Leading With Authenticity

Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We're here on this July 1. Can you believe it? It's July 1 today. So I'm just gonna pop in for a second, allow everybody a little chance to come on in. I am coming into you not from Minneapolis today. Today I'm coming to you from Portland, Oregon. I've never been here. I'm only here for such a short period of time that I'm a little sad because I would love to be able to spend some more time exploring this beautiful place. And there's so much nature. So, Jules, when you listen in, I feel like if you haven't been to Portland, this is a state that you, or city you should travel to.

Good morning, dawn. How are you today? Happy Monday. It's an amazing day here. I'm in Portland, Oregon, and I am so fortunate. I was headed to go do a workout, and I stumbled upon this little garden in the middle of the city here. And it's simply beautiful. So I'm just gonna hang out here to do our chat this morning, listening to some beautiful birds and looking at the nature around me. But this morning's conversation is around leading with authenticity. And as I've mentioned in the past, I'm a coach.

I work with a lot of teams. I work with a lot of leaders, managers, and I also have my own team that I manage as well. So it's. I get to do the best of both. And as I was preparing for today, I decided that I wanted to shift the conversation slightly. Last week, I talked about leaders eating last with Simon Sinek. It's a great book. Hello, Jules. It's afternoon for you. You're on one coast. I'm on the opposite coast. Today I'm coming in from Portland, Oregon. And I was just sharing that you should come out here one day.

And this is my landscape for the conversation this morning right before I head into a workout. But last week I talked about leaders eating last and a great book with Simon Sinek. I also recognize that I forgot to put a photo of it into the comments, so I'm going to do that today as well with a couple of highlights from that book. But as I was preparing this morning for a coaching session that I have this afternoon, a one on one coaching session, I wanted to pull in a couple of concepts that I always learn from my clients, but I also learn about myself.

And in this particular goal that my client set for today, our conversation today, she wants to learn how to become a better manager when she's trying to add humor into the conversation she's a very direct individual. And even when I work with the strengths finder personality inventory, and even her strengths are very much high executing, so she can get a lot of stuff done. And she's in a newer role. It's her first time managing people, and she is trying to figure out how to navigate that water. And the comment that struck to me the most was, how do I lead when I don't feel like I'm a leader?

And I had a pause because she's very, very smart. She gets a lot of work done. She is trying really hard to be a passionate leader. And it just reminded me that many things, first thing, we are all human first. And when I've. I've worked with some leaders in the past, and I've been a part of some organizations where I've worked with some people who are, you know, they're Instagram famous, right? They're. They're big followings. They are well known and an industry. They might have done TED talks or insert whatever.

And when I started working with this one individual in particular, a colleague of mine, was so intense with them, like, pinch me. I can't believe we're working with this person. And they idolized them so much. And it gave me a pause even back then, because at the end of the day, whatever level of an organization you are in, you are always a human first. Your title doesn't matter. Your financial situation doesn't matter. You are always a human first. We are born. We, at least in today's world, still, that might not be true 2030, 40, 50 years from now, but we are all born.

And we had an experience where we grew up. We may or may not have gotten education. We may or may not have gotten education the same way, right? Some of us maybe had scholarships. Maybe some of us had people pay for education for us. But at the end of the day, wherever we're at in our career, we are exactly perfect. And when I think about working with an executive, for example, I used to be really intimidated by that until I reminded myself they're humans, too. And what I have found working with a number of people coaching is it doesn't matter what level you're at in an organization.

Every single human being that I've worked with has a fear of not being enough, not being a good enough leader, not being, you know, a good enough coach or mentor, having imposter syndrome. It's a very real thing. Now, there are some who are. Their egos are just bigger than who they are. But what I found, even when I've had to work with some of those leaders is that there is some fear that's inside about a lack of enoughness. JC Lipol does a great job in his live stream talking about enoughness. So if you've never dialed into one, you might want to just join one of them.

But when I think about this young individual, early in her career, worried today, literally today, our conversation is in and probably 2 hours, and she's worried about not being a good enough leader and trying to force in humor somewhere so that she can try to lighten the mode. Because she recognizes that when she comes in, she comes in very hot. And what I mean by that, she comes in very direct, very task oriented, because that is her natural strengthen. Now, is she ever going to be a comedian that's going to stand up on Shay's stage and do improv?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not going to predict anything. For her, there are always possibilities. But right now, today, in this moment, she believes that by introducing humor, it can allow her to have a better connection with people. Because at the end of the day, her greatest fear is not being able to connect with her team. And so when I think about leaders leading with authenticity, how might we as a consideration, be more vulnerable? How might we as a consideration, admit when we don't know everything, admit to someone?

Maybe we're managing that. Here's how I work. This is just how my brain works, and your brain works differently. And how you approach things is different than I am. So can I learn more about that? Because when we turn on that lens of curiosity, it opens up the doors for us to have the possibility of a stronger relationship with the people that we're working with now. That doesn't mean that we're all going to become best friends. I am a Pollyanna. I think the roses, you know, the rosy colored glasses are probably a real thing.

But I also recognize that we're not always going to want to go hang out with everybody that we work with. That's just not reality. And as we get older, sometimes it gets our circles get a little bit smaller because we fine tune who really lifts us up, and we fine tune who really can hold space for us and with us. And all of those things are great. But at the end of the day, when we work with people, which we all do, we need to figure out how we might communicate and connect better. Because when we strip away the work, strip away all the tactical things that we're doing, what's left behind is a human.

And that human connection so, for me, when I consider the topic of leading with authenticity, it really is, how might I approach things more human? How might I recognize when I'm having a day and I just snapped at my team? I don't mean to snap at my team. You don't mean to snap at people or your teams? None of us mean to do that. But when we can take the pause to say, okay, really, what just happened right there? Am I frustrated because they don't work the same way that I do? That's a me issue. How might I understand how they work differently?

That's a different conversation. Now, at the end of the day, sometimes we just have to get stuff done right. So we don't always have the time to pause to say, hey, how do you work differently than I do? But when we do have the opportunity, after those fire drill situations or scenarios, to reflect a little bit, we might have an opportunity to come back to that person or those individuals and say, okay, that was kind of yucky. When we get in that situation again, because we will, how did you approach that situation?

What was your perspective? What could we have done better or different? And maybe the situation happens again, or a fire drill at work happens again. And maybe the next time, you take a slight consideration that there's a different perspective or a different approach than ours. And even if we're just getting that slight remembrance that somebody else is going to do work differently than us, that allows us to have a little more compassion in that space. Doesn't make the space easier, doesn't make it better, but it does allow us to continue to remember that we're humans first, it always starts there.

So whether you lead people or not, whether you are an employee and you have a manager and a boss, and maybe they don't know you very well, or maybe they don't know how to connect with you or manage you the right way, they may not be your forever boss. Right? Change happens. But really, the question at the end of the day for me is, how might we make a slight change to make it incrementally better for the next time? Now, July 1. Today, we are halfway through the year. Halfway. It kind of makes me sad, because I love.

I love the moments, but not, like, sad. Like, I'm gonna cry sad, but, like, oh, my gosh, what did I do with all that time? And then it reminds me that I still have six months left of this year to continue to do great things. So, my invitation to you, when you think about how you show up at work, how you lead in your space. How do you lead in your day to day life? What might you implement as a new habit for the next six months of this year? So that when you look back at the end of the year, you say, wow, I really grew.

I really shifted this year. And here are a couple of things that I did. So one of the things that I, Jean, am personally working on is continuing to be more present. I shared Yesterday, if you were on my live stream very emotionally, that I've been still processing a lot of grief. And so, for me, it's really how might I continue to just connect into the land, into the space, so that I can continue to feel whole. And when I can do that, I can show up as a better leader, a better human, a better partner, a better friend, a better sister, a better aunt.

Because at the end of the day, all things considered, we need to make a living. We have these great jobs. We find an identity with us. We are human. We have fears. We love. Maybe we're afraid to love. But at the end of the day, it's about connection. Connection to ourselves, connection to the world around us, connection to one another. So when you come into these calls and you say hi to us, gosh, that matters. Really does. Or when you hit replay and we get a little notification later that someone watched us and they commented on something that they liked.

We see that. We see you. We're here with you. So I hope you all have a beautiful Monday. I'm gonna take one more breath in this beautiful little garden that I found in the middle of the city, and I'm gonna go get my workout in. Hope you have a great day, and I'll talk to you all soon.