MSLD 641 Module 9 - Becoming a Resonant Leader: A letter to myself

Becoming a Resonant Leader

A Letter to Myself

          Dear me,

            I hope by now you understood what being resonant means, and that slowly you can start putting in practice all the learning outcomes of the past eight weeks. Do not lose track of “our” vision, which, ultimately, is to live the world a better place. Bellow follows “our” learning agenda to ensure we positively impacting on people’s lives as we cross paths with them. What I want for “our” future is to be able to help people develop themselves, cognitively and emotionally, in their personal, social, and professional scope. Do not forget to achieve our milestones following the action steps in this letter, even if it is necessary to adapt them along the way. Be alert, be attuned, and be connected to yourself (or should I say ourselves?) and with the world around you! Since we are one, I will speak to you in the first person.

Professional Learning Goal

            My professional learning goal is to develop and implement leadership programs for organizations (including non-profit). This goal requires a lot of financial support, therefore most of the milestones will involve saving money and looking for funds to make it possible. The first milestone will be getting an MBTI® (Myers & Briggs Type Indicator) certification. The action steps to achieve it involves include the certification in my budget within the next six months and register for it.
            The second milestone is getting an executive coaching certification. It will require saving money for that within the next year, and to analyze which coach institute (certification) will better fit my needs. When these two action steps are completed, I will then register for it.
            The third milestone, to be achieved in the longer-term, is to complete an Executive Strategy course. The greatest challenge is the financial requirement, as this course is way beyond my budget. If I manage to get the funds to do so, then the action step would be to register for this course.

            A fourth milestone is to have a strong network. This milestone is to be achieved throughout the process of change, and not being the last one, in this particular order. The action steps involve using a professional social media account (LinkedIn for instance) to start with. I have created the account on the past week, which was the first action step. Further, I consider doing an internship in organizations that provides this type of service or working in projects alongside experienced professionals.

Community/ Social Learning Goal

            Open a charity for neglected teens and elders in Brazil is my community goal. To start with, I need to have a network to support me in the process. The steps to achieve this milestone is to connect with people currently working in projects and charities and to have supportive relationships as governmental and local corporations. Initially, this step would be taken virtually, as I currently live in another country. Then I plan to get personally in touch with the networks, in my trips to Brazil, and when returning permanently to the country, build a strong supporting network to make it happen.

            Another milestone is to learn the laws, regulations, and policies to have a charity or organize non-profit projects, in the country and the city I plan to have my initiative. An action step is to start researching it online (empirically and practically with experienced people). The first milestone is a supporting step for this one, as being in touch with people already in this field, could work as guidance and mentorship.
            The milestone is to have a deeper understanding of the situation (inventory of charities and people in need). For that, one action step would be getting in the field in existing initiatives. Once again, broadening my network is a helpful first step for this one. Getting in touch with government departments to collect data is another action step. This milestone will be possible, mainly, when I return to Brazil, for good.

Personal/ Family Learning Goal

            This goal is a continuous process and probably an endless goal. My personal objective is to build a mental and emotionally healthy family, by contributing to my knowledge. The first milestone is to be a mother. It goes without saying that one action step is to get pregnant, which does not depend only on me. I have stopped birth control one year ago, to allow my body to function naturally. The next step is to be able to live with my husband, as we are in a long-distance marriage. This step was supposed to be taken already but is delayed due to the pandemic. By mid-July, I, along with my husband, will reevaluate how this step will be taken since it involves other variables now. Independent, this step is expected to be completed by August.
            Another milestone is to have a more balanced life. One action step is finding a routine and build up a daily agenda, including physical, mental, and spiritual activities, which will all contribute to my emotional state. I have been working on this step already, but I am planning to improve by tomorrow, with the end of my master’s degree classes. I believe balance to be crucial to achieving my personal goal.
            A third milestone is to read books and articles about marriage, motherhood, and parenting. The first action step to start research on it. The first book I want to read is “How to Talk so Kids will Listen & Listen so Kids will Talk” by Faber and Mazlish. I and my husband usually read the same book about marriage, at the same time. The last one we have read is the popular “The Five languages of Love” by Gary Chapman. We plan to continue on this action step continuously.

Supporting Relationship

            There are key people to help me to achieve my learning goals. They play a different role in different goals, either holding me accountable, helping me to see another perspective and deeper points of view, and assisting me in seeing my blind spots. One person that I chose to assist me emotionally, and who is an intrinsic part of my life is my husband. He is always cheering for my dreams to come true, so this relationship is crucial to help in achieving my goals. My father is another key person, as he is a typical critical thinker and always encouraged me to think through. My best friend is a huge supporting relationship, as she helps me with resources of whatever subject I mentioned I am interest on. She also has a strong scientific network, since she is a scientist herself, being employed at Cornell University and working on her post-doctorate degree.

            More neutral relationships are three colleagues I have in my organization, which I bond with for their strive for personal development. With them, I can share ideas and short-term achievements to celebrate small wins and get ideas. My current operational manager is another relationship I can count with, as she often coaches me and pushes me to develop myself.
      
            Dear me. The most important relationship is ours! Without it, no goal will be achieved. Let us keep our bond strong, let us keep aware and stick to the positive picture of our future. Together we can make it happen!!!

MSLD 641 Module 7 - Appreciating Your "Real Self"

Appreciating Your "Real Self"

           

            Having an accurate perception of our real selves and the world around us is crucial to a balanced life. People who manage to use the life’s laboratory to keep themselves awake, aware and continuous learning tend to be resilient and strong in the face of internal and external stress because they attend to personal renewal as a way of life (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005; McKee, Boyatzis & Johnston, 2008; Jha, 2017). When one wait for issues to become problems, the effort, energy and time to recover (when possible) are greater, and everything happening around in the meantime is wasted, since our focus is often entirely directed to recovery mode. If one is tuned and does not wait for harsher life wake-up calls, renewal, not recovery, becomes the norm. While in renewal mode, one is able to broaden perspectives, with the lenses not fixated in self broken pieces, but in past and future whole-self, while humbly aware of the present. With broader views and openness, life goes on, challenges are turned into opportunities, raw opportunities do not pass unnoticed, and one lives life instead of simply surviving. But why even smart people do not use life’s laboratory?

            Drowned in the common busy adult life, it is easy to miss the subtle wake-up calls. A way to dribble this challenge is regular mindfulness practices that enable a balanced view of our whole selves, along with self-reflection. This involves an analysis of our body, mind, spirit, and emotion, not only in the present moment but with a positive view of our future ideal selves (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005; McKee, Boyatzis & Johnston, 2008; Creswell, 2017). Going through some real and ideal self exercises, along with balance seeking and mindfulness intentional chance reflections I did not find any surprises in my outputs.

            I believe I have not found surprises because I am constantly self-reflecting, often more than I wish, and rarely able to control. I self-reflect at any idle time, and since I live alone and there is nothing much about work I can do on my days off, I spend long hours on my own, in which I spend a major part of it just thinking, talking to myself, mentally living possible future moments (positive and negative), going back in time and processing what could have been different that was under my control, so on and so forth. Mind-wandering, in my view, is my biggest weakness and my greatest strength. When alone, I struggle to be in the present moment, but since I go back and forth, I am tuned with myself. When with others, I give my quality time, mentally traveling just to enrich the conversation (which sometimes affects how I appear to be interested). Although there were no surprises about myself, I figured some interesting points through the exercises and reflection.

            First, by writing down on the Medicine Wheel, I had a clearer picture of the gap between my real and ideal self, along with a practical and simple way to minimize the gap aiming more resonance (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005; McKee, Boyatzis & Johnston, 2008; Boyatzis, 2006). Secondly, reflecting on necessary mindful changes, I figured about thoughts and habits I need to eliminate in order to let resonance flow and enable continuous renewal. Last, but not least, I found two (out of four) limiting beliefs that I have not thought of as such before. I am constricting myself with theses believes, as an argument to remain in the comfort zone. But was is awareness without action?

            Tuning with my subtle wake-up calls cleared the path for me to see farther and further. From now I will stop using these two “new-found” limiting beliefs, to remove two more barriers to my ideal self. Along with this action, I plan to work on my ten development areas found in the Medicine Wheel, two by two, as an achievable learning agenda with small wins to have a compound effect (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005; Hardy, 2010). Most importantly, I will practice monthly body, mind, spirit, and emotional “check-ups” to keep tuned, using the Medicine Wheel as a model.

References

Boyatzis, R. E. (2006). An overview of intentional change from a complexity perspective. Journal of Management Development 25(7), 607-623. doi: 10.1108/02621710610678445

Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

Creswell, J. D. (2017). Mindfulness interventions. Annual Review of Psychology, 68(1), 491-516. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-042716-051139

Jha, A. (2017). How to your wandering mind. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/amishi_jha_how_to_tame_your_wandering_mind

McKee, A., Boyatzis, R., & Johnston, F. (2008). Becoming a resonant leader. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

Hardy, D. (2010). The compound effect: Jumpstart your income, your life, your success. New York, NY: Vanguard Press

MSLD 641 Module 2 - Am I a Resonant Leader?

Am I a Resonant Leader?

            Most people understand what it takes to be a great leader, technically speaking, but few people understand how to mobilize energy, inspire, motivate and empower other, and to build a resonant culture. Most of what it takes to excel in leadership has to do with vision and relationship with oneself, with others, and for others. Emotional and social intelligence makes the difference and distinguishes a good from a great leader, along with practices of renewal to dribble the sacrifice and power stress (McKee, Boyatzis & Johnston, 2008).

                The biggest surprise I discovered about myself while trying to figure out if I am a resonant leader, is the consistency of each resonance dimension. For instance, I find myself inspirational but not always, and the techniques I use sometimes fall short, as people feel inspired through different channels and tools. When it comes to positive emotional tone, I am overall positive and hear that quite often from my followers and leaders, but I fail sometimes when venting about something I faced as if I need to talk to process and then have a closure in my mind. This approach creates negativity, and although I do it unaware or well-intentioned, I can create a negative tone to my teams.

                I am often connected with others, but rarely I cross the line to really get to know in-depth what is in others’ hearts or minds. I consider my observation skills and situational awareness sharp, but I lack skills to break the barrier and have a more tuned relationship with others in my professional environment, which is not an issue in my personal life. I believe I demonstrate compassion by listening to people (when I decide to cross the line I am not comfortable with) and trying to do whatever is in my control to relieve their pain, but sometimes, with my “problem-solving” mind, I turn into a sympathetic leader instead of an empathetic one (see the difference simplified by RSA, 2013, with an explanation from Brene Brown). The dimension I think I am more consistent with is the tune. Except in stressful one-on-one conversations, in which I struggle with self- awareness, and management, I am quite often tuned with myself, others, and the environment.

            One example I can cite, which I feel I fell short on being inspirational and setting a positive note, happened few months ago, when I was in a room, waiting a new team to arrive for a meeting, and decided to set up the room with motivational quotes, sweet treats, putting people’s name on their seats, standing to receive people and walking around welcoming them. I made small conversations about their country, or greeted them in their native language, when I realized that some people in the room didn’t like it, or ignored. It could be for lack of interest in the job, for some careless attitude commonly present in the workforce in my company, but it made me think that people are driven by different "forces", also that people are skeptical when a leader is too positive, especially in my role. My inconsistency is related to not doing that in every meeting, and just picking random days, as it is a trial initiative.

            Another situation I feel I fell short on not being connected with a follower's heart and mind, happened last year. I could feel something was wrong by his body posture, lack of facial expression and lack of active listening, but instead of sitting down and having a proper conversation to try to understand the source, I just started small conversations to break the ice and to lift the person up. I failed on my goals, since at the end of the day, I was not connected, not tuned, neither compassionate by the follower’s feelings, and my well-intentioned approach did not achieve anything apart for making me a poor skilled leader, afraid of creating a discomfort.

            My examples are mainly related to the relationship management domain of Emotional Intelligence, as shown  by Boyatzis & McKee (2005, p.29). Resonant leaders need to know what inhibits effective individual and team performance, and how to address issues (McKee, Boyatzis & Johnston, 2008). My goal, for the next couple of months, is to develop skills to enhance my ability to lead resonantly.

References

           

Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

RSA. (2013). Brene Brown on empathy. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

McKee, A., Boyatzis, R., & Johnston, F. (2008). Becoming a resonant leader. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

MSLD 641 Module 1 - What is Great Leadership?

What is Great Leadership?

            Dr. Boyatzis (n.d.), while introducing the concept of effective leadership, gave me refreshing news about my awareness of what effective leadership means. Although not being able to put my concept into words, I reflected on his statements and simplistically I agree that a great leader is the one who inspires me, helping me to manage my emotions and convincing me through emotional arguments.

            Choosing a great leader took me back to 18 years ago. By the age of 16 I was chosen to host a symposium organized by my technical school at the time, two days before the event, as the professor hosting it could not attend due to personal issues. My responsibility was to introduce the event in front of the audience, including introducing speaker by speaker and closing it. I was nervous as I have not prepared in advance, neither have written the script (although I was the one who needed to memorize it). The event would have three successful professionals in the field as speakers (which I needed to be in touch with due to my role) and one of them was well known in town. After the symposium was over the well-known speaker approached me offering a trainee opportunity in one of her companies, stating that she liked my posture, confidence and communication skills.

            I worked with this leader for over a year as trainee. I still remember how she inspired me, initially trusting me based on the potential she saw in me, at such a young age, and then by giving a lot of responsibilities beyond the trainee role I was entitled. She made me feel valued with the “you can do it” approach since the beginning and she had the patience to explain all my duties in details or assigning someone to do so. I was part of social gatherings with all employees, including larger ones involving employees from all her companies. She was inspiring with her positive and “can do” attitude, that by the time she entered a room the “energy” changed. She had the knowledge, connections and integrity, combined with humility, hands-on approach and passion for her job and the people working for her. Years later, already working for another company, she called me to work in some random events with her and on our first meeting, after two years not seeing each other, she shared with me how she neglected for so long her health due to her career, and was by then, focus on life balance. Nowadays she continues to succeed on her career, while engaging in sportive events as a participant and saving time for her family, which shows me what a great leader she is, as a leader of others and herself, as a resonant leader should be (Boyatzis, 2005).

            On the other hand, I had a leader whose I have not had any will of meeting again right after our first encounter, which is exactly what I accomplished although she was my manager for two years. There was a change in management structure in my organization and the teams were regrouped and assigned to different managers. Since that day I was asking for an introduction meeting as the nature of my job does not required regular meetings with managers. After six months I managed to book it, and when I got in her office and mentioned with excitement that finally we got the chance to meet, she busted feeling accused with my words and spent around 10 minutes venting about how overwhelmed she was. I listened, confused and feeling sorry at same time, and when we got to the introduction part (the purpose of the meeting) she started testing my knowledge for a promotion she knew I was preparing for, since we had exchanged some emails. I left her room in shock with her defensiveness, negativity, “threatening” approach and unprofessionalism. I avoided her for two years after that, and eventually there was a restructuring again and I lost touch with her.

            As Dr. Boyatzis (n.d.) says, leadership goes beyond one individual (the leader) to the actual relationship between this individual and the follower. A great leader, according to his research, needs to be less controlling and commanding and have a more inspiring and open approach. Data shows that 70% to 80% of people in management position could be removed with no negative effect on overall performance and productivity.

            Based on Boyatzis (2005) findings, effective leaders move and inspire people, while getting results. Great leaders are aware, awake and attuned to themselves, to others and the world around them, facing any negative or positive situation with empathy, compassion, hope, knowledge and consciousness, while still capable to sustain effectiveness. Self-reflecting on my abilities as a leader, I believe my strengths are related to self and social awareness, as well as passion, commitment and genuine concern for people, but I fail in self-management, empathy (often being sympathetic instead) and renewal.

References

Boyatzis, R. (n.d.) Inspiring leadership through emotional intelligence. Case Western Reserve University. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/lecture/emotional-intelligence-leadership/watch-what-is-great-leadership-mX5X3

Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.