Celebrate! Happy 4th!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Stay safe and blessed,

Coach Carolyn

Communicate Well To Lead

"If I had to name a single all-purpose instrument of leadership, it would be communication." ~ John W. Gardner

If you cannot communicate, you will not lead others effectively.

If you lead your team, give yourself three standards to live by as you communicate to your people.

1. Be Consistent - Nothing frustrates team members more than leaders who can't make up their minds.
2. Be Clear - Your team cannot execute if they don't know what you want. Don't try to dazzle anyone with your intelligence; impress them with your simple straightforwardness.
3. Be Courteous - Everyone deserves to be shown respect, no matter what their position or what kind of history you might have with them. If you are courteous to your people, you set a tone for the entire organization.

Never forget that as the leader, your communication sets the tone for the interaction among your people.

From The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork by Dr. John C. Maxwell

To lead is to serve,

Coach Carolyn

To Be A Leader, Be An Infinite Learner

~ Learn through engagement with others – observe, listen, and ask deeper questions
~ Learn through study – take a class, research, read
~ Learn through experience – do things and try more
~ Learn through awareness – pray, meditate
~ Learn intriguing stuff, have interesting experiences, and share what you know. Make an impact!

What will you do today and tomorrow to be an infinite learner with a compelling life story?

From Beth Tabak of Starting Now Coaching.

To lead is to serve,
Coach Carolyn

How's Your Attitude?

"All mankind's inner feelings eventually manifest themselves as an outer reality." ~ Stuart Wilde

In The Winning Attitude, Dr. John Maxwell defines an attitude as an inward feeling expressed by your behavior. He goes on to say that in changing your attitude, you have to realize that the choice is within you.

Your attitude is your choice. Just think, how likely are you to remain in the company of someone who has a bad attitude? Not very long, I would guess. So, again, the choice is yours. Bad attitudes results in lots of lonely moments. Not a great thing if you are a leader. You will find that though you are leading, no one is following.

“We are more likely to act ourselves into a feeling than feel ourselves into action.” ~ Jerome Brunner, Harvard Psychologist

To lead is to serve,
Coach Carolyn

We Teach Others How to Treat Us

“We have seen that our accusations give those we accuse good reason to do the very thing we are blaming them for. This fact has a most astounding implication: Generally speaking, we share responsibility for the way we are treated. If we want to know what impact we are having on others, we need only to examine their responses to us. I am not speaking about the treatment we receive from someone who appears in our life suddenly, out of the blue, like a criminal burglarizing our house or a tyrant who devastates our lives by oppressive edicts and armed force. I am talking about the treatment we get from people we live or work with day to day. In general, the more closely we are involved with someone, the more the principle applies.”

“To see ourselves, we need only to look at others’ reactions to us.”

A bit of wisdom from Bonds That Make Us Free by the Arbinger Institute.

To lead is to serve,
Coach Carolyn

Leadership is Influence

Influence is a curious thing. Even though we make some kind of impact on nearly everyone around us, we need to recognize that our level of influence is not the same with everyone. To see this principle in action, try ordering around your best friend's dog the next time you visit.

You may not have thought much about it, but you probably know instinctively which people you have great influence with and which ones you don't. One person may think all your ideas are great. Another may view everything you say with a great deal of skepticism. Yet that same skeptical person may love every single idea presented by your boss or one of your colleagues. That just shows your influence with him may not be as strong as that of someone else.

From Becoming a Person of Influence by Dr. John Maxwell and Jim Dornan

To lead is to serve,
Coach Carolyn

To Mentor Is To Serve

An insightful article from Jo Miller of Women’s Leadership Coaching.

Question: There is a role model I admire. How do I engage them as a mentor?
Just ask! It truly can be as simple as just asking if they will mentor you.

Check for chemistry
Start by requesting an informational meeting of twenty minutes (an amount of time most people can spare).

Engaging a mentor is like going on a first date – you would not ask for somebody’s hand in marriage on a first date! Don’t ask your role model to mentor you the first time you meet. It is a big commitment for both parties to make. Instead, test the water with the informational meeting, to see if there is a match.

Before you meet, prepare three or four specific topics for discussion. If the meeting goes well, and you sense good chemistry, ask if they would like to meet on a regular basis. Negotiate the frequency and format that benefits both of you. If your company has a formal mentoring program, sign up for it. They are generally well-designed, and include a list of potential mentors who have volunteered and are awaiting assignments. Your role model may already have volunteered. The program will give you guidance and protocols for getting started, but be aware that the most successful mentoring relationships continue beyond the initial term and become more informal.

Why stop at one?
In her keynote at the National Association of Women MBAs conference, Kim Brown, VP of Finance at Wal-Mart noted the crucial role that mentors have in your career growth, saying “You might only need one mentor, but I have five.” She mentors five to eight individuals herself. What many employees don’t realize is how very much mentors gain from the experience.

Pay it forward: mentor others
One senior-level woman, a leader in telecommunications, said “Do I have a mentor? I do. I believe it’s very important that you not only have a mentor but that you also are a mentor to others. I learn as much through mentoring as I do by being a mentee. It keeps me on my toes because usually they are younger people who are going through some of the challenges that I went through earlier in my career.”

As a mentor, she gains new perspectives on what’s going on in the world, and keeps in better touch with her own organization and the challenges that are there today.

Jo Miller is CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching Inc. which offers women’s leadership seminars and coaching programs.

To lead is to serve,

Coach Carolyn