Deep insight, intensive workshops, breakthrough coaching sessions, a cataclysmic life event… these all are catalysts for change. These are the events that many wanting change seek.

We can come off these events with a high, with a great uplift in our motivation or a low searching for meaning, answers.
THEN, reality sets in and the heavy lifting of integrating these events – emotional and mental shifts and behavior change – into our daily living sets in.

This is where I see the need for an uncommon practice to take root: realistic optimism. How do you stay optimistic and steady with your practice of behavior change despite what you know, despite how hard it may be, despite the lack of support you may face in your environment? How do you keep the faith and believe you can do it? How do you acknowledge the incremental, daily changes you do make?
Regardless of what others say, savor what you know to be true. Savor your improvements. These are the roots that grow great fruit.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

It rests not just in legislation but with how providers choose to behave in their day-day patient interactions. Thomas Dahlborg has a great blog that reflects on putting “care” back into health care and that this is what doctor’s promise when they take their oath.

This week, I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon on a benign biopsy. In a cost-conscious, productivity-minded system, I experienced my doctor as a humble, accountable human.

My appointment last week was cancelled last minute because he had emergency surgery. I rescheduled this week and his office called me the morning of my appointment – they had a cancellation, did I want to come in earlier? I said yes.

After sitting in the waiting and then patient room for 50 minutes, I still hadn’t seen the doctor. My time is valuable and sitting around during a weekday is money spent for me. I poked my head out of the room to see if he was in sight. As I opened the door, the doctor came in. I shared my experience: “I’m flexible but this is enough waiting.” He immediately said, “I’m sorry. I take full responsibility.”

Wow. This stopped me in my tracks. How refreshing. He then took his time to explain everything to me in language I could understand. He was not arrogant, curt, or harried. He was slow, focused, deliberate and present with me. I was a real human in front of him. He spent whatever time I needed to answer my questions.

This is all we ask of our healthcare providers: To remember that they are treating a whole person who has an ailment, not an ailment attached to a person. My doctor demonstrated empathy, care and compassion – an often low-leveraged human technology that shifts one’s experience. His behavior may have been helped by the fact that he was just back from his own medical leave after having surgery. Perhaps he could more easily walk in my shoes.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Growing a Faith Community has it’s own unique leadership challenges. Given my professional background, I was asked by the President of the Board of my church to lead a team to study what would be entailed to grow our congregation. There ended up being 6 of us, including the President and Minister on the team. It was one of the most rewarding team experiences for me personally – and the Board was happy with our results. When I reflect on why, it had to do with our individual and collective love and passion for what we stand for, and that we set up a culture of learning within the team and best leveraged each others’ background and expertise – and some of my own personal learnings about my faith and myself as a leader. As is expected in any team, we had our share of tension with very different backgrounds, learning, communication and work styles.

This challenged us to not just give lip service, but to really live one of our guiding principles, “To respect the inherent worth and dignity of all persons” within the context of our work. We are a volunteer organization, working around multiple schedules, and trying to do good work that doesn’t get too protracted so we can make needed progress.

We initially started out thinking we could accomplish our task in 3-6 months. As we moved into the real learning of the work, it evolved to 12 months – and we also learned that even “do-gooder, high mission” organizations can be afflicted by the potential for high achieving sabotage and at some point you need to declare victory. Particularly for any service-driven organization, the right balance of inputs and outputs requires necessary tending to so the active few don’t get burned out and the work stays right focused: generated from the mission and joy versus drive.

In allowing ourselves to live with what we were reading, reflecting on and discussing – to really go deep and be aware of our own process as well – we ended up making recommendations for how to move forward based on patience and wisdom, not fear. There are immediate things we could do yet there is also work that we need to live into. You may say, this is easier for a religious organization. Yet, I offer it is just as, or more challenging in some ways – because we have a diversity of beliefs within our religion (some don’t even like the word “church”) and we have the same challenge as all non-profits: making enough money not only to keep the lights on, but to get our message and work more broadly out into the world during these times of fear and crisis.

One challenge lies in being open to all regardless of their monetary means but also challenging those who can give more, to give – in proportion to what they feel they receive in kind – by way of community, support or inspiration. It reminds me of a clip on NPR this morning where a disgruntled listener complained that the station is too biased, but listens every morning, and won’t donate. He did agree to keep a log and share specific stories for one week. I say, it’s okay to challenge or criticize but if you receive or take, you could also give back in some way, whether it is your time, talent or treasure. People’s true values speak most loudly through their time and wallets …

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

In “Neuroscience and Leadership: The Promise of Insights,” Richard Boyatzis discusses implications of recent studies that say a leader’s emotional state effects their employees – in as quickly as 8 milliseconds. That’s instantly. This is reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink.

“Our unconscious emotional states are arousing emotions in those with whom we interact before we or they know it. And it spreads from these interactions to others.”

Science is catching up with what many of us know intuitively. You know if your boss is having a good or bad day. You can feel their energy as they walk by. This is actually their electromagnetic field preceding them and you literally sense it.

Do you really need these studies to tell you it’s better to be social and engage your employees in positive, hopeful discussions versus being negative and only focusing on metrics?

What’s new is Boyatzis and Goldman, etc. continue to pave the way for making it okay for leaders to talk about “having techniques to notice [your] feelings (i.e., know that you are having feelings and become aware of them), label or understand what they are (i.e., giving a label to vague or gnawing sensations), and then signal yourself that you should do something to change your mood and state.”

Therapy or Coaching? Does it matter the label as long as we stay clear on the business goals and context to support more of your engaging, positive self showing up with your employees. The reality is coaching steals techniques from therapy and vice versa. The lines are blurred. Fostering greater emotional awareness doesn’t mean necessarily putting someone into psychoanalysis. The end goal is to have the leader “be” in such a way that s/he engenders an open environment where employees can do their most creative work. Isn’t this what all leaders want?

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

This requires Downtime, Discipline, Rewiring your Brain.

I went away in January by myself on a caribbean retreat. I was offline, completely disconnected for two weeks. I had coverage at home and work – worry-free! I did a lot of thinking, writing and walking on the beach. Ah – no more noise! My system calmed down and I found my own voice again. It was heaven.

This was a stark contrast to what I experienced upon “re-entry” back into the atmosphere of 21st century constant availability. I came back to a snow crisis, client needs and a backlog of emails. I tried to do too much, too quickly. I got sick. This slowed me down. It helped me see that I need to be more disciplined in saying “no,” deferring or delegating. I continued my meditation practice.

McKinsey’s article Recovering From Information Overload offers some additional strategies.

If you’re already overloaded, here are the key points – information overload makes us anxious and we need to focus, filter and forget.

Easier said than done!

The “need” to be connected constantly is an addiction – we get hooked into fear – of missing something, not being current, etc. We can rewire ourselves for greater capacity and reduced reactivity which allows us to be more selective, proactive, clearer thinking.

My (edited) McKinsey comments:
Changing this behavior comes down to better self-management.

1. Understand and manage your own motives,
2. Enforce team norms for support – initially this may require outside support,
3. Rewire different neural pathways in the brain to not be reactive.

We give our clients concrete tools to calm down the mind and rewire the brain for response versus reaction. When one leads by shifting their energy, it impacts everyone around them – their family, their team, department or organization.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

There is a time to lead and a time to follow.

The true calling of a conscious leader in these changing times is recognizing which is which.
The complexities, dependencies and crises of today call for leaders to carry a lot.

How much do you carry?
When you can’t carry, how do you know it?
When you can’t carry, what do you do?
When you can’t carry, how do you ask for help?

When you can carry, what do you do?
When you can carry more because you feel full and you need to release your talents and gifts, what do you do?
When you can carry, how do you ask – what can I do to help?
When you can carry, how do you make it okay for others who can’t carry?
When you can carry, how do you care for others who can’t carry?

When you are upset at others who can’t carry, how do you recognize yourself in them?
When you are upset at others who are carrying, how do you recognize yourself in them?
We may all – leaders and followers – have our time of being in both places.

The conscious leader discerns when, and in what context to lead or follow.
Care.
Care.
Care.
But do not neglect Self-care.
You must make it okay to leave and come back to this, otherwise you will not lead from a full cup.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

We are 6 days into the new year, and I don’t know about you, but the speed of change is picking up – the tension is palpable wherever I go. Even if changes are positive or desired, it can still feel like an unmanageable blast.

When it feels as if everything is, or needs to happen at once. What’s a leader to do?
Go slower.

Right.

2011 will be a year of transformational change – with things coming out of nowhere. With this kind of activity, it can feel like your head is spinning – multiple demands, uncertainty, going into unknown territory.

This is exactly when you want to take a deep breath and pretend someone has hit the slow speed button on your life movie. Or, as my brother says, imagine you are walking in peanut butter. This will give you a chance to hit the pause button to allow your brain to process what is happening to make better decisions.

When we live in a microwavable world, we think if we wait 10 minutes to respond to that email, text or phone call, we’ll miss that deal or be unacceptably behind on the to do list. It’s all an illusion and a matter of perspective. I chucked my microwave a long time ago and in those extra two minutes waiting for that water to boil, I’ve conjured up all sorts of great ideas.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things everyday” (By Lao Tzu).

Are you making a new year’s resolution or do you really want to set a different intention about how you live your life? The statistics with resolutions are not good. It’s over by January 15th typicallly. But a deeply-held personal intention with focus and action behind it, can be different.

We live in a culture that always wants more – more of ourselves, more from others, move “stuff.” The reality is, we are stuffed. I propose the focus be on what are you going to stop doing? What will you release, remove, let go of in your life – at home, at work, in your relationships?

For those local, come join me for an abundance meditation tomorrow, new year’s day at noon – and every month thereafter – the first Saturday of the month. The way to having an abundant life or business is to stop doing the things that no longer serve you and allowing, creating space for new things to emerge. Live in the white space.

2011 promises to be a year of transformation – let’s go with grace versus kicking and screaming. This is how to live a strategic life – one that harnesses your passion and integrates your experience to select – and deselect – the wise choices. Happy Different Year!

For more details, check here.

Solstice, Full Moon, Lunar Eclipse. An incredible time to work with the energy of the earth to set intentions for next year. What do you want to clear and make way for new growth next year?

According to Grove Harris: “Winter Solstice, Dec. 21, 2010 packs a celestial punch with a full moon and a full lunar eclipse, visible in the Americas if we’re lucky enough to have a clear sky and energetic enough to be up. The eclipse will be visible after midnight EST, reaching it’s maximum at 3:15 a.m. The last winter solstice eclipse was in 1638, and this one will be topped off by the Ursid meteor shower. Even city lights won’t block out all this action.

“In New England, winter solstice marks the first day of winter and the beginning of the return of the sun. While the cold deepens, the lengthening days show a welcome turning towards spring’s renewal. This gives a message of hope: frozen ground, relentless cold and the darkest season will not last forever….

“…preserving hope is one role of religion — to help people negotiate how to remain hopeful despite adversity and to live in the realm of possibility rather than in despair, no matter how warranted. The winter solstice models this on a celestial level. No problem between science and religion here. When it’s darkest, the light begins to return. And this year, the full lunar eclipse reinforces that message. Light and dark are intimately interconnected.”
Where can you find hope when it’s the darkest?

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Mahatma Gandhi once said, “My Life Is My Message.” We all know what kind of message his life sent… facilitating non-violent peace by his actions and serving as a spiritual leader to a nation. He undertook what no one believed possible – to get British rule out of India AND to do it in a non-violent way.

We all have thoughts and plans – but what do your actions say about you and your life? What kind of leadership do you demonstrate by your actions? Is it in alignment with what or who you think you are – or want to be?

How you lead your life is constantly sending a message to those around you. We are all the artists, architects and musicians of our lives. Are you throwing paint on a canvas and seeing what sticks? Are you deliberately drawing straight, controlled lines? If you’ve lost your imagination – then it’s time to find more material – grist for the mill –  to better align yourself to the message of your life. It is your response to the life that finds you that truly articulates your message.

Copyright 2010 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC   All rights reserved.   www.sagelead.com