Leading with Authenticity

Hello, everybody. Happy Monday. Jean Mitchell's here. I am in Nashville, Tennessee today on this beautiful Monday. It's sunny, hot, warm. As you are popping in, I'd love to know where you're from as well or if you're listening to the sun replay. Drop a note in the chat. We'll love to hear from you. I'm just gonna hang out for a second and let others join. Hello, Green Cathy. How are you today? Hello, Stephen. Happy Monday. Excited to see everybody popping in. Good morning, Mimo. How are you today?

My name is Jean Nichols. I'm excited to be here with all of you today. I'm here in Nashville, Tennessee, visiting some friends, working with a colleague from Nashville. So I get to have a little change of scenery. Where are you at today? Hi, Jocelyn. Good morning. Happy Monday. I'd love if you are able to type and chat, just pop in where you're at today and maybe type in what has inspired you so far on this Monday. Not sure if you had a chance to dial in and listen to Luke. I won't spill the beans on what he shared today, but it's always a great way to kickstart a Monday jumping in live.

So I'm continuing for this week again with a topic of leading with authenticity. And I've mentioned this in past sessions as well, that to be a leader doesn't require us to manage people. It's not about the hierarchy or the position we're at on our team. It really is about our ability to inspire people into action. And, you know, there's times where maybe we do manage people and we get stuck in the weeds, we get stuck in the day to day, and we all do, right? Because whether you're managing people or not, we are all humans.

And each of us has a responsibility to complete certain tasks, certain projects, certain activities in our days, whether you're an individual contributor or not, we all have certain expectations of us in our jobs. And so when I think about leading with authenticity, to me and my focus for today isn't about managing people, it really is. How might we continue to be leaders in our own days as individuals? And when we do that, sometimes it can be intimidating to our colleagues or our peers. Sometimes we can be seen as a leader, and it creates exposure for us to get a promotion or possibly a new job opportunity or a special project.

We never really know what's going to happen when we show up with our authentic selves. Sometimes people will accept it. Sometimes they'll reject it. Sometimes they will be intimidated by it. I oftentimes will bring my whole self into work, especially as I started building more trust with my team and with my managers and leaders. Hi, Jules. Happy Monday. And so what I find is, when I bring my whole self to work, here's what I mean by that. On any given day, I am a consultant, and I am on special project teams a lot.

And on a Monday, we'll often check in, say what we did over the weekend. And I used to hesitate and share some of the things that I did on the weekends because I thought it might be too out there for everybody or it might not be accepted. So I do Reiki. I'm a Reiki master. I do energy healing, and I do sound baths. That's something that I really love to do, is sound bath meditations for groups of people. And as I've gotten more comfortable with working with my clients and my teams, but even just more comfortable with all of the things that I do, I teach spin classes, I do energy work, and I am a consultant and a coach.

And so when I tell that to people, a lot of times the initial reaction is, wow, you're really busy, or, that's a lot. And what I tell everybody as a fast follow is everything that I do is aligned with my purpose. And my purpose is always. And I worked for a long time to come up with this, and I don't always say it the exact same way all the time, but my purpose is always to meet people where they're at and help people make forward progress. And I love inspiring people to expand beyond what they believe they can do, because in our hearts, we know that there's so much more to who we are as a whole, human.

And so I really love drawing that out, and I get to do that with my sound bath and Reiki work. I get to do that in my coaching work, and I choose projects that are consulting projects that align with my purpose as well. So what? When I talk about bringing our whole selves in and leading that way, it takes vulnerability to be able to say things that we might do outside of our day to day jobs that could maybe make other people uncomfortable, right? So some people might not understand what Reiki is, or they might think that's too far out there or something really woo wooy.

And that's okay, because I've gotten really good at explaining what it is at a very high level, so that if somebody is curious and want to have more of a conversation, I can have that, too. But it also is a way that just holds space for somebody that might not understand what that means, or a sound bath, I often will pull up pictures and explain how it's a really good form of meditation. And so being an authentic leader also means that each of us, as an individual, has a sense of purpose. So we think about a brand like Nike.

I love Nike. They have a logo. Just do it in their little swish. And they have a sense of purpose. Each of us, as individuals, if we take time to really understand why we love what we do, or maybe why we don't love what we do, there is a story on both sides of that equation. But when we can identify what our purpose is and go back to that purpose and be able to share that purpose and then help people understand it and express their purpose and their vision as well, that's leading with authenticity.

So really identifying with and resonating with my why. Maybe your why is because you want to take great trips and explore the world. Or maybe your why is one day you want to go back to school. You know, it can be very different for everybody. It's understanding your values. So what do you really value about you? What do you value in life? What do you value in the workspace and living authentically through that and allowing people to live authentically through their values as well. So when we're leading from a place of compassion from our heart, when we're, you know, when I say that, it sounds really squishy, right?

Compassion from your heart. But at the end of the day, no matter what happens, we're all human. And even if we're in a workplace that is very structured and maybe it's not as open to bringing your whole self, then it's how might you open the door a little to bring a little bit more of you to that? Because as we're connecting with other humans in the workplace, the best way for us to build trust is to, for some, do what we say we're going to do, that could be of value for others. It's about creating a human connection.

So I will trust you once we can create that human connection. And so as we're working with our teams and we're really trying to lead in our own lives, and it doesn't even have to be about anybody else, but when we're leading and living in our own lives from authenticity, we're understanding what our sense of purpose is, our why we are a brand. We might not be a product like Nike, or we might not be a service like a nonprofit, but we have a brand. And each of us, as individuals, have a purpose in life.

And sometimes we know exactly what that is. And sometimes we feel lost. The number of times I felt lost, even when I feel grounded in my purpose and still feel lost. Like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Because sometimes we put and invest so much of ourselves into our work that it doesn't feel like sometimes we get something back until somebody gives us a compliment or tells us the impact we make. And that sometimes is few and far between. And so we questioned ourselves a lot. And when we take the time to question ourselves and rediscover our sense of purpose, realign with what our values are, and our values can change over time.

What they were when you were in high school or in college or early twenties versus the next couple of decades. Wherever you're at in your journey, your values can shift and they can adjust over time. But as long as you understand what those core sets are for you, maybe it's family, maybe it's exploration. You get to decide that. And when we come from a place of compassion and from our heart, and we meet other people understanding that, maybe they haven't been able to share their purpose with anybody before, maybe they don't feel comfortable sharing their values because historically, they haven't worked with people who were open to that.

Our community, our world, our society is gradually shifting. We do a lot on technology. We connect with people a lot on technology. We look at Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, and we perceive that to be a reality, when really, that's a snapshot of what someone is willing to share, human connection can get lost. And so I invite each of us to find ways that we can continue to connect one on one, even if we're on a live stream, and we simply say good morning to the people that are coming in, or maybe when one of the Cadre facilitators or contributors is asking a question and you have the courage to write something in the chat that means so much to everybody, because now you're connecting with everyone else that dialed in that day.

And that contributor also sees that what they're saying connects with you, too. So there are a lot of ways that we can lead with authenticity. We can come from a place of compassion. We can understand our values and share our values the more that we can open up that conversation. And maybe instead of, you know, at work, if you use some sort of system like teams or slack or some other Google chat, maybe instead of always doing that, maybe instead you call people on the phone and you use your video camera so they can see your face.

So even though we're through a technology, when we can see the other human, when we can look in their eyes, we can start to see more of the whole of all of us. Over the last few months, I've been really intentional with trying to go see more of my friends, because for so long, we couldn't see each other. And just, even if I have one day on a work trip where I can tack on a flight a night or an afternoon, and I can go see someone in person for an hour, it's so filling in the heart, but it also allows us to understand each other better.

It allows us to connect even more. So when we think about leading with authenticity, we often think, and I get this with all of my clients, we think it's about hierarchy. It's about a manager, a vice president, a CEO, any of that. And it is. There is a part of that that is true, but it is also about how might we, as a human, lead authentically in our day to day lives. And the three things that I have kind of circled back on is understanding our purpose. Why did we say yes to an invitation to join a club or a community?

What is the value we want to contribute to that, to a job that we said yes to? What are our values? What will we contribute into that? And how might I really lean into that more and lead authentically, from my own heart and compassionately to the people that are around me, recognizing that maybe they haven't done the same discovery that we have, or maybe they haven't had the space to show up exactly who they want to be. And then the last thing that I mentioned this morning is around that people centered connection.

So, giving it a name, how might we make our connections more about the human first, and then about the work that we need to accomplish together? Because most of the time, if we can listen differently, we can approach the conversations. In that way, we can start to create more of a connection which allows us to trust each other more and have an understanding of where we might have differences in our purposes, in our whys, where we might have differences in the values or our approach, where we might even have differences in how we communicate.

So leading authentically in our conversation today is really about understanding who we are as an individual, and how might we lead more authentically in our own lives. So if that resonates with you, or you can see or sense this, or maybe you want to learn more, pop a comment into the chat. I look at them throughout the day. I get an alert when somebody comments. If you're listening on replay type replay. I would love to hear from you how you feel about the four key areas, sense of purpose, having strong values, leading with compassion from your heart and people centered connections.

And if that resonates with you, or if you do this over the course of the week, come back to the chat and type in what happened differently because you kind of narrowed in that way. You led that way. I would love to learn from you. I would love to hear from you. There are more contributors popping in today. Check the calendar, see what topics are interest to you. You can also go in and add them to your calendar so that it can remind you when you want to dial in. Because sometimes if you're like me, you get really busy throughout the day and you forget that you had the intention of listening.

The great part is these are always kept out there so you can listen to them on repeat as well. I hope you all have a beautiful Monday. I'm going to enjoy Nashville, Tennessee, my friends and my coworker while we sit and have some tea, I drink tea, they drink coffee and work through some stuff together in person. I can't wait. Have an amazing day and I'll talk to you soon.