Category: Personal Growth

I had the pleasure of participating in the planning and presentation of a Leadership Intensive for Nurse Leaders October 19-21. The attendees arrived on a Thursday evening, weary from their work week and a bit uncomfortable in a new environment with strangers. We did our best to help them feel comfortable and pampered in a beautiful, fall-desert setting with beautiful gardens and accommodations.

This was a first-class offering with expert speakers from around the country; each integrating their expertise, insight and wisdom into their presentations and case studies. I realized as I listened that each of the speakers was also a warrior for the human spirit, approaching their work with gentleness, decency and bravery. They shared stories of creating strategies that would move their area of influence forward over the long haul. They focused their passion and energy on what was possible, albeit often difficult and/or unpopular but needed, to accomplish the vision and create healthier environments.

I watched the weary-leader participants perk up, sit up, get engaged in the discussions. We provided them with new tools that would help them see and shape their organizations in new ways. We also shared our view of the needed leadership attributes for today’s world of disruption and chaos, in order to influence more effectively, achieve personal success, healthier environments and sustainable results. Each attendee walked away with the beginnings of a plan to address a difficult problem they were dealing with. And they left with a network of new colleagues and friends with whom they will connect over the months to come.

I too left energized, knowing deep inside that we are preparing the next generation of leaders to lead from a new place. This place acknowledges the importance of nurturing the human spirit while leading with competence in today’s dynamic and complex systems.

Kathy Scott, RN, PhD, FACHE

On the Friday of Veteran’s Day Weekend, Thunderbird Leadership will be hosting its 11^th Annual Leadership Summit. The notion of service logically emerged as the theme.
When we see folks in the military, we thank them for their service…they relinquish the many privileges that most of us take for granted to serve a greater good.
And the importance of service cannot be overlooked. There is a strong conviction in numerous belief systems to contribute to making the world a better place.
Each of us know stories of heroism, courage, purpose and forgiveness that inspire us and call us toward something better, something larger, toward the best version of ourselves.  Those who have embraced service as the central value of their lives loom in our mind’s eye as extraordinary, perhaps even as chosen in some inexplicable fashion.  We consider them with awe, wondering what it might be like to be an icon of such devotion, such commitment, such dimension, such altruism.¹
But what of us? How do we see ourselves in the role of service?
Sometimes, acts of courage unfold in quieter and less spectacular ways.  Woven within our personal biographies are our own moments of courage, sharp purpose, of kindness and tender mercies – spectacular stories, ordinary stories and sometimes forgotten stories.  Captured in the details of our very own lives is the evidence that we each know the ways in which we, too, serve those around us and serve the greater good – and we know the deep fulfillment and connection that emerges when we consciously center our lives in service.
We have an illusion that our past is static, fixed in history…and yet, memory is really fluid. What we recall, the stories we tell ourselves, impacts what we think we are capable of. I am fascinated by the notion of how our memory serves us and am not sure what changes first, our thoughts and beliefs or the memories that inspire them.
At the Summit, we will have a chance to hear from Dr. Gladys McGarey, a pioneer in integrated medicine. She has had an amazing 97 years on this planet from her early years in pre-partition India with her medical missionary parents to her pioneering practice in the Phoenix area. When we talked about what she will present, she noted that the direction of her remarks will be influenced by her audience…what memories will we invoke? How will she inspire us?
We will all have an opportunity to share, to listen, to explore our own stories … to understand with new perspectives who we are, what we have accomplished and what we are capable of going forward.
We will also have a chance to challenge our stories. Are some of them outdated? Ones we need to rewrite? In graduate school many years ago, a professor asked me to lead a group on a project. I told him, “Oh no, I am not a leader, I am a good follower.” He looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face and said, “That may have been true in the past, but not anymore.”
And of course, I remember that story and use it in my own coaching practice.
So what do you tell yourself? What stories are generating energy and momentum in your life? What stories are dragging you down?
Join us for a day of stories, reflections, and delightful experiences as we honor those who serve, explore our own stories of everyday courage and embracing living and working from the heart of service.
For more information go to:
http://thunderbirdleadership.com/event/11th-annual-leadership-summit/

We sat in the driveway, my sister and I, each peering out our opposite windows, each wrapped in the disappointing sense that we had failed one another while the uncaring car simply idled in the background. “We agreed on this” my sister said, still without turning her face toward me. “No, you told me how we were going to do this, and I said nothing” was my response as I also turned toward my own window. Somehow, she thought my silence meant I agreed. Somehow I thought my silence would indicate I did not agree. Just as the view was different for each of us through our opposing windows, we had an entirely different and singular understanding of what we had agreed on. The spoken and unspoken expectations we had of one another had dragged us unwittingly toward this predictable moment of upset and disappointment.
We carry all kinds of expectations into our days – expectations about relationships, performance, quality standards, purchases – nearly anything we encounter in the details of our personal and professional lives. What makes expectations challenging is that they are unilateral, often unexplored, and are frequently made known in either vague or authoritative ways – or both. Most people resent expectations – especially authoritative and unreasonable expectations – although they may try in earnest to meet them. On the other hand, most people like to keep agreements that are co-authored – to have the chance to agree to what you can count on from them.
Take a seat in any break room, boardroom, meeting room, or bedroom and you are sure to hear complaints, the drone of disappointment, and the bitterness of having been let down. You can hear the utter disbelief that the world didn’t come through for you or me (or Bobby McGee) in the way that it was supposed to, the way that it should have – the way that it would have if anyone cared enough! We might hear something like “he really let me down” or “she should have known better” or “I can’t count on anyone but myself” or, perhaps the most poignant of all, “If he REALLY loved me, he’d know. I shouldn’t have to ask.” When that is the conversation, we are living in the realm of unmet spoken or unspoken expectations.
And when we operate in the realm of expectations – when we engage in our relationships expecting that people will behave the way we want them to, want exactly what we want, understand in tandem with how we see the world, we set the stage for one of two outcomes. We will either feel disappointed or we will feel nothing at all. If others fail to meet our expectations, we will feel upset and disappointed. If others actually meet our expectations, we may not feel anything at all, because that is simply, without celebration, what we expected. It is, after all, the very least they can do!
Disappointment can sink you like a stone and yet, with a simple rearrangement in our thinking, disappointment can be significantly minimized if not eliminated.
What if our complaints could be turned into requests? When we first notice we are disappointed and hosting a complaint we can choose to gain a little altitude and ask ourselves if we have a request of that person. Is there something inside the complaint itself that actually assists us in recognizing what it is that we want or need to bring about success and dissipate the potential for disappointment? What if we simply, then, made that request?
Of course, making a request does not assure an agreement will be established. It does, however, open the possibility of co-authoring a strong, solid agreement that reflects everyone’s voice. Making a request is bold, and courageous, and an act of integrity. It is the first step in negotiating an agreement that brings all the invisible barriers and potential to the table.
But what if a request is made, and the answer to the question “can you agree to this” is no? That’s when we can ask questions that can point us toward agreement:

• What are you willing to do, if it isn’t this?
• Here’s what you can count on from me. What can I count on from you?
• What would you need from me (the organization) to support you in an agreement like this?
• What do you think we would need to do to make this even better?
• What might get in the way of us keeping this agreement with each other?
• We can use our imagination and perception to create an authentic agreement that can be honored by everyone because it was formed by everyone.

Before closing the deal, check on the strength of the agreement. People may mumble that they agree when, in fact, there is still something standing in the way of their being “all in.” If the phrase “I’ll try” shows up anywhere in the conversation, there is no real agreement. Trying suggests that there is doubt, disagreement with the overall direction, and a remnant of unwillingness that puts the agreement at risk of being broken.
Of course, there are still times when even an agreement that seems strong is broken. This is the time to review the agreement in slow motion:

• What was the actual response to the request?
• What exactly did they say they were going to do? Was it the same thing you were asking for?
• Was it a strong agreement with specifics?
• Is there something that was left hanging? A little loose?

Expectations are hard on the human heart and mind and allow us to shift blame to anyone else but ourselves. Agreements offer us the opportunity to co-author the path by which we move life along in more effective and generous ways and enhance our self esteem by the simple act of taking personal responsibility for our yes’s and no’s. Agreements tap into the creative process, honor the relationships we have at work and at home, rescue us from the disappointment of failed expectations, and save the time often spent in places like an idling car on a gray winter day staring out the window wondering what went wrong.