First Quarter, 2006   Volume 1; Issue 1

 

Table Of Contents
New Beginnings
Coaching Corner
Advice on Leadership
Be Sense-able
Favorite Quote
Guest Author

Deb Siverson founded X2ponents, a company whose mission is to dramatically impact and transform leadership in organizations.

 

New Beginnings Deb Siverson

Spring is a time for renewal, hope, and new beginnings. The release of X2ponents' first newsletter is a new beginning for us, primarily in the way we communicate with our colleagues and friends. It is an important milestone on the road to what X2ponents is evolving into. Our hope is that each edition of Exposed adds insight, value, or at the very least, a brief respite from the challenges of your daily life (for a two-minute respite, click the rotating circle on our regularly featured "Exhalation Point", located on the left-hand side of this page). Our intent is to provide you with fresh ideas, moments of renewal and rediscovery, and ideas for creating more of what you want in your business and personal life.

We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Coaching Corner Deb Siverson

Coaching is a powerful tool that accelerates performance and breaks through self-limitations to propel individuals to realize their full potential. For this reason, coaching has exploded as a profession, and as a desired management practice in the past several years. Art Shirk describes the power of coaching in his white paper, The Organizational Impact of Co-Active Coaching (read Art's white paper in this month's edition of Exposed); "Coaching enables managers to translate personal learning and insight into improved effectiveness, improves retention, and increases the effectiveness of the links between self-development, management development and organizational effectiveness (Wales 2003)." Coaching that supports this level of personal learning and insight, and develops accountability structures that move insight into action, fosters individual and organizational transformation, and research supports that this transformation translates, quite literally, to bottom-line results. Why then, is implementing consistent coaching discussions between managers and their team members so challenging?

In Daniel Goleman's book, Primal Leadership, he describes leader coaches as able to help team members link their personal and career aspirations with long-term development goals that play on strengths, and

close the gaps on weaknesses. And yet, "despite the commonly held belief that every leader needs to be a good coach, leaders tend to exhibit this (leadership) style least often. In these high-pressure, tense times, leaders say they 'don't have the time' for coaching. By ignoring this style, however, they pass up a powerful tool." Too often, coaching doesn't happen as often as organizations would like, and potential goes unrecognized and unrealized. It may be time for new and creative coaching approaches, not to dismiss the leader's critical role in coaching, but rather in finding new ways to support the individual in receiving coaching more often.

Powerful coaching that creates these opportunities for transformation can happen in coaching relationships between managers and their direct reports, through peer coaching relationships, or through the use of external coaches, in individual and group settings. In my opinion, regardless, the coach should help clarify choices, create action plans, assign accountabilities, and monitor results that support individuals as they become more effective, resourceful, satisfied, and productive in their careers and personal lives. To learn more about coaching, contact us for a 30-minute demonstration at info@xponents.biz.

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Advice on Leadership Deb Siverson

Less than one week before I attended the second in a series of four leadership retreats last year, I received an e-mail from my brother, Mike. I responded, and over the next several days we bantered back and forth, making small talk, me telling him I was about to go away again for another week of learning, and him letting me know he would take the summer off from school, to spend more time with his wife and young daughter. In the last of these correspondences, two sentences away from goodbye, Mike wrote, “I took a class in leadership last semester, and have had the topic on my mind regularly. I would love to listen to any advice that you have.” These were quite nearly the last words I ever heard from my brother. Mike ended his life on May 27th, 2005. This article is the “advice” I wish I could have given Mike, and it’s an important topic for people like him and me, that “have the topic on our minds regularly.”

I have been in various management and leadership positions for over twenty years. I have attended more classes and seminars than I can count and read more books than I can remember. Yet here I sit, pondering this question again. What is leadership? Perhaps even more relevant, what kind of leader am I – to myself, for my family, in this world? What have I been called to do? Am I making a meaningful difference? Am I leading with integrity? I consider these questions now and the many ways I make an impact – or not. I took a stab at defining leadership, about a year ago. As I mentioned earlier, I was privileged to participate in a yearlong leadership program, and as part of my initial application, I was asked to submit a written definition of leadership. I wrote, “Leadership is consistently taking conscious action that impacts, influences, or contributes to the success of an individual (including oneself), a system, and/or community.” Today, a year later, I would add, “with clarity of purpose, caring, and consideration of contrary perspectives.”

It is this place of deep caring that I believe truly defines a leader. Yes, they must be wise, knowledgeable, skillful, and able to strategize and rally the team around individual and collective objectives. They must ensure excellence in execution. They must model the behaviors that they expect from others. Yet I contend that what separates a good leader from a great leader is the leader’s willingness to let go of self interest and see what is most needed for the collective team. Without this ability to take the focus off

self and focus on others, the leadership lacks substance and the inspirational quality that creates transformation. It lacks connectedness.

I have been privileged to learn by seeing leaders that connect and transform others because they believe in the power of people, and have hearts filled with compassion, caring, and belief in the possibilities.

Below are a few of the traits I notice that great leaders demonstrate:

  • They are role models, exemplifying the action and behaviors they want others to follow.
  • They expect excellence from their team and themselves and walk with intention. They know their own strengths and weaknesses, and leverage strengths while managing weaknesses.
  • They expose the possibilities. They see opportunity and point us in a direction that reveals the truth. They show us not by telling, but rather by asking provocative questions that light our path with fresh insight.
  • They expel fear and doubt. They challenge us to see “it” for what “it” is –Nothing more than what is between our next big accomplishment and us. They believe we have the power to move through it.
  • They excel at improving performance because they care enough to be honest, forthright, and direct, knowing we deserve the truth from a place of compassion and caring.

If I had another opportunity to discuss leadership with my brother, I would say that it’s about knowing yourself and what you stand for. It's about finding ways to have an impact on the world by using your unique gifts and talents. It's about speaking the truth.

Deb Siverson is the founder and co-leader of Michael's Gate, a non-profit organization that has developed a leadership program for 10 to 12-year olds. The first week-long leadership retreat will take place during the first week of June, 2006, in the Colorado mountains. To learn more about Michael's Gate, please contact info@michaelsgate.org.

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Be Sense-able
Look:
The 8th Habit, Stephen R. Covey
Poems New and Collected, Wistawa Szymborska
The Wish List, Barbara Ann Kipfer
Listen:
Let It Die, Feist
Canyon Trilogy, R. Carlos Nakai
Her Best, Etta James
Taste:
Fresh bread, hot from the oven
A glass of champagne
Asparagus and artichokes
Deviled eggs
Smell:
In your local flower shop (or flowerbed), experience the smells of spring
Force-bloom cherry blossoms or crabapple branches indoors
Take a walk in the rain
Learn more about essential oil www.aromaweb.com
Feel:
Dig in the garden
Fly a kite
Visit the zoo
Slip into an outdoor hot tub

 

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Favorite Quote
"No one can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." (Unknown)

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Guest Author

Please read Arthur Shirk's white paper,
Organizational Impact of Co-Active Coaching

Arthur Shirk, PCC, CPCC is a faculty member of the Coaches Training Institute and leader of the Co-Active Leadership Program. He is completing his doctoral degree at Columbia University in adult education, focusing his research on transformative learning and leadership. Leadership roles he has held in organizations include Vice President of Learning and Communications at Fidelity Investments and Senior Director of Learning and Leading at Princeton University. He holds an MBA from Boston University, and leads a consulting and coaching practice in Natick, Massachusetts.

You can reach Art at http://www.artshirk.com

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