Leadership Awareness

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Good to see you. And those of you that are listening, welcome to the JLC Media event. This is a podcast as well as a YouTube experience. If you choose to watch us, you can. And I have gotten all dressed up for today and so have my friends, and we are looking forward to being with you. Today is about awareness because we've been talking about leadership with itness, and there's two pieces to it from our. From our standpoint, I mean, others have other takes on this. The way we see it at jlc, if you're going to have an everyday leadership conversation, you need to have a certain presence as a leader. In addition to that, you need to have some awareness about how you are impacting those that you are working with in the moment. Could be one person, could be multiple, could be a zoom meeting. Who knows? Could be many things. But that's what we're working on here today. Awareness, that piece of leadership presence. We're going to actually jump into this after I recognize my two colleagues. So, Colleen, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us what your deal is at jlc.

Sure, Absolutely. Thank you once again for joining us. My name is Colleen Sullivan. I'm the COO and a leadership communication coach at the Jorgensen Learning Center. It's been my pleasure supporting our clients across the country for around 12 years.

Thank you, Colleen. Hi, Nicole.

Hi. I am so happy to be part of Team jlc. I am our director of marketing branding as well as a leadership communications coach.

Good to have you both with me and what I'm going to do today. If those of you that have listened to some of our podcasts, we're just going to start and demonstrate what awareness could look like. This. Years and years ago, I was working with a series of managers, county managers and city managers in the state of Florida, and they queried me on what does a check in really look like? And I said, well, a check in is an opportunity for you to kind of take your own personal temperature. And we did it in the form of a weather report. So I'm going to ask each of you, how's the weather with you and why? And the way I started is said, right now I'm feeling fair to partly cloudy. And that's because I got. I was late coming to the event and I had trouble finding it and I couldn't find anywhere to park, so I was excited about coming. So I was in fair weather. And then when I got here, it was kind of partly cloudy because I couldn't figure anything out as I was Trying to get myself settled. And that's me modeling my check in. So, Nicole, what's the weather with you right now?

Weather for me right now is blue skies and sunny.

Very nice. And why blue skies and sunny?

I think we've had some really great conversations already this morning that leave me feeling excited about some new things that we're going to be working on and doing together. So that always makes me feel good and inspired. And the outlook is sunny for the rest of the day.

Cool. Are you in?

I'm in.

Welcome, welcome. Good to have you. Colleen, what's the weather report there?

You know, I would say that changing weather ahead. It is sunny. However, we got some wind coming up later in the afternoon and I am on point just trying to be as present as possible so I can respond and adapt to the weather as it unfolds here in my neck of the woods. And I'm in.

So those of you that are listening, that is a chance for you as a leader to be aware of how the room is doing in the moment. So even before we enter into the construct of what it is we're going to learn today by checking in like that and using a simple thing like how's the weather with you? That is simple. And people will then feel in a way they can be very honest and open and more connected to you as the meeting leader, but also to one another. We've done this and we've had like 25, 30 people online and we would break them out into pairs and let them just check in with each other. But how's the weather with you? Another very simple one is how are you doing today? Check ins are a way of developing awareness for the person leading or even the person running a particular session or section of the meeting. It is simply a way to become aware about how people are thinking and feeling in the current moment. It brings people to us in the conversation. And I'll give you another example that we did. And Nicole watched, watched this unfolding. A leader From a Fortune 50 company asked the group, there was about 20 people in the group, asked the group, how did the new announcement about a shift in the way we're going to do business land on you? That is pretty much the language that he used, or I think it was he used in that particular conversation. All of a sudden that leader was going to get tremendous information about how a new announcement about a big shift in the way the company was going to do business unfolded for them personally because they were leading another subset of folks in the system. That was a Very powerful check in question. And all of a sudden it gave the leader more information, maybe more than he wanted, but certainly more information about how this particular announcement, big change announcement, was occurring, landing on the people that were in the room. I know you remember that one, Nicole. Did you remember that specifically how that unfolded?

I do. It was a really great conversation because someone spoke up and said, well, here's how I'm feeling. And then it just spiraled from there with other leaders sharing how it occurred for them, how the news was going to impact them or affect them. Some people shared that they were conflicted, feeling multiple things. And I think after that conversation occurred, the senior leader who had initially asked that check in question, shared how much that informed the way that they made decisions and the way that they communicated that change to the whole entire group.

That's really good. What are you hearing, Colleen, and can you connect with it? Because I know you've done the same thing for people. Tell me a little bit about how those words that Nicole just used landed on you.

Sure, yeah. I think it speaks to the importance of awareness. And I love. What I'm really resonating with me is how that senior leader says this is an opportunity for me to learn about not only my colleagues in the room, but how are those I lead, those I expect to be in alignment and adjust and adapt to this new change. How are they doing? And that is so critically important because the other piece that surfaced in my mind is, I recall, is when I was in a room with about 200 people and a senior leader had on the agenda item sharing the closure. It was a closure. They were closing a site. It was an agenda item. And then she moved on. So I'm sitting over there going, oh my gosh. You could feel the room. And the senior leaders like Lala a lot. And she's just pushing through the agenda. And so she kind of looks over at me and I'm like, break, break. You know, take a break. So she put everybody into break and she comes over and says, what are you thinking? And I'm like, it could just be me, but I'm feeling like perhaps they need an opportunity to process what you just shared. So just a non example of what happened is people, guess what they did. They ran to the bathroom, they were in the hallway. Everybody was talking about this closure because it's the first they'd heard about it. So this particular leader did have that awareness. She wanted to power through, to get through the agenda versus pausing. So when I brought that up to her, others confirmed hey, let's, let's. Before we move on, let's give everybody a chance to discuss this big announcement you just gave.

There's two big things in there for me, Colleen, that you gave us. And Nicole, it relates right to what you brought forward about feedback, closing the loop, letting people know how something is occurring to me or landing on me. So the first one is that the leader had enough self awareness to look at you, the leadership communications coach, and say, Colleen, is this okay? Shall we just continue on? Because I'm ready to do the next agenda item in that same environment that you were in, Colleen, I watched different people take a PowerPoint slide that was created by the Head Shed, you know, the big corporate gang. And they were just supposed to do the PowerPoint, not have any conversation, just show the slides and read the slides to the people, which again, everyone that teaches us about slide presentations, run like.

Hell before anybody asks a question.

They got it. That's what they did. They just read the damn thing. And now all of a sudden this thing turned into something really strange and odd. And to your point, that was really fantastic that somebody stopped to find out. Wait a minute, can we find out how this is occurring to people? How it's landing on people, what they are hearing, what they are thinking? And as you know, we've done work on the ladder where we jump to a conclusion after we hear some data, we interpret the data, we go to a conclusion. They're making very personal connections to this and personal, personal conclusions. Nicole, what are you thinking right now?

I'm thinking just how important it is as a leader to be willing to engage in that level of conversation because you can be the leader that gets up there and reads off the PowerPoint and says all the things and doesn't give people an opportunity to reflect and respond and resonate with what they've heard. People are going to have the conversations anyway. If you think you can't take the time, or you don't have the time, or you're not sure, or you have some fear about engaging in that conversation, the conversations are still going to occur whether you are part of it or not. And it's such a missed opportunity to be engaged and learn from those reactions and conversations.

When you skip that part, it's almost as though we give up our opportunity for awareness. So I know there's lots of stuff out there about self awareness and reflection. I think that's all really important and I'll speak about that in a few minutes. But really where we are right now, every leader has the opportunity, whether they're just leading a section of the meeting or one of the sessions or the whole meeting, everybody has a chance, if they choose to, to learn how these words that I am spouting land on people. If I don't do that, it is absolutely a missed opportunity. And I will. And I am guilty of this as a leader and when I was anxious about something, I had to tell the gang that we were going to do that. I knew there were some people in there that didn't really like it. I just powered through. As a young leader, I powered through and all their personal self talk was going on. So now they're frowning at, they're like, you know, some are banging their pencil on the table or they're turning around or crossing their arms and they're doing all the non verbal and verbal kinds of feelings or words or utterances that should have let me know. I needed to stop and say, how the hell is this going? And what are you really thinking? I was so fearful to your point, I was afraid to do it. Colleen, let me switch back to you. You've done plenty of these. What's your big learning from what we've done so far today?

You know, I think the piece that's really resonating with me is when we talk about awareness, when I always get that sense of awareness. And when you see something, say something like, am I going to stay present in the room and recognize the nonverbals, the verbals? And as a leader, am I going to embrace my authentic self, recognize that I'm apprehensive and yet create the space so I can really get to understand where's my team at? What are they thinking? Because without that critical data talk about operating on assumptions. And at the top of my ladder, I'm the leader supposed to be making these decisions, leading a team through a transition. And yet I'm not even pausing because I'm fearful of what they might say, they might complain. What if somebody doesn't see it the same? Well, guess what, Congratulations. We don't all see things the same. And that's why creating that space is so critically important. Because you've got to find out how's your team doing so you as a leader can make even more informed decisions and support them as they're trying to find their way through a transition or change. So I think that whole conversation, Nicole, that you kind of teed up for us a little bit there of fear, having the awareness to recognize fear impact how we show up. So we're just powering through something versus.

Gosh, I'm really here to learn such a distinction. Thank you. I saw you smiling there. Nicole, what are you thinking and learning?

I'm thinking about the different levels of awareness that this requires of a leader. A. You have to understand that self awareness piece that you mentioned, Ray, that self talk, what is happening for me internally right now as I'm trying to share this message externally and be aware of everything that's occurring for the people in the room. I think that we get tripped up by the self talk and as Colleen mentioned, maybe we don't show up authentically because of that self talk or that fear. And I think it's so freeing as a leader to be able to say, I'm having all kinds of reactions and feelings to what I'm about to share with you. And being that true, authentic self, letting people know that I have some trepidations about sharing this news. I'm nervous, I'm feeling nervous or whatever that internal voice is, bring it present because people are going to see it anyway. And if you have the ability to be authentic, people are going to resonate with that, receive your message differently than if you're trying to be in a space that you're not.

So this is truly about respect and collaboration and personal self awareness. Like, the more anxious I am about delivering a message, the faster I want to go and the faster I want to get it over with. Right. Ah, let me just tell you what's going on and good luck. And I know my self talk could sound like they need to get over this or they'll find another way or. This is really interesting that this idea of awareness as a leader, it's not fancy. It's a disciplined practice of finding out how your words or your PowerPoint is landing on people or occurring to them. I saw you wiggle there, Colleen. What are you thinking?

Yeah, I just love that talking about there's different levels of awareness.

So.

And I think that that's critically important. And I do think, because I can think back in my own leadership experiences when I was in a space of fear, how. How it impacted me, I showed up differently and I behaved differently. And so to your point, you rush through things because you don't want to create space. And so how, you know, without that opportunity for feedback, it is so incredibly helpful. And yet it takes a lot, a lot of courage, a lot of vulnerability to step into that space.

That's beautiful. Tremendous amount of vulnerability to admit I don't have all the answers. I know something about what's Unfolding and some of what I know I can share as much as you can share. You can at least find out how are those words occurring to the people in the room. This awareness thing, it's not really hard to do. It's hard to initiate because of all the worries you may have your own self talk about what may be going on out there at this particular moment. Very interesting. You know, we do something and if you've been listening to our podcast, we do an after action review. It's all about awareness. What was our intention for this particular section? What did we do to accomplish that intention? What did we learn? What are we going to do differently? Not about what did we do wrong. What did we learn and what will we do differently? If we are closing the loop, checking with people about how this particular information is landing on them, we miss that opportunity. We might still go through the aar, the After Action review, but we'll miss that opportunity to really learn how those words landed on people. Awareness critical. And the self awareness piece is connected to the After Action review. One of the things that we've talked about as a threesome is how often people want to say, why did this happen? Why did. Why am I behaving this way? Why should I? I invite you strongly to watch the literature that's unfolding from the people that are working psychologically with people that are struggling in this world. They're really coaching us hard. Don't spend too much time on the why because it will make you sad if I start saying, why did I do that? Oh, there's a thousand dopey reasons why I did it, but then I end up just going, I guess I should have done it differently. Why, why, why? And then the other thing that always pops out is the why me? So the second part of our chat today is to shift from why. And ladies and gentlemen that are listening to this is simple. Simple, hard to do, but simple because we keep our self talk keeps going back, why did that happen to me? Why me? Why? Why did I do that? Here's the shift from why to what. Best example was a person who had a fitness report, an annual review, and it was a new boss and the boss gave constructive, in the boss's mind, criticism. This person said nothing through the entire conversation and walked out the door saying to herself, why me? Why is she treating me this way? Why is this happening? She went to one of our coaches, one of our leadership coaches, and said, why me? And we are skilled in not getting seduced into commiseration. We'll Enter the field with them for a little while and then shift into a coaching format. Well, the coach with this particular human being said, please go back to your superior, to the person you report to the person who's above you in the hierarchy, who just gave you that feedback, that critical feedback, and shift the question and say, I completely accept your perspective on how you see my work. I'm wondering what I can do different, differently that would change this fitness report. What can I do differently from why to what? How is it landing on you, Nicole?

Yeah, I love that. I think it's a really wonderful. Just twist and tool when we find ourselves or when we notice ourselves saying, why can I shift to what? So that was what was coming up for me, even in conversations and thinking about conversations with my kids when they start to share, well, why me? Or why didn't I get playing time on the field or why? Okay, that question of what? Well, what might you do differently next time? Or what could you do in this situation if it comes up again.

Rather than staying in the why? Because if I stay in the why, I make myself a victim. Victim of the situation and what we know about this work with drama. If I'm a victim in the drama space, my personal accountability and my achievement goes down. In some cases, it goes to almost zero. That is brilliant. I can't tell you how many young people in my life wanted me to help them understand, why did the teacher do this? Why did the boss do this? Why did the coach do this? And the shift to that. What can I do differently to enable myself to achieve what I want to achieve? Very powerful stuff. Very powerful stuff. Colleen, where are you on this?

Yeah, I think that it keeps you in that space of drama and sometimes in a fixed mindset. Right. And I think many times, just as human beings, especially with our kids or it's so easy to go, you know, Nicole, you're right. You know, you're a really good player, honey, and you probably ought to have more time on the field. And that's really not helpful. And yet sometimes it's the easier conversation versus, wow. Well, thanks so much, sweetie. I guess, you know, I noticed that. And I'm wondering, what might you do differently to help you earn more playing time? And I don't think that many parents pivot to that piece. I think it's easier for me to just stay there in that commiseration space because I want to nurture. Right. And I want to save and I want to rescue. And I think, recognizing that, going back to that awareness, how am I showing up in the conversation, what am I doing and how are my words landing on my daughter? You know and having that self awareness is how am I, am I helping her or am I keeping her hostage in that kind of limited fixed mindset versus helping her pivot to think about growth and learning.

Yeah, growth. A fantastic connection to fixed mindsets and growth mindsets. So I'm going to close us out with a, a very vivid story from my experience and my past. And it didn't just happen once happened a lot. So I'll be a little hyperbolic on this one because it's kind of what happened but I'll add a little bit to it. So here's what occurred. I'm in my office, it's like 3:30 in the afternoon, school's out, afternoon activities are unfolding, blah blah blah. So I'm sitting there and this guy comes in the office with his kid and his kids in his football uniform. Apparently he pulled the kid off the field and off the practice field and brought him to my office and sat him down across from me and said your coach needs to go, your coach just has to go. My kid is the best linebacker in the state of Florida and the coach doesn't play him. He's been sitting on the sidelines most of practice today when they were running their drills for the game tomorrow night. So I know he's not going to play tomorrow night but he is absolutely the best and he's, he and I have talked about this and we don't understand why the coach does not want to play him. We think there's something wrong with the coach or the coach doesn't like me or my family. We, we're trying to figure out why this is going on. And being my typical little wise ass self, I said oh thank you so much because I pay that guy to win. So I'm going to go out there right now and get rid of him. I'll fire him today. I'll find another coach so your kid can play. There was then dead silence in the room. The kid and dad are just staring at me funny. Dad says, I think you're trying to teach me something here. What is it? And I don't know, why don't we think about this together because there something going on here. Eventually by the way, that dad and I became very close during the kids experience at the school and we got to the place where we could ask the question what can I do to demonstrate to the coach that I am the best in the state of Florida rather than sitting back here with dad and mom sometimes just complaining about, why is that coach not paying attention to us? How does that story land on YouTube? Who'd like to go first?

Yeah, I'll always. And I think, I think it just to me, I keep thinking about, you know, the quality of the, of the relationship is everything, right? And I think what really resonated with me was, you know, here's this kid. How often is he in conversation with this coach going, hey, man, how can I get better? And does the coach even know who he is? I mean, who knows? I mean, but it just landed on me in that way because I had a similar conversation with my son, talking about. It's critically important that you're in conversations with your instructors, with your teachers, with your. With those, you know, with your boss, you know, at the pizza place where he works. So I think that that learning is quality because you can be in a conversation with your parent and that might not necessarily represent truly or accurately your current reality. How can we enhance the relationship with the person really who can, who can influence what it is we want and how can we really, really connect with.

Them what it is we want? That is really great. That is absolutely wonderful. And that was, by the way, for me, in that particular story I told you, was an opportunity for me as the coach's coach to talk with him about, are you finding out how everybody's doing on your team? So it had a very nice, positive, double edged sword. Dad and son, family, and then the principal and the coach. So we really ended up being a useful place. Nicole, what's landing on you right now? Listening to Colleen and that story, I.

Think there are so many different dynamics in that story, it's hard to just pick apart one. But what's resonating for me is something we always say, that it's dangerous to want something for someone else. I'm super curious about. I see a lot of dynamics between fathers especially and athletes and the way that they engage with each other and the pressure sometimes that the parent puts on the athlete to perform in a certain way. And that can cause all kinds of rifts between that parent and that athlete that I think are sad, frankly. And so I'm curious in that situation, like, how much does the athlete feel like he was getting the short end of the stick or did his dad feel like he was getting the short end of the stick? And then just how important that whole communication loop is. I think it's really powerful to be the guide on the side for our kids or for the People that we lead and let them figure out, as you were saying, Ray, what they really want their outcomes to be in the situation and how to advocate for themselves and have real conversations, conversations with the people that, you know, with their teachers, with their coaches, with, like, I'll have my kids make phone calls and talk to people when they need something, or, you know, shocker.

They. You make them talk to people, Nicole?

I do. I make them have conversations with people. One of my sons lost one of his apple earbuds recently on a trip and he thought he left it at the hotel. And I'm like, well, what might you do about that situation? And had him come up with some, you know, solutions and then had him make the phone call and talk to the hotel and see if they could find it. And then he maybe forgot some questions and then he had to call back again. But just that level of communication that needs to occur between families and people and leaders and those that they care for. There's just so many different dynamics and so many ways that awareness and, and in the situation can. Or the opposite, you know, unawareness can really shut things down and have things go in a really different direction. Ray, you could have played right into that drama and instead what you did sort of jarred them out of their triangle, right, Their victim mentality, and put them in a space where, okay, maybe that wasn't the right reaction. And now we have to do something a little bit differently.

It's just beautiful. Nicole, the sensibility that you guys have provided for the listeners today about first one, really big. And ladies and gentlemen that are listening, please take this away as we close out here today. The first one is you can always check the weather in the room. You can ask people how they're doing. Can ask people, use my weather report game, what's the weather for you today and why? And all of a sudden you begin to understand how people are feeling in the moment. There was another really good one where one of our colleagues who is a. Was a Navy captain on a, on a vessel and he used as a check in methodology. Tell me how the morale is with the sailors that you're leading and tell me why you think that's the case. Give me some data, give me some evidence. Oh, powerful simple check in. How's the morale? How's everybody doing? But rather than me, just say, oh, it's good with me. No, I need to have some evidence about why you feel that way. So notice, check in, close the loop. Establish the picture that we want to accomplish today. Make sure everybody Understands it. Nicole teached something up for me before and I forgot about it until just now because I went back to listening. If you have five people in the room or 200, those five. And those 200 will hear the words differently. If we don't close the loop, we cannot get to common understanding. There's powerful stuff there, so keep that in mind. The second part of today's conversation was the distinction between why and what. And just be careful. There's nothing wrong with asking the question why unless you perseverate on that and it turns into a conversation that evokes all that's wrong with me and that's why this is happening rather than what can I do differently to achieve the end that I would really like to have those pieces I think, ladies and gentlemen, I would hold on to. I'm going to have my friends check out with what resonated most and tell me why, by the way. But we did a lot here and to Nicole's point, there was a lot of stuff in here. What resonated most and why. Colleen, want to start us off?

Sure. You know, I think why to what? You know, it's simple, elegant, and yet many times we're not aware of where we are, where our space is, where our mind is in our mindset. And I think just recognizing that, you know, why me? And having yourself talk to be so negative versus recognizing that and then pivoting. And the other piece that I'll go back to because we've had a theme here, is and supporting our friends and family, you know, especially our kids. Kids are going back to school, going back to college. How can we give them that same simple and yet effective tool to use when they find themselves in that space of kind of that self pity. Right. Of why me? Why this? Can't believe it happens to me all the time, blah blah, blah, versus what are my learnings and how can I apply those? Because I don't want that to happen again. And I'm out.

Oh, okay. That's beautiful because you just clearly articulated that awareness is magnificent. And you can use practices that let you just accept this situation and figure out what I need to do differently to change it. Otherwise I'll just keep accepting it, you know, I keep getting Ds and Fs. The teachers are idiots that there's problems in this school. It's everybody around me that doesn't care. We end up in that very strange place. So to become truly aware, truly awareness is to recognize this is what my thinking is. Now, how do I Pivot. How do I shift? That's brilliant, Nicole. What? Got you.

I think it's the same for me for the why to the what. And I keep thinking or having this vision in my head of the whys being that early indicator light or that source of information, like it's telling me something. If I start to ask those why questions in my mind, why is no one responding? Why is no one in my meeting saying anything? Why aren't people reacting the way that I think that they should be reacting? And then noticing those whys as those key. Those are early indicator, early indicator warning lights. And then being able to say, okay, what might I do? What question could I ask to get people's voices in the room? What might I ask people to have paired conversations about? What could I do to close the loop right now so I know what people are thinking and feeling? So I'm not continuing to go down the spiral of asking myself all those why questions. That's what resonated for me most.

Are you out?

I'm out.

Yeah. So you just were beautiful there. So I keep urging people, regardless of where they are in the organization, if something's not going well in the meeting, to notice and wonder, not go, why is this happening? But say, I'm noticing that this is happening and I'm wondering what I'm missing or what I could do differently in order for this meeting to be truly successful. You guys are great ladies and gentlemen that are listening. I hope you enjoyed this. I think there's a lot of meat and potatoes in here for us to chew on. We love your feedback. Tell us which of these ideas resonated most with you and why. We just want these podcasts to get better and better and serve you more and more. Of course, our client base tells us what to talk about. All of these podcasts come from you, so if you'd like more or learn more, please go to our site and see us. Gojlc gojlc.com and all of a sudden, bang. You've got a space to learn more about leadership with itness. Take care, everyone.

Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.