Unshakeable Influence Podcast

Today Colin T. McLetchie, PCC BCPP (President and Founder of Five Ways Forward) returns as guest co-host to share his years of experience with me regarding the primary tool of leadership: Conversation. Here are some of the key points from our discussion:

• The difference between communication and conversation
• How to know when to move from email to scheduling a meeting (4:00)
• The Missing Conversations (7:30)
• Conversations that should be prohibited (10:25)
• Conversations that should be required (21:40)
• Why is leadership and conversation intertwined (23:00)
• Carrying context-the continuous nature of conversation (27:20)
• The role of emotion in conversation (31:10)
• Blocks from and tools for getting present for conversation (36:48)
• How to have courageous conversations (50:40)

Returning guest co-host Colin T. McLetchie, PCC BCPP (President and Founder of Five Ways Forward) and I expand on a topic we touched on last week: Leadership With Love. We discuss the intersections between work life and personal life, and how leadership can be an expression of love. Here are a few key highlights from our discussion.

• The false dichotomy of living two lives: work and personal
• Job descriptions as indicators of inherent biases within your organization
• Defining who you want to be as a leader and why
• Defining what leadership is to your organization
• Parallels between our experience with primary caregivers and our leadership style
• Support employees by helping them into a position well-suited to their skills
• More possibilities emerge when we listen to heart wisdom
• Courageous conversations vs difficult conversations
• Unlearning patterns that aren't serving us
• Impacting the bottom line by shifting company culture
• The importance of building time to reflect
• Accessibility of growth mindset
• Action steps to begin moving forward in the direction of leading with love

This week Colin T. McLetchie, PCC BCPP, President and Founder of Five Ways Forward, and I share a few of our favorite poems with each other. We discuss how they apply to leadership, development, and organizational culture. Here are a few key highlights from our discussion.

RUMI (timestamp 2:35)

• Elevated consciousness as a leader
• Expanding possibilities: "Either/or" vs "both/and" thinking
• Staying present amidst nervous system reactivity
• Staying connected to Self and Other

LAO TZU (timestamp 31:00)

• Separating our personal worth from our achievements
• Examining our goals through new lenses
• Stepping into your goal to achieve it
• Defining Mastery
• Embracing Complexity

ANAIS NIN (timestamp 53:40)

• The high cost of stagnancy
• Preparing new managers for fundamental changes
• "Leaders bring the weather"

WALT WHITMAN (timestamp 1:06:20)

• We all have opportunities to contribute
• Finding victory in the mundane
• Becoming increasingly mindful of our impact

How can organizations be more mindful of political impact outside of their organization? This week guest co-host Lisa Dempsey, CPCC, PCC, CEO and Founder of Leadership Labs International, and I discuss the connection between business and politics. Here are a few key highlights from our discussion.

• Dangers of claiming to be apolitical while having real-world impact
• Examples of variety of ways businesses are entangled with politics
• Financial incentives of making our values clear: Attract and retain more customers and employees in alignment with company values
• Importance of actions matching our values
• Transparency vs Secrecy—benefits and pitfalls
• Creating genuine connection by owning your story
• Closing the gap between intention and impact
• Taking stock of individual/company values to find alignment in our career
• Making impact within our organizational environment

How can we use the concept of setting boundaries to create more connection within our teams? This week guest co-host Lisa Dempsey, CPCC, PCC, CEO and Founder of Leadership Labs International, and I discuss the concept of using boundaries to drive connection and co-create more harmoniously. Here are a few key highlights from our discussion.

• Using boundaries to connect as opposed to disconnect
• The costs of a lack of boundaries within our teams
• Finding the sweet spots of energy-motivation and engagement
• Defining where our responsibilities begin and end
• Tips to effectively communicate boundaries
• Self-discovery: Getting crisp about who we are and are not as a leader
• Team-discovery: Connecting and listening to others
• Organization-discovery: Understanding the bigger picture and our shared goals
• Reframing the limiting belief that boundaries are unacceptable in the workplace
• Increasing employee retention with an environment of healthy boundaries
• Benefits achieved by setting healthy boundaries
• Examples of relationships improved through boundary conversations
• Compassion versus responsibility for feelings of others

Returning guest co-host Lisa Dempsey, CEO and Founder of Leadership Labs International, and I discuss the what, why, and how of psychological safety. What is it? Why is it important? How can we put it into action? Here are a few key highlights from our discussion.

• Amy Edmondson coined the term "Psychological Safety" as the belief that "one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes"
• Psychological safety is foundational for an effective leader
• The costs of the absence of psychological safety
• Benefits of making uncomfortable conversations welcome in our teams
• The three levels of connection: to ourselves, to others, to something bigger than ourselves
• Trust as a by-product of psychological safety
• The power of asking more than we tell
• Recognizing the gap between Intention and Impact
• Cultivating safety in open feedback
• Naming the elephant in the room
• The benefits achieved when psychological safety is present

How can we be intentional as we transition into some new version of normal while moving into a post-pandemic world? In this week's episode I connect with guest co-host Lisa Dempsey, CEO and Founder of Leadership Labs International, and we discuss some ideas to focus our attention where it matters. Here are some of the key points:

• The temptation to re-adopt familiar practices that are no longer serving us.
• Tuning in to the value found and positive aspects we have gained from experiencing a more remote workplace.
• Opportunities to see each other as whole people (coworkers, employees to employers, parents to children)
• Tips to avoid the tendency to over-correct: temporary vs permanent adjustments
• Integration: how do we retain the positive from our temporary adjustments
• Convergence: create space and allow time for task-positive brainwork as well as default mode
• Pause and reflect on impact of pre-pandemic patterns
• Viewing new intention-setting as small-scale experiments
• Benefits of an annual reflection of intentions vs impact
• Incremental improvements add up to exponential effect

Thanks for listening!

Lisa Dempsey, CEO and Founder of Leadership Labs International, graciously guest co-hosts again this week. We talk about the lack of gender balanced leadership and its impacts, where the gaps are, and what we need to do to attain a better balance. Here are a few of the key highlights with resources for you to dive deeper as your interests and time allow.

• Gender gaps/pay gaps stats, and outcomes that stem from gender imbalances resources below
• The gender pay gap situation in the EU
• Gender pay gap in US held steady in 2020
• The systemic nature of gender imbalance in leadership
• Diversity dividend-how do companies benefit from having diverse workforces resources below
• 2018 Delivering through Diversity
• 2019 Diversity wins: How Inclusion Matters
• Market reach benefits achieved by a diverse workforce
• Separating personal experience from the impact of our actions
• Emotional conditioning of the gender binary and how that translates to the professional world
• The double bind women and men face in the workplace resource below
• The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership
• Tangible ways we can change our personal behavior to spark larger change
• The value of self-acceptance and letting go of performing narratives
• Creating environments of inclusion and championing our teams for fully showing up
• Some of the improvements we have seen over the last decade

Thank you for listening!

Lisa Dempsey, Founder/CEO of Leadership Labs International, and I have a conversation about the importance of saying no to the less important things so that we can fully commit to our highest priorities, and strategies to accomplish this within your organization. Here are some of the highlights: · How overcommitment leads to mediocrity · The cost of saying yes to everything · How our executive function is affected by a constant state of overwhelm · Ways to recognize symptoms of overwhelm, what to learn from it, and how to adjust · Reprioritizing as a key to gain clarity · The concept of psychological safety within an organization · Letting go of the Leadership Bias to engage more authentically with your CEO · Testing the waters for pushback conversations · Explaining the why to increase engagement · Measuring success of your business on a continuum as well as the fiscal year

Today I connected with Nic Marks, statistician/founder of "Friday Pulse"/author, about measuring quality of life as it relates to our teams and company culture.

We touch on key points such as: · Types of unhappiness · What we measure tends to improve-What we measure matters · Balancing the negativity/positivity balance · Sitting with discomfort to help employees feel heard · How to hit the sweet spot of surveys (creating surveys that work) · Creating a team meeting "meal box" for your company · Some of the challenges within neuroscience of categorizing emotions · The importance of embracing all emotions as valuable data · How our hunger to create meaning out of life relates to happiness