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Intentional Leadership — D1, W1, M5 — Passion

I’ve been a professional communicator for 20+ years. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to explore nearly every aspect of corporate communications over the course of my career: Advertising, marketing, public relations, community relations, media relations, fund-raising, and internal communications. Having worked my way through all of those audiences, I was most interested in internal communications. In fact, for some time, you could say it was my passion — at least in terms of work.

You see, I’ve long believed that if you take good care of your employees, they will take great care of your business. So, they have always been my primary audience, and certainly first priority in any communication effort. However, over time, I lost interest in being the tactical communicator, and refocused my efforts on teaching my colleagues to become more competent, confident communicators themselves. I’ve been moving in the direction of developing others for a long time, and was moving down that path before I realized where it was leading me.

I’ve since been fortunate enough to have the epiphany about my true passion in life! Yes, I do still believe in taking care of one’s employees and that they will take care of your business; that hasn’t changed. But my beliefs about that have expanded enormously. It goes far beyond just communicating with them; it’s about developing them, helping them recognize and reach their potential.

Today, I can tell you my passion is for development — mine and other’s. I am passionate about personal growth, leadership, effective communication, and building healthy, smart teams. This passion is so strong, it is nearly all consuming. I see opportunities for growth in nearly everyone and every situation I encounter. I am driven to work on these opportunities — pouring into others everything I am able to share, with a focus on adding value to others — nearly all the time.

In fact, it’s not work any more…pursuing this passion is my opportunity to create my life’s masterpiece; to be able to blur the line between work and leisure.

Have you wrestled with finding your true passion in life?

Take some time today to describe your journey of discovering your passion up to this point.

Follow your passion, and success will follow you. ~Arthur Buddhold

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Where is your “here” and what “there” are you striving to reach?

IMG_0165Several months ago, I participated in a Mastermind Group / Book Club exercise with some people from an organization I belong to called Outside Counsel. The books was What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith. I loved it!

Goldsmith describes 20 behaviors that cause people to get stuck in their careers (although work life is really the focus on the book, Goldsmith acknowledges these behaviors permeate all aspects of a person’s life), even though the behaviors may have actually served the person well at an earlier point in his/her life.

This made a lot of sense to me, as I have lived it. I grew up in circumstances that drove me to become a very self-sufficient, independent, over achiever. I did everything myself, not expecting or accepting help from others, because I had learned — from experience — that you couldn’t necessarily count on others to be there when you needed them. The behaviors I built around these beliefs served me well for a long time in my younger years, and even for a while when I entered the working world after college.

I reached a point, however, when those behaviors no longer served me and, in fact, became destructive. You see, it’s not possible for one person to be completely self-sufficient, to be all things to all people, to be an expert in everything. And, frankly, it was exhausting!

I eventually went through some painful experiences that caused me to become more self-aware and to effect some significant changes in my life. I changed my thinking about needing other people, inviting them into my life and my work, asking for help, and understanding that the end result of working with others is much more than I can accomplish solo.

This is the foundation for a keynote presentation I gave today at the Mid-Ohio Valley Chamber of Commerce’s second annual Women in Leadership Luncheon. I used my story and intertwined it with the concepts Marshall Goldsmith so eloquently outlined in his book, and offered it to the ~160 attendees as a learning opportunity. It was truly the highlight of my week, so far. I have to admit, I’ve been looking forward to this day for some months now, as I felt so lucky when the Chamber’s Executive Director accepted my suggestion for using it as the theme for the luncheon.

I had a great time working with the luncheon’s planning committee; a diverse group of talented, creative, focused women who planned and presented a great day of learning and connecting opportunities for the business women of this area.

My intent was for each person to have at least one aha! moment, one new insight, a new perspective, and that when they left the conference center today, they could say without a doubt, “Attending this event was truly worth the six hours of my life that I spent on it today.” You see, I do strive to entertain people when I have the opportunity to speak, but more than that, I want to make people to think, to learn, to grow. I want to share something that will have changed someone’s life, even if in just a small way.

I hope I didn’t disappoint!

I encourage you to take a few minutes right now to think about your current “Here”…not your physical location, but where you are in your work, your learning, your relationships, your growth, your career. Then give some thought to the next “There” you long to get to. What will it take to get you there? What skills will you need to develop? What behaviors will you need to stop demonstrating? What behaviors will you need to cultivate?

Click here to see the newspaper coverage.

Please, share your stories!

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Intentional Leadership — D3, W4, M4 — Focus

Having done some reflection, let’s get some other perspectives. Today, gather your team or peer group together and cast a vision for the power of focus.

What are some examples of the positive results you have seen of increased focus in your own life that you can share with your team?

How can they apply what you’ve learned from your experience to something they are working on?

Challenge them to think about their top three objectives for the next month. Ask them to write them down and share them with the team. Also, ask them to make note of the potential distractions that could keep them from meeting their objectives. Take it one step further, and challenge them to develop a plan to eliminate or diminish those distractions.

Schedule a special team meeting for the end of next month to review your team’s progress toward their objectives, recount the distractions they encountered and how they dealt with them, and be sure to celebrate the achievements — accomplish due to clear focus.

Go ahead, write them down, now…What are your top three objectives for the next month?

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