Everleader

It makes me feel the most proud when someone who used to report to me comes for coaching or help. Three people have asked for my help in the last month. All of them were on different teams I've led over the last ten years. Every time that happens, I feel honored, grateful, and proud. It reinforces that I'm living my leadership values by authentically supporting others. Why am I sharing this? There are two different major types of motivators for our behaviors in life. One of our motivators is fear. We're afraid of what will happen if we don't do something. We act because we don't want something bad to happen. Fear-based leaders can get results. They can push teams forward and achieve great things. But it comes at a cost. It can stifle innovation and trust. Team members are more likely to get burned out. When they leave the company, they are leaving a manager behind. They don't like being stuck in fight-or-flight. They feel relieved to exit. The other motivator is belief. This leadership style is based on empowerment and vision. It notices the best in the people on the team and leverages strengths to achieve outcomes. Belief-based leaders help their teams see what's possible. They paint a picture of success and guide each member to charting their path to an outcome. Believing in your team looks like seeing the future of each person's potential for impact and growth. You build a real relationship with your team that lasts way longer than your reporting tenure. Believing in your team can feel more scary than leading from fear. As a leader, it feels like control is slipping through your fingers. But fear-based leadership is only creating an illusion of control. When we lead from fear, the team environment appears more structured, but our team doesn't feel safe enough to share their concerns, questions, or doubts. So we're only seeing a small sliver of reality. Leading from belief deepens team trust. It opens more questions and surfaces more challenges. But it also creates a more realistically stable environment where people want to come each day. Letting go of fear increases our real control to guide our teams where we all need to go. If you're leading from a place of fear, here's one thing to try today: Next time you feel the need for control and reprimand for a team member, take a five-second pause. Ask yourself: How can I coach this specific team member in redirecting toward success? What strength can this person leverage to change their approach? I want to know from you, LinkedIn friends: What do you think is the better motivator? Fear or belief? Why?

I'm learning one big lesson from Gen Z folks in our workplace. A couple of years ago, I hosted a virtual networking coffee chat. It was open to anyone to join. There were about thirty of us in my Zoom room. One of them was a young professional, just out of college. A more experienced professional, probably 15 years into their career, shared how lonely they felt being remote all the time. They said: "I've made so many of my good friends in adulthood through work. How do I do that now that we're not in person?" The Gen Z in the coffee chat said something like: "I've noticed that my parents and a lot of people do that. They get their community at work. I'm not interested in having all of my community needs met at work. That's why I prioritize a work-life balance that lets me get it from other places, like my friends and hobbies." Our society has evolved to a place where we do spend so much of our time at work. And as a result, so much of our psychological needs also have to be met through the workplace. This includes how we build up our sense of self-worth. But the workplace is changing. People shift jobs more rapidly. Layoffs seem more common as businesses change their approach. So does it make sense to continue to derive so much of our self-worth from something outside our control? So I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I tie my identity with my career. Does it make sense to diversify our self-worth to be more aligned with other parts of who we are as humans? And I have an even bigger hypothesis in the workplace: The more we disconnect our self-worth from our job performance, the better we get at our jobs. I believe the more we have perspective, the better decisions we make. I want to hear your thoughts: Do you think we should be diversifying our self-worth? What do you think about Gen Z perspectives you've experienced?

What a fun, fulfilling, and heartwarming day. Today, we had our last session of the inaugural Leadership Development Builder's cohort with this amazing group of folks. I am feeling all the feels. The last eight weeks have been so special to share this space with them. We talked about leadership development strategy, needs analysis, curriculum building, experiential learning, innovative best practices. But even more important was the incredible wealth of knowledge and community that this group shared with each other (plus a couple of other lovely folks not pictured here). I launched my cohort program because I know what it's like to build leadership development from the ground-up inside of companies. I wish I would have had a community like this to bounce ideas off of and learn from! To this group: Thank you so much for being my first round. Reading some of your feedback today made all the work I put into this absolutely worth it. The next group launches in April! If you're building leadership development at your company and want to be part of the next round, send me a DM or check out details on my website. It's filling up fast! We started this session with a prompt: what's one win you've had recently? We all celebrated each other's wins. I'm so glad it's recorded so I can go back and watch it again. So I want to know from you too, Linked In friends: What's a win you've had lately? I'd love to keep this celebration train going!