Category: Inside My Head

Personal Leadership

I recently participated in a small team discussion about leadership. Now there’s a loaded word, especially when you start examining your own strengths and challenges. I think leadership is one of those nebulous terms we throw around a lot. We also tend to haphazardly add adjectives in front of it – good, weak, thoughtful, inspired. And we seem to spend a lot of time talking about leadership. A LOT of time in my world. But that said, I don’t necessarily remember the last time I did a self-assessment of my own strengths and challenges.

It’s easy to spot what we like in others and gossip about what we don’t. But turning the question on ourselves can be a bit daunting and I found I struggled with the questions – both on the strengths and challenges side. But through that struggle, I found the exercise valuable. It helped me understand what unique qualities I bring to the table and where I have a desire to behave differently. In the interest of helping you take a look at your own list, I thought I’d share mine. And I’d love to hear what you think makes you a strong leader, as well as areas you’d like to develop. Lead on, my friends!

Strengths

I am confident in my own beliefs and opinions and I’m willing to share them. I think that’s a huge part of leadership.
I ask questions. I ask for clarification. I ask to ensure I understand. I ask to identify underlying feelings. I want to make sure I thoroughly understand what’s going on before I move ahead, whether in the conversation or with an action.
I like connecting with people and helping them feel heard. Being heard is a powerful feeling and limitless things can come from that space shared between people.
When something doesn’t go as expected, I first look to what I could have done differently. That helps me clarify what I expect and want moving forward. It also keeps me from starting with blame for others.
I believe life is more fun when you’re positive, and that goes for work and play. I work to see the positive and not be so focused on the negative.
I believe there is always something that can be done – there are always more options.

Challenges

Delegating and sharing responsibility can be hard for me. Trusting that others are invested at a level that makes me comfortable is tough.
I have high expectations and I can take it personally when those expectations aren’t met. I think these high expectations can sometimes come off as high maintenance, which can be a challenge for me (I wrote a whole blog post on this one!).
I can get stuck in the details of something and get so focused on making it work that I can miss an easier and better solution because I’m too far down the path with the first option.
I can sometimes worry too much about how other people feel. It doesn’t always prevent me from taking action, but it can cause me to struggle in moving forward to letting something go.
I believe there is always something that can be done – there are always more options (yes, you read that right – I consider this both a strength and a challenge since it can sometimes drive me crazy).

Tags Growth, leadership, Personal Development

Inside My Head Karen

Hey, you – the leader! Know your guiding values!

Post author By catherinewemette
Post date August 24, 2016
No Comments on Hey, you – the leader! Know your guiding values!

I came across a document I wrote on January 1, 2008, expounding on my three guiding values. I was immediately curious to read it, wondering if it still resonated within me.

The answer? YES!!!

Isn’t it incredible that guiding values live inside us regardless of the changes of life, new chapters, same chapters, good times, hard times, in seasons of plenty and in seasons of need?

Business is exactly the same. In business, it’s referred to as the mission statement – why we do what we do. What do you want your company to be known for? And please do not say money!

Check out what a seasoned mission statement looks like:

NIKE: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. *If you have a body, you are an athlete.”

STARBUCKS: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.”

WHOLE FOODS: “With great courage, integrity and love – we embrace our responsibility to co-create a world where each of us, our communities, and our planet can flourish. All the while, celebrating the sheer love and joy of food.”

Pay attention to this next phrase: A leader’s guiding values carry more influence than a company’s mission statement.

As a leader, as the decision-maker, as the company’s burden bearer – before you incorporate a mission statement for your business – please formulate your personal guiding values. The DNA of your company depends on it. The more you live out your guiding values, the healthier your mission statement will be.

A mission statement is the non-negotiable reputation, the first impression, and the legacy a company leaves behind. The mission statement is the connecting point where everyone who signs up to play on your team identifies, relates and resonates with the company’s declaration.

Before you ask anyone to sign up to a company’s mission statement, do you know your own guiding values?

Know why you do what you do; why you’re unwavering in core principles and why you won’t allow circumstances to compromise who you are. That’s powerful stuff!

After re-reading my guiding values, I found myself coming into alignment again in a fresh way. I also realized I need to be reading these guiding values on a consistent basis. It’s like giving myself my very own pep talk!

Here’s the bottom line: the reason I need guiding values to remain in the forefront of my life is because I know that when I walk these out great things happen…to those around me. Guiding values are principles you live that positively impact others.

Commit to your guiding values regularly, intentionally and confidently. Remain steadfast in how you live your life and impact the people around you.

– Karen Thrall

*also published on www.karenthrall.com

Tags leadership, Organizational Development, Personal Development

Inside My Head

Flexibility

Someone on my Facebook feed recently linked to a Psychology Junkie blog on How Each Myers-Briggs Type Reacts to Stress (and How to Help!). I always find these things fascinating and take them with a grain of salt at the same time. Whenever we generalize based on one thing – geographic location, generation, Myers-Briggs-type – we can set ourselves up to miss important pieces of information and make faulty assumptions. That said, I think we can always learn something or find a different way to think about a behavior.

I tend to bounce between ENFP and ENTJ. I was a solid ENFP in my younger years and while many of those same traits are still prevalent, as I get older, I’ve come out as an ENTJ in more recent assessments. However, as I read the stressors and of an ENTJ, many of those resonated with me, though the second to last line stopped me in my tracks.

“They may feel overwhelmed, out of control, unable to sort out priorities, and thus become inflexible.”

I find planning and routine comforting in times of stress, but I’d never thought about it quite in this way. I can find it hard to go with the flow if I’m feeling particularly stressed and I do get irritated when things change, especially last minute. It’s not that I can’t adjust – it’s just that my brain was prepared for one thing and now that’s not happening and it feels like my rusty gears have trouble shifting as quickly as I’d like.That said, I’d seen my need for control and order during times of stress as a positive – a way to buckle down and get things done, but it hadn’t ever occurred to me that it could (and I’m certain does!) come across as being inflexible.

It never hurts to become a little more acquainted with ourselves and learn more about how our actions might be seen by others. I’ll be over here working on my flexibility if anyone needs me…

Tags Change, Growth, Personal Development

Inside My Head

August?!?

Every summer, I look forward to the slower pace, a little more time on my hands and the opportunity to catch up. And every summer, I am sorely disappointed. The time flies by – at a seemingly faster pace than the year before, if that’s even possible. Things are more hectic with travel, visitors and unexpected projects. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the varied routine, and I especially love the travel and visitors, but I am always taken by surprise at how fast the time goes and how quickly the routine of fall is looming over us.

This summer has been no exception (thus, the reasons we were quite last week on the blog), so you think I’d learn my lesson by now. In anticipation of a little more time, I took on a couple extra projects in the spring for the summer. However, my extra time never quite materialized and now I’m packing just a little more in to an already full schedule. And somehow, it’s already the second week of August. How on earth did that happen?!?

This fast travel through time has me thinking about a recent article I saw about vacation planning. The author was encouraging readers to schedule vacation time before anything else, and I think I may try the approach next year. I think we often figure we’ll find a week or two once the calendar is set and go from there. But as I discover (over and over again), those quiet weeks never come unless we make them a priority.

So as the last few weeks of summer get away from me, I’ve looked towards the fall and already have a long weekend or two set aside to make sure I’ve got some time for me. Here’s hoping it’s a skill I will have mastered by the time the summer of 2017 rolls around.

Tags Change, Motivation, Personal Development

Inside My Head

High Expectations

Someone recently asked me if I considered myself high maintenance. Before you’re offended on my behalf because we share an assumption that being high maintenance is a bad thing, let me say she’s a wonderful young women and I respect her a lot. I think she’s working on finding her place in this world and is interested in how others see themselves as she’s working on her own self-view. Her question really caught me off guard, however, because I do start with the assumption that being high maintenance isn’t a desirable trait. To me, it conjures up images of demanding whatever is best of you whenever it suits you. It’s complaining about not getting the perfect table. It’s whining about things not going exactly your way. It’s all about you all the time. Quite frankly, the thought of it being about me all the time is exhausting.

I thought about it and told her I didn’t consider myself high maintenance, but rather, I knew what I wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it or ask for it. Perhaps that does make me high maintenance. When I’m excited, I want you to get excited to. When I work hard, I want you to work just as hard. When I prioritize something, I want you to do the same. And maybe that’s another definition of high maintenance. I think of it as wanting to share what I find interesting with someone else. And the people I keep closest to me do often share those same values, which makes it fun.

When relaying this conversation to another friend, he had a good laugh (clearly, I’m a little higher maintenance on his scale than my own). But he did think about it for a minute and reframed it this way – he said he believed I had high expectations. And unlike the label of high maintenance, having high expectations resonated immediately. Yes, I absolutely have high expectations of those around me. I expect you’ll be excited because I’m excited. I expect we’ll work hard together. I expect we’ll share similar priorities. I expect these things because we’ve chosen to come together in life – as friends, colleagues, or partners. We share a common purpose on some level, and that drives our expectations. I hold myself to those same expectations when it comes to you because you matter to me. Your excitement, work ethic and priorities matter to me. And I am more than okay with those expectations of me.

And sure, your high expectations may let you down from time to time. And that’s okay. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop expecting the best from people. I will proudly wear the label of high expectations, and I can’t wait for you to surpass them.

Tags Growth, Motivation, Personal Development

Inside My Head

On Time vs. Timely

Everyone has a different relationship with time. For some, it’s an absolute and for others, it’s more of a guideline. And in many cases, it can be very dependent on who else is involved, or may be different between personal and professional lives. I’ve been thinking about time lately and how my approach to time shapes my brand. When it comes to work, I have a very strict approach that has developed over the years: I am not just on time – I am timely. This means more than being on time for meetings (which is important!). Being timely means I meet deadlines, early if possible. I respond as quickly as I can because I know someone is waiting on me. I try to respect other people’s time by given them enough notice for things rather than dropping in at the last minute. I only accept meetings I plan to attend. I try to avoid cancelling at the last minute at all costs. These are all things I take seriously because they are part of my reputation. There are lots of things people could say about me, but I don’t ever want one of them to be that you can’t count on me to be responsive.

I had a staff member tell me once that being on time was “my thing.” That was curious to me because I hadn’t ever considered it my thing. I had always considered my relationship to be driven by the situation. In this case, we had published hours of operation and people could show up at any time during those hours, so yeah, being on time was important for all of us – not just me and “my thing.” And being on time meant being there 15 minutes before we officially opened so we were ready for guests right when we said we would be, even if most often, our guests wandered in later.

Time is a funny thing in the fact that we’ve managed to all get on the same page about the 24 hour day, but past that, it all seems relative. What’s your relationship with time?

Tags Career, leadership, Personal Development

Inside My Head

Someone

I’m looking for Someone. Someone has been taking on a lot these days. Someone is very busy, yet not really seeming to get much done. And I’ll be honest – I’m a little frustrated.

Someone seems to get in our way with way too much regularity. Much too often, we look to Someone. Someone should do something about our rowdy neighbor. Someone should tell the boss she’s micromanaging us. Someone should take on that project we’ve been talking about for so long. Someone should organize that trip we keep meaning to take. Someone should do something. And yet, despite everything we keep assigning to Someone, nothing seems to actually get done. Huh.

In defense of Someone, he’s really gotten the short end of the stick. We’re quick to assign tasks to Someone because it’s easier than doing it ourselves. We may not take action for a variety of reasons. We’re scared, we don’t know how to fix it, we don’t have the time, we’re know if will be hard, we might hurt feelings…the reasons are endless. But we know there’s a problem and we want to get credit for pointing it out and then delegating to Someone. As long as we verbalize it and get Someone on it, our hands are clean.

Spoiler alert: Someone doesn’t actually exist, and you don’t actually get anything done by assigning anything to him. It’s up to each of us to pick up the slack that Someone has created by letting things slide. We certainly can’t pick up all the things Someone was supposed to do, but if each one of us can tackle one thing Someone was supposed to do, imagine how much we might actually accomplish. So let’s make an agreement to help Someone out and quit delegating things to him. I’m in!

Tags Career, Change, Motivation

Inside My Head Karen

Loss

Loss: the state or feeling of grief when deprived of someone or something of value.

-New Oxford American Dictionary

The loss of a life. The loss of love. The loss of a job. The loss of health. The loss of money. The loss of friendship. The loss of a game.

Why is loss so painful?

It creates a grief in our hearts that can feel unbearable, overwhelming, deflating, disheartening, discouraging, or anxious.

We all deal with loss differently.

Some build walls as a shield of protection.
Some avoid the topic because it’s easier to not talk about it.
Some get angry to avoid breaking down in tears.
Some are overly sensitive because touching the wound is excruciating.
Some use dark humor to cover up the deep pain.
Some go quiet to silence the multitude of thoughts racing through their mind.
Some escape through substance to drown the grief.
Some flight because it’s easier to carry on than to deal with it.
Some meditate for relief from their anxiety.
Some choose retribution to avoid the feeling of rejection.

There is no perfect way to grieve loss. It’s impossible to perform flawlessly when we grieve.

Even in sports, I watch a team lose the championship and some are crying, some are throwing their towel down in frustration, some are sitting on the bench head in hands looking down at the ground, some head straight to the locker room and some are trying to remain composed and professional for the sake of the spectators.

It doesn’t matter how we deal with loss, the reality is we all identify with loss.

Here’s the kicker: and as much as you want to get over it, you don’t bounce back. Yes, time will heal, but not in a bouncy way!

Healing the experience of loss is more like filling a bucket of water with a syringe. Each drop is one step closer to restoring a full bucket inside you. We forget we need to replenish our souls! The expression “a cup of cold water to the soul” is about filling the bucket back up. And filling the bucket takes time. It’s a process. Replenishment takes time, and some buckets may take a little longer than others.

All that is required of us is this: simply say yes to the process. A willingness to allow ourselves to be replenished. Time is patient.

– Karen Thrall

* also published on www.karenthrall.com

Tags coping, Growth, Personal Development

Inside My Head Karen

Know Your Stressors

Taking inventory of our internal well-being on a regular basis is fundamental to healthy living. When we go through a challenging time, a big change, an unexpected disruption (or a planned one), it’s a good idea to ask ourselves, “Heyyyyy youuuu inside there, how are you doing?”

The most important part of stress is this:
Are you handling it okay?

When I did this quiz, my stress results were very high. I knew they would be. There’s been a lot of change over the past 12 months. Along with the change, stress. Of course! It comes with the territory.

How we handle stress is what we need to measure.

Ask your closest relationships: Do you think I handle stress well?

For me personally, I’m making life-changing decisions and carving a new path – a path I want to live. The impact these changes are having on me, the inner-person Karen, are monumental. The paradox of this stress and change is that I’ve chosen it. I want the change.

Regardless, change comes with risk, which inevitably induces greater levels of stress.

Although stress is a complex subject, I know what I have to do in order to stay healthy. I don’t want stress to invoke physical ailments.

Since I’m in a season of high stress (note: a season), I find myself much more diligent in making sure I’m doing okay. Here are a few of my go-to’s that I find highly valuable and helpful:

Find the calm in the chaos. (I continually say, “All will be well. I’m on the right path. Keep going.”)
Spend time outdoors reflecting and pondering your thoughts.
Enjoy solitude and find time to think so you can unpack the clutter in your mind.
Give yourself permission to feel your fear, worry or uncertainty. (I used to stuff my feelings. I don’t do that anymore.)
Choose gratitude and every day speak out that for which you’re truly thankful.
Remind yourself that love is greater than stress. Stay connected with the people that mean the most to you!
Every year have a medical check up and blood work done to make sure you’re healthy.
Choose to eat healthy and drink lots of water.
Love laughing. (I make sure my days are filled with joy.)

Stress is a normal part of life, but it’s not to dominate our lives and it must not be given any controlling power on our circumstances.

– Karen Thrall

*also published on www.karenthrall.com

Tags Change, Growth, Personal Development