Alyceum

Igniting Leaders, Inspiring Revolutions

Values

10 questions to plan for 2018

by

January! A fresh new year to dream, visualise and plan.   Journalling is a great tool to develop our insight, connect with our inner voice and start to develop clarity about the life you want to lead.

I think we can under-estimate what can be achieved in a year. What do you want to be different in a year’s time?

Late last year I posted 10 Questions to Fuel Your Reflection of 2017.  This is integral to reflect back over the whole year, visual what you did with your time (consider the projects you worked on and what you achieved) and really focus on the key learnings you have taken from the year.   Most often, we sleep walk through life without taking the time to reflect, grow and stretch into the future.  Just as useful as it is to look back, now it’s time to look forward.

Here are 10 questions to help your planning for 2018.

1. How will you step into the highest version of yourself this year?

If you practiced all the habits you wanted, lived your core strengths and you were totally aligned with values –  this would be your highest version of you.  The game is – how do you edge closer and closer to this person every moment.  Think small steps.

2. Describe your ideal day, week and year?

How you live your days is how you live your life!  It’s a big statement but it’s true.  Our daily habits form the foundations for how you live your life.   What is one habit you want to focus on this year and one habit you want to let go of?

3. How will you best utilise your strengths?

Professor Martin Seligman, Director of the University of Penn Positive Psychology Centre found that a key part of flourishing in life and work is using your strengths.   To use our strengths, you need to be able to identify them and work on ways to use them more everyday and commit to getting better at them.

4. How will you take care of yourself? What’s your health and wellbeing plan?

Without your health it’s very hard to achieve anything of significance. This means you have to actively plan for sleep, rest, nutrition, movement, mental clarity and fun!  How could you step up in terms of your health?  What could be a key goal you could achieve that could help motivate you to take care of yourself?

5. What is holding you back? 

Otto Scharmer, author of the books Theory U and Leading from the Emerging Future talks about the three voices that hold you back – the voice of judgement (shutting down your open mind instead of being inquiring and curious), the voice of cynicism (shutting down your open heart instead of connecting and relating) and the voice of fear (shutting down your open will instead of letting go).   What do you need to leave behind and to tap into the great courage you have?

6. How will you give back to community?  How can you be of service to others? 

How can you focus on giving to others this year?  Often this can provide great energy in our lives.  If you were to focus on one area to give back in, what’s it going to be this year?  Commit as deeply to this as the other areas in your life.  Maybe it could be to join a Not-For-Profit board?

7. What’s your learning plan?

Where do you want to grow, stretch and learn this year?  What books can you read?  What courses can you take? What conferences can you learn from?   What are the key skills you want to learn and foster this year?

8. What relationships do you want to foster?

Who is in your community? Family, friends, networks, work colleagues and neighbours. Be focused on the key relationships you would like to develop this year.  Who can help you be the person you want to be?  Will you reach out to a new mentor, create a mastermind group, attend a new conference to expand your networks or foster your friendships?

9. How will you be inspired?

What are the inspiration sources that help you stay energised and refreshed for the ups and downs for the year.  How can you systemise the inspiration sources so you can perform at an optimal level?

10.  What amazing life adventures do you want to do this year?

Ok –  now it’s time for a bit of fun.  Forget work, think about what is going to bring you joy and fun into your life.  What life adventures could you have this year?  Think about learning a new skill, visiting a new place or enjoying something with the people you love.

25 questions to improve your emotional intelligence

by

There is a lot of talk about the governance experience required by board directors to fulfil their duties on a board. What is talked about less so but is becoming more and more important is the ability for board directors to be emotionally intelligent in the boardroom.

Exceptional board directors lead with humility, respect, have the awareness of the impact they have on those around them and know when to speak and when to listen.

Need a reminder about what EQ is all about?  Emotional intelligence is described by Perter Salovey and John D. Mayer as:

The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate amongst them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.

Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, he classifies emotional intelligence into five domains:

Self Awareness: Knowledge of your states, preferences, resources and intuitions.
Self Regulation: Management of your states, impulses and resources.
Motivation: Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals.
Empathy: Awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns.
Social Skills: Adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others.

Here are some reflective questions to ask yourself to develop your emotional intelligence as a board director or team member.

Self Awareness

1.  Honestly do you know the strengths and weaknesses you bring to the boardroom?
2.  How do you define yourself? Are these self perceptions accurate? How do you test these?
3.  Do you listen and seek opportunity to understand how others perceive your strengths and weaknesses?
4.  What are your personal values and are they aligned with the organisation you serve?
5. Do you rate yourself as a continual learner? Would others have the same view?
6. Do you act with humility rather than arrogance?

Self Regulation

7.  Are you respectful in your language and actions to your fellow board directors, staff and stakeholders?
8.  Are you able to keep calm during conversations?
9.  Do you listen openly to other’s points of view?
10.  Do you notice when you’re frustrated during conversations?

Motivation

11.  Do you truly understand what motivates you to serve on a NFP board or in your work team?
12. Do you serve the long term interests of the organisation rather than your own concerns or short term objectives?
13. Do you act from a place of authenticity?
14. Are you self motivated to serve on a board or at work?
15. Do you set and aim to reach goals personally and as a collective on the board?

Empathy

16. Do you put yourself in the shoes of the people you serve?
17.  Do you understand the values, strengths and goals of your fellow board directors or team mates?
18.  Do you share the workload equally on the board?
19.  Are you willing to see how others perceive situations and decisions to be made?
20. Do you work hard to be trustworthy?

Social Skills

21. Do you commit to working respectfully with your fellow board directors?
22. Do you reach other to develop a strong relationship with your fellow board directors?
23.  Do you make time to have conversations outside of the boardroom to deepen your relationship with your fellow board members?
24. Are we committed to working as equals in the boardroom?
25. Do you act with a positive attitude?

Emotional intelligence is a critical component of an effective board. Are you actively cultivating the skills of emotional intelligence?

 

Save

Save

Stretch your leadership thinking

by

Any great leader worth their salt has a life long desire to be stretched. We do this with our technical expertise all the time – books, training or conferences and if we are committed, we do this with our leadership capacity too.

What informs your understanding of leadership?

When I look at most leadership books and conferences these days, my eyes glaze over. Why? It seems like the same ‘voices’ get promoted time and time again. The same leadership messages arise and build the basis of our leadership understanding.

What if you are not challenging ourselves enough?

Is it time to break free from those ‘voices’ and listen to a new tune?

Do you challenge your leadership thinking or stay where it’s comfortable?

When was the last time you read a leadership book by a female, an author that’s not American or from non-Caucasian background?

Time to break out

I am constantly mindful of what sources I read and recommend to ensure I’m getting a variety of leadership perspectives. I’m interested in broadening my sources so I’m not always reading leadership from the perspective of a white American male which can easily be the case. I have plenty of those books on my bookshelf already and learned a lot, but…

No one gender, generation or geography has the monopoly on great leadership

So I would love to hear your favourite books on leadership from a variety of authors – I want to stretch and challenge my knowledge and understanding of leadership.

Here are some of my recommendations:

  • Who Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity by Margaret Wheatley
  • Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies by Otto Scharmer and Dr. Katrin Kaufer
  • Reinventing Organisations: A Guide to Creating Organisations Inspired by the Next State of Human Consciousness by Frederic Laloux
  • Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation by Linda Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove and Kent Lineback
  • Act Like a Leader, Think like a Leader by Herminia Ibarra
  • Presence: Bring your Boldest Self to your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy
  • Radical Candor: How to be a Great Boss without Losing your Humanity by Kim Scott
  • Open Leadership: How Social Technology can Transform the Way you Lead by Charlene Li
  • Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
  • Business as Unusual by Anita Roddick
  • Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus

Let’s bring a variety of voices to the table. In fact, let’s give them a loud speaker too.