Authentic Leadership ✨ Celebrate Your Team

Hello Monday. We have arrived. We're here. My wish for you on this beautiful Monday is that it's going well, that you're staying cozy and warm. I'm bringing out my inner Disney today with my little Mickey Mouse hat and a little ray of sunshine with the painting that I have behind me. That's a very heart centered painting. Good morning. Speak wonder. Happy December. Hello, Quinn. Happy December. I hope you're having a beautiful day. I'm hanging out in my little studio today, or at least for our Cadre this morning if we haven't had space together before.

My name is Jean Nicholls. I wear many hats, literally and figuratively, and today's hat is a coach. I have a boutique consulting firm and do a lot of transformation work as well as executive coaching and business coaching. So it is my joy and honor to be here today and on today's Monday. Leading with authenticity. Our conversation is about celebrating our teams. So we are quickly approaching the end of 2025 and similar to, I would say Valentine's Day and similar to maybe Thanksgiving where the focus is on gratitude.

I firmly believe that these celebrations of our teams should happen more than once a year. And the truth is, is that we only think about them. Not only, but we often think about gratitude and, you know, Valentine's Day. Love, love of ourselves, love of those around us and celebrating our teams, typically when there are different holidays around it. So today we're going to talk about celebrating our teams and the value of it. And my invitation to you is as we're planning out the end of the year and as we're planning out our next year, our 2026 goals, my invitation is how might we celebrate one another more frequently and not make it only something we think about at the end of the year or at an anniversary and make it a practice similar to gratitude, Making gratitude a practice.

So when we think about taking that pause and celebrating ourselves right now in December, it's a really great time to look backwards and then look ahead. And we oftentimes find December to be a time where we slow down a little bit more. Because outside world, especially if you live in a northern state or in the Midwest, the temperatures start to change. Our bodies actually start to slow down similar to what we would see in nature. We see trees kind of pulling all the energy back into its trunk, into its core, into its roots, so that it can maintain its own balance.

That happens physically with us as well. We find that we get more tired or we want to hibernate a little bit more. We go inside, we Retreat a little bit more. And so it's always a good time for us to take that pause and reflect. How have we done as a leader this year? Whether or not you manage people, that doesn't matter always because we can show up as a leader in our communities. You can show up as a leader whether you're retired or you have a job or you're laid off. You can show up as a leader if you are a stay at home parent.

Leadership doesn't necessarily equal title. So when I think about reflecting on our teams and being an authentic leader, that means to me recognizing the strengths of the people that surround us, to me, that means it's an opportunity for us to reflect. How have we grown? What did we invest in for ourselves? When I look back at the beginning of 2025 and I think about my theme for this year really was gratitude. So how might I show up as a more grateful human partner, manager, consultant and coach and really be that more?

In the spaces that I play in day to day, I can look back and see times where I probably did a really good job and times where I didn't do a great job. But what I can also do is look back over the year and look at the team that I do have, that we have at our spin studio, the teams that I've been able to work with with my consulting work. And so when I look at that, I can look back and see, wow, I have a few individuals on my team today that when they first started on our team, they were maybe a little more shy or bashful or they really hadn't found their voice as an instructor or a leader.

And when I think about the investments that we did with them or we think about the investments that they did for themselves, I can really start to see progress and change. Change in myself as a leader or a mentor or guide, but also change in what they've done. So speak Wonder. I love that you put in here that you like to encourage your team members, team members in meaningful ways, such as giving thoughtful compliment. Not just surface like I like your hair, but a little deeper, such as I admire the way your brain solves problems.

So creative. Yes, exactly. Anytime that we have the possibility to give a little more context, it actually helps that individual to connect more with a compliment, but also to reflect on how that compliment and what that compliment actually means. So for example, if I am at our spin studio and giving our general manager some feedback, some meaningful feedback on how they've grown, one of the things I recently shared with them is that A year ago, they were really afraid to call people on the phone, and they were also a little more reliant on me to lead our team meetings.

And today in this world, in this space, because of things that either I've coached them on or learnings they've done for themselves, they now love getting on a phone call with a member because they realize it's a new way to connect with them and they're not afraid to make that phone call anymore. And they also now are like, jean, what do you have to say in the meeting? I'll give you 10 minutes. I have a full agenda and I've built out a PowerPoint deck, and here are the things that I'm going to take everybody through.

And so they've gone from being really reliant on me to be the leader, to take charge, to relying on their own leadership. And so now my coaching with them is, after the call, I can be like, you may have want to spend more time doing X. So maybe what you can do now is do a post in our team communication channel that gives a little bit more context. And they're really brilliant writer. So I know when I give them that feedback, they'll take it to a degree that, that I wouldn't because I don't have that same strength that they do.

So the coaching and the evolution of the coaching has simply evolved because they have found more courage to be able to show up in their ways. And that's how we can celebrate them. We can celebrate them by setting new boundaries, new bumpers for them to grow and explore. I always found when I had a manager that I loved, I knew that they saw my strengths when they gave me more special projects to do. So that took time for them to learn that something that motivated me more than maybe even a $50 gift card that I could just blow was giving me special project work to do that showed that I was growing in my abilities, I was growing in my leadership, and that I was being successful in the work that I was doing because I was getting new opportunities.

So my invitation to you is, over the course of the next month, you personally might have a way that you like to be celebrated. I just shared one of mine. I like to get new ways of working, new projects that can challenge my brain. But do you know what your team members like, what they're inspired by, what motivates them, what the best compliment or the best gift could be to celebrate them? Not every person wants to walk down an aisle and receive an award in front of a thousand people. So if you nominate somebody to get that award, I hope, you know, one, that they're gonna like it, or two, that they're prepared for it.

Because not everybody is comfortable receiving things in that way for a celebration of what they've accomplished. Some are, some aren't. Some. But a really great manager, the best managers that I've ever had, the best leaders I've ever worked for, have taken the time to understand me, what inspires me, what motivates me, and how I like to be rewarded when I've done a really good job, and then they choose to invest in me in that way. So there's a couple of people on our team, and for their celebration, for ways that we are recognizing them, we actually bought them a master class membership because they love to learn.

And giving them the gift and an opportunity to invest in their learning, which they wouldn't do for themselves, was one of the best gifts that we could give them to celebrate what their accomplishments were this year. Speak. Wonder says they had a supervisor once who trusted your abilities. They would say, go out there and try new things. If I need to, I'll throw out a lifeline, a life ring, and reel you in. Exactly. So as we go into this month where it is about celebrating and coming to that year end and recognizing people for what they've done over this year, let's take a pause to really reflect on what is it that they truly accomplished.

Maybe they found their voice, Maybe they killed a new project, maybe they didn't kill a new project, but they learned that the type of work that they really love to do isn't what they thought they loved. And that is something to equally celebrate. Failure really isn't a failure. It's a learning opportunity. We might lose some money in our business along the way because we tried something and it didn't work. But now we know, right? So not all of it is something that is a success. Sometimes those celebrations are learning what not to do, but learning how we grew along the way through that process.

So taking that pause to look at it, having the conversations with our teams to really understand what does recognition mean to them, and then celebrating them in a way that isn't maybe the same way you want to be recognized, but really celebrates them so that they feel seen. Because at the end of the day, isn't it what we're really looking for, to be really seen for who we are as an individual and what our individual contributions are to the whole? And if we treat everybody the same, if we get everybody a $25 gift card to Starbucks, we might miss somebody's uniqueness along the way.

We might miss the opportunity to say, oh, you don't drink coffee, you drink tea. Oh, I could have gotten you a gift card from Tavana instead. So asking the questions, taking the time to really understand and reflect and see what the individuals around us, what they think is a celebration, not just what we think. That's the most beautiful part about this season in my mind, is taking that pause to connect and reflect as that leader, but as that team member and that human, but also to see people in a new way, to see people in a way that they want to be seen and recognized.

That's the beauty of this season. Human connection. So I hope you all have a beautiful day today. My invitation to you is to make one phone call, a call, or schedule one coffee meeting in person if possible, and truly discover what is meaningful to that individual. What they see as their strengths, what they see as their highs. And if they were to be recognized, what would be the most meaningful way to recognize them in a way that helps them feel celebrated? I love you all. I hope today goes exactly the way it needs to and that you feel celebrated for how you show up in this world.