Prepare Your Leadership

Hello. Hello. Happy Monday. Last three days of July here in 2024, which is crazy. Give it about a minute here for people to join. Okay. Well, I just wanted to first talk about today. I realized I didn't really ever introduce the name of my live stream. Hi, Vanessa. Welcome, welcome, welcome. So I want to introduce the name of my live stream called prepare your leadership. Probably doesn't make a lot of sense, kind of sounds weird, but it's a title that kind of makes sense to me and has some meaning to me.

Hi, Jules. Happy Monday. Welcome. So the title behind my live stream comes from. Comes from a concept and a metaphor from Laurie Tuominen at the UW superior. She works at the Pruitt center for Mindfulness, and she has a metaphor for mindfulness that she uses, and she describes teaching someone to swim. She says mindfulness is like teaching someone to swim before they dive into the river of life. By preparing them with the skills to navigate the currents of, they could flow with grace and resilience rather than be swept away.

So this preparation helps individuals navigate the currents of life with confidence rather than being overwhelmed with being able to flow with the current and not being able to get swept away in it. So that's where my idea for prepare your leadership comes from. Just like in mindfulness, where mindfulness prepares you for the challenges of life, preparing your leadership prepares you with the leadership. So when you get faced in a challenge, in a situation that calls for leadership, you're prepared for.

You're not back on your heels. You're prepared. You've practiced in the role that you're currently in to take a little bit of leadership, or maybe it's in the role and you're not trying to take more leadership, but it's just a situation that calls for a leader, and you can just step up and be a good person in the workplace, in your family, or just yourself, too. So opportunities for leadership skills, they don't really come for a lot of people for building these skills. Often organizations only select a few people, and often those people get trained for leadership after they get promoted into a leadership position or a management position, kind of leading them to be more reactive than proactive to leadership.

So if we prepare for leadership, we give people skills to and equip them with the skills so they can practice it in the roles that they're comfortable in. And this can be just like giving feedback, more effective communication, and it allows them to think at a, you know, at a deeper level about their role so they can practice these skills. So when they're thrown into a leadership position or thrown into a situation where they need to make a leadership decision, whether that's just conflict with an employee, they're more prepared for this.

So it's being more proactive than reactive. It's training them how to swim and flow with the river rather than jumping in and being swept away and trying to find a branch along the way. So regardless of position, regardless of role, or even if you're working or not working, if you're retired or you're starting out in a job, leadership, it doesn't matter. It doesn't care what role you're in. Leadership is different. Leadership can come from anybody. You can be walking down the street, someone trips and spills all their groceries.

Well, leadership would be stopping yourself and picking and helping them up. You're going to lead people to, you know, lead people to do the right thing. So it can come from anybody at any time. So when all, when all employees, all people have the skills that leaders are taught, they're more equipped in these tough situations. So if you do get asked a question about something, about making a decision, you can react with the proper skills. Or if somebody's gone at work one day and they're looking for someone to fill in, you can jump in and become a leader.

You can say, or any situation. You're prepared for leadership. You're prepared to take lead of something. So I want you to just reflect kind of in your role, in your role in life. What challenges for leadership do you face? So even for me personally, going to the gym and wiping stuff down, I'm making myself accountable for wiping down the machines that I use, keeping stuff clean, putting back all the weights that I use. That is leadership. I'm leading myself to do the right thing, to be accountable, and to be responsible for my actions.

That's a leadership skill. So where in your daily life do you see leadership? This can be personal, this can be family, and this can be in your work. You can be either leading a company or just leading yourself. Leadership starts with self leadership. So you can't be a CEO if you can't be the CEO of yourself. So think about situations that you face. Where can you become a leader? Maybe there's a situation where you see something happening. Somebody should do something about that. But then that bystander effect kicks in.

You're like, well, somebody else will do it. The next person who walks by will do it. Well, maybe that's a chance to build that leadership skill and to be proactive and work towards that. So then if you ever do get thrown in a situation where you need to do something, you're more prepared for that. It's not as big of a jump for you to do that. So think of situations where you can become a leader. Personal, work, family, list out these leadership skills and then start making goals to improve these leadership skills.

That can be stuff like communication, decision making, maybe empathy, being accountable, different skills. Perfect. Jules, that's awesome. Keeping my desk organized so I can be more efficient. Exactly. You gotta. It's just like a leader telling someone to be accountable for keeping their space clean. You're telling yourself to be accountable for that too. That's perfect. And that's good insight too, because you know that efficiency for you is linked to keeping that desk. Or I organized. So that's good.

That's very good insights. So think of how you can become a leader overall and build those leadership skills and that will help you become a better leader throughout. So if you're just working on your personal leadership, that can help in family and the organization. If you're trying to become a better leader in the organization, you're going to build that personal and hopefully that family skills too. If it's a good thing, if it works in there throughout your whole life that goes back to a topic before called intentional leadership.

You can go back and watch that video too. That should be on the Cadre archives. So that's all I have today for the livestream. I hope he gave you some good insights into leadership. Kind of gave the background to why my live stream is called prepare your leadership. So yeah, hope you have a great rest of your Monday calendar icon. Check that out. It's got all the rest of the live streams for today and the rest of the week. So I'll see you next week. Bye.