The Confident Leader

Taking extreme care of yourself

Some days start at a gallop and speed up.  Some days start with a whimper and speed up without you. How can you maintain optimum emotional energy for the challenges of your daily life?  Here's a little exercise I call 'extreme self-care'.  And here's what to do:

At a convenient point in your day (before you start, at lunchtime - you remember lunch? - or at the end of the day ask youself:

• How am I feeling, physically and emotionally?
• How am I responding to day-to-day events?
• How clear is my thinking?
• How linked do I feel to my sense of purpose (my spiritual energy)?

Don't aim to change anything, just observe and make a note, perhaps in a journal you keep for this purpose.  The aim is to understand what's going on for you.

Now ask yourself:

• What most gives me joy, and how can I bring that into my day?
• What one response can I re-think to a less stressful level?
• What one change can I make right now that will positively improve my energy?
• What will I do to take care of myself today?

Bullying, confidentiality and hype

I've been watching the storm blown up by the weekend's No 10 bullying story with puzzled fascination.  Sometimes I wonder whether I'm reading the same story as the commentators.

I'm really not interested in the party political angle to all this. But two things do bother me.

Firstly, UK law enshrines the right of all employees to be treated with dignity and respect at work. I really don't buy the suggestion that it's excusable to shout, scream and throw things under stress, or that people who don't like being subjected to such behaviour are wimps and cry babies.

Yes, of course leaders do suffer stress at work, and don't always deal with it well. I've been there myself - we're all human. But isn't the old adage 'treat others as you'd want them to treat you' is a good baseline to check ourselves out from? How can we expect to gain trust, respect and co-operation if people habitually feel afraid in our presence?

That brings me on to my second point. If you're providing a confidential service to vulnerable, frightened people, you DON'T breach confidentiality under any circumstances. If an individual gives you explicit consent to take up their issue directly, that's different.

For me it's really important that people who are targeted by bullies learn how to recover their balance and find ways to feel OK about themselves despite being on the receiving end of less than dignifying behaviour.

Victim or target? 7 steps towards overcoming bullying

I've been heartened to see new books appearing that help people being bullied to claim back their personal space and self-worth.  They come from different perspectives, but a common thread runs through them.  They encourage the person being bullied to see themselves as a 'target', not a 'victim'. There's a huge difference. 

If you see yourself as a victim, then you're likely to look for solutions outside yourself. Relying totally on processes and procedures ignores everyone's need to find their own strength and inner balance. And while the EU and the UK have outlawed workplace bullying, the fight for legislation is still on in many other countries.

If you see yourself as a target, it's easier to believe that you can be part of the solution. Dr Daniel Scott's fabulous book 'Verbal Self Defense in the Workplace' draws on the principles of Aikido and NLP to create a firm foundation for beating the office bully. Gary and Ruth Namie (both PhDs) subtitle their book 'The Bully at Work' 'what you can do to stop the hurt and reclaim your dignity on the job'. They focus on personal safety, but the outcome is the same for both - engineering your own exit from the abusive situation.

My own book, 'Getting Back on Track' offers a seven-step process for recovering from workplace distress.

• Understand what you want - in vivid detail. Be as creative as you like in developing this vision.
• Understand what's happening to you.  Talk this through with someone neutral to save straining close relationships.
• Reconnect with who you are at your best - your strengths, values and achievements.
• Honour your real self and from that self, learn what you need to keep yourself safe in future.
• Take the steps you need to bring your vision for the future to life.
• Trust your intuition as life opens up again.
• Find your passion and purpose to keep you in tune with your best self.

Above all, be a target, not a victim.  With help you can change the situation.

Getting Back on Track - learning from a broken wrist

On 5 November I experienced a first for me, falling and breaking my wrist.  And what a lot of learning there continues to be from that!

First lesson: get over hospital phobia. That was helped by a fantastic team at our local A&E and a great surgeon who pinned me together.  I subsequently learned that the fracture clinic team love him to bits because he treats them with respect.  I witnessed this first hand when he popped into the plaster room to say goodbye to them after his clinic - no arrogance there.

Second lesson:  let someone else drive, cook and do some things for you.  OK, I got lots more use in my arm as time went on, but there are some things I just couldn't do at first, and others that had to wait for the removal of the cast.  For a control freak like me that was a bit challenging.

Third lesson: it helps to make it fun as far as possible. I started by choosing purple for my cast (why wait until I'm an old woman?)  Several of the younger blokes with football injuries went out sporting red casts (they would, I guess).

Fourth lesson: getting out of plaster is only the first step, and the next steps hurt but they're worth it and I'm confident I will eventually get back a fully functioning wrist.

Fifth lesson:  exercises are easier if you relax and breathe properly.  This is potentially the most fruitful one for Getting Back on Track. 

The second edition of the book will be out in the new year, and will draw even more on the experience of actors and performers and how they use their energy to achieve the authenticity they want in their role. Watch this space if you're off balance and wanting to get back to your fully functioning self.

Happy holidays.

Another dose of my own medicine

Last week I had a fairly uncomfortable conversation with someone who believed that I was falling short of their expectations of me.  Some of their comments were particularly painful, and I left the conversation needing to reflect on what had been said, and nursing a powerful mix of contrition, anger and indignation, not to mention severely deflated confidence. 

For about 24 hours, I floundered around feeling distressed and decidedly off balance.  Then I realised this was a golden opportunity to revisit Getting Back on Track and to run through some of the exercises.  In fact, because I had been so deeply into the process through developing it and writing about it, I didn't need to spend a lot of time on this.

It was already clear that some of it linked back to the sudden loss of energy I'd experienced a few weeks ago (see Practising extreme self-care), so my vision for the future included building mutual respect, keeping my self-esteem intact and having a good balance in my life.  Developing a vision for moving on from this episode was uplifting and I began to feel that there was a way forward. 

An examination of what had happened and what led up to it produced a more balanced view than had my first flounderings. I could acknowledge some of what was irritating my colleague without taking the entire responsibility for a faulty dialogue with imperfections on both sides, or resorting to blaming them for what had happened.

As is often the case in such situations, the process of opening up to gaining a better awareness led to a wonderful piece of serendipity that supplied a really critical piece of the jigsaw.  I can only guess that the Universe saw this event coming, because earlier that week I had come across Patsy Rodenburg's wonderful book "Presence", and a new way of describing energetic states that made profound and complete sense to me.  More on this in another post.

Practising extreme self-care

This morning, the subject of integrity reared its head.  I don't mean big moral integrity or any of the things that got embedded in my psyche through my upbringing, the protestant work ethic or learning to think for myself.  No, it's far more bland than that.

More bland, but quite as important for a coach who is practised at encouraging clients to take care of themselves, 'put their own oxygen mask on first', not take on more than they can handle.  It's about finding my own balance among the busyness and the needs of my clients and the demands of non-work commitments.  How can I expect you to change your habits if I keep coming up against my own energy brick wall?

So, taking a leaf out of my own book, literally and metaphorically, I'm devising a short-cut exercise for noticing when I'm off balance and getting back on track before I end up reading three Patrick Gale novels in succession as an escape from the treadmill.  Here's what I will be doing in the coming weeks to try to nip it in the bud. Call it my personal self-observation exercise (clients will be familiar with this one) and feel free to adapt it for yourself.

Self-observation - extreme self care
Purpose: 
To monitor your energy levels and find ways to keep yourself balanced under pressure.

Instructions
At a convenient point in your day (before you start, at lunchtime - you remember lunch? - or at the end of the day ask youself:

• How am I feeling, physically and emotionally?
• How am I responding to day-to-day events?
• How clear is my thinking?
• How linked do I feel to my sense of purpose (my spiritual energy)?

Don't aim to change anything, just observe and make a note, perhaps in a journal you keep for this purpose.  The aim is to understand what's going on for you.

Now ask yourself:

• What most gives me joy, and how can I bring that into my day?
• What one response can I re-think to a less stressful level?
• What one change can I make right now that will positively improve my energy?
• What will I do to take care of myself today?

The Susan Boyle factor

It's a sad indictment on our attitude to appearance that I only had to google "ugly singer" a couple of weeks ago to be taken straight to Susan Boyle's much commented-on TV debut.  And how toe-curling were the presenters and judges, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, compared with the sheer authenticity of Boyle herself.  Much has been said about whether or not she was really the surprise the judges claimed she was.  Neither the judges nor the presenters were the real point for me.

What made Susan Boyle such a joy to watch wasn't just the quality of her voice, though that was brilliant enough.  No, it was the fact that she was so completely rooted in her own values and her own passion for singing that none of the flak seemed to touch her.  She waved away the rudeness of the panel with complete equanimity, ignoring the eye-rolling and smirking asides that would have floored many a less confident being.  Susan Boyle was utterly herself. And long may she remain so, despite all those who would like to remould her into something more approaching their idea of conventional attractiveness.

This sense of deep personal roots sits at the foundation of confidence.  If we're not sure of ourselves, even if it's just a little bit unsure, somehow that insecurity undermines any attempt we make to appear confident.  If your confidence has been knocked, a fundamental key to getting back on track is to reconnect with what matters to you and to what inspires you.  What matters is who you are, not what you're not, and knowing who you are makes what you're not irrelevant.  Watch the video.

"It feels like a bereavement"

I've just been listening to BBC Radio 4's iPM programme, where today, several people who had been made redundant talked about the stigma, the loss of confidence and self-esteem, and the unhelpful behaviour of others.  There are some more comments on the iPM blog.

Over the years I've been through a couple of job loss experiences, including a bullying episode many years ago, and a redundancy in the early 1990s.  So I know how it feels.  Over my time coaching people whose confidence has disappeared because of work-related issues, I've come to realise that building your self-esteem from the inside-out is really important. 

My experience of 'outplacement' - the help that companies buy in for their redundant employees, is that it doesn't give sufficient space to the sense of bereavement that losing a job can trigger.  It was to help people find a way through such experiences that I wrote Getting Back on Track.  The book offers a framework for individuals to reconnect with their values, strengths, sense of purpose and self-esteem, and to prepare for the next stage of their lives in a structured yet flexible way.  It doesn't replace practical help from the experts, but it does fill the gap left by the 'pull yourself together' message they sometimes convey.

The iPM contributors were especially sensitive to the responses of others to their new circumstances.  But hard though it is to swallow, Eleanor Roosevelt's assertion that 'no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent' does hold true.   If you're newly redundant, be kind to yourself, and do take steps to remember who you are, because you'll need all your confidence and self-belief to go forward and find what is right for you now.

The Obama effect

In these uncertain times, the World needs authentic leaders - people who can remain true to their deepest values, and can lead from their greatest strengths, with a sense of humililty.  I think and hope that in President Elect Obama we have that potential again.  As ever, time will tell, and there are huge challenges, but I'm more optimistic than I have been for the past eight years.

If you haven't caught his acceptance speech, here it is.  Full as it is of references to those who went before him, I found it a moving and refreshing change from the rhetoric, inspired by the language of war, that I heard from others.

I put off writing this post until the first euphoria of the morning of 5 November had calmed down a bit.  I wish Mr Obama courage for the journey, as I wish it to everyone who faces the challenges of leading through this next period of uncertain climate and soul-searching decisions that affect the lives of those they lead.

I'm also encouraged to see that coaching is still seen by managers and leaders as an enabler of change rather than an overhead to be cut, according to the UK's Coaching at Work magazine.  Coaching provides a space for clarity and renewal, for challenging responses and behaviours that no longer serve you, and for establishing your personal foundation for confident and authentic leadership.

Let there be light

In our new back garden is a mature Christmas tree, planted by the previous owners, and now a sturdy 6 feet high.  We plan to buy it some lights for Christmas.  But here is a story that brings the privilege of our Christmas lights into sharp focus.

I was contacted today by David Speakman.  I first 'met' David some years back on Ecademy. David's inspiration is light - the sheer beauty of a sky full of stars prompted him to try to recreate this experience using lights. He has spent long periods working in Uganda on various charity projects, and was moved to provide a safe and sustainable source of home lighting to families for whom the soaring cost of candles and paraffin lamps means either no light or very dangerous alternatives.

David's charitable company, Jua Taa Limited (Jua Taa means sun lamp or sun light in Swahili) manufacutures and distributes solar lamps, and aims to create manufacturing sites in developing countries too.  Jua Taa is aiming to send as many lights as possible over the Christmas period to where they are most needed.  We can all help.

You can read about Jua Taa here.  I hope that you'll join me in supporting David's Christmas campaign by buying a light and passing on the link to friends and contacts.