middle of the crisis because he is focused on the long-term. His leadership advice to his children: "It's not about how you succeed. It's about how you fail. It's what you do when you inevitably get kicked in the gut...how you persevere."

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