Cultivating tomorrow's leaders should be a priority for execs

The key to cultivating the next leaders of your organization is to work every day to help the candidates get what they need in order to make their next steps.  By “cultivation,” I mean gardening – not training, grooming or developing.  Cultivation takes time, sunshine, water and manure. You should require candidates to make the same investment of themselves.  Any potential leader who isn’t willing to do that should be removed from your list.

To read the rest of this article from Austin Business Journal, see: Cultivating tomorrow’s leaders should be a priority for execs http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2006/08/07/smallb4.html

Sometimes the next steps are easy – mastering and demonstrating specific skills.  The methods for learning may also be easy – training and practice.

More often, though, it’s not that easy.  The biggest challenge is mastering more difficult people skills – for example, making necessary adjustments of personal attitudes, learning how to lead different types of individuals.  You will have to weed out individuals who have poor attitudes – negative, defensive, arrogant, righteous, narcissistic, abusive bullies.

Many small business leaders concentrate on what they’ve been told they need to do in the workplace: develop vision and goals, bring in new clients, oversee daily details and monitor monthly earnings. Their meetings focus on tasks and tactics, on the urgent and daily business.

Since they don’t take time to cultivate their leadership team, they end up complaining that their candidates aren’t stepping up.  But cultivating the personal capabilities and people skills of the individuals they depend on is their most important task.

Managers of leadership candidates can play crucial roles without overburdening their schedules.

The key is offering yourself and your time – continuously, honestly and frankly.  Give up your excuses for not doing this personal, on-going mentoring, such as “too busy, don’t like emotion and personal interactions, I’m a big picture person, the worthy people will learn by themselves.”

If you keep putting off cultivating, you’ll continue being overwhelmed.  And you’ll wonder why your best people don’t develop – or why they quit.

Leaders who overreact can poison workplace, infect staff

Leaders set the tone for the whole workplace.  Like a deadly infection, your emotions and reactions are catching.  Generals who panic will create panicky troops.  It’s the same at work. No, you can’t be yourself if you overreact to sudden changes, crises, bad news or big mistakes.  Your team will also overreact and blow it if you act:

• Agitated, panicky.
• Discouraged, negative, hopeless, helpless.
• Stubborn, stuck.
• Defensive, harassed, victimized, paranoid, abused, explosive, bullying.
• Thrilled by a desperate adrenaline rush.

To read the rest of this article from Business First of Columbus, see: Leaders who overreact can poison workplace, infect staff http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2006/10/16/smallb5.html

Over reactors always have excuses for why they must react the way they do.  But remember the fire drill that every public figure, including athletes and celebrities, must learn in order to be followed – keep your head, have fortitude, persevere.

Don’t get sucked into any situation as if it’s life-or-death, no matter how important you’re afraid it is.  Step back, put it in a long-term context that restores your spirit, and start thinking and strategizing.

Sometimes a walk around the block is enough; sometimes you have to talk it out in order to see the big picture; sometimes you simply have to give up fear and control, and just go for it.

The ultimate goal of all the methods is that you rally yourself so you can rally the troops, no matter how bad the situation appears.

An effective attitude begins with, “We can handle this. Here’s my plan.”  Or you first go to the appropriate leaders, develop the best plan you can and then spread it to the troops.

You need a plan, but you don’t need a perfect, 10-year plan.  Don’t become immobilized by over planning.

By the way, “all-staff” meetings carry an underlying message of overreaction – unless there’s been a public disaster and everyone needs to see the leader calmly, energetically and resolutely explaining the plan for dealing with the situation.

Otherwise, have the manager of each team champion the plan with determination.

Practice courage and strength by taking on challenges and risks.  Be capable of rallying yourself from setbacks and handling seemingly overwhelming crises, or let someone else lead in the face of adversity.

There is an upside; leaders can also set the tone for the good.  Like inherited immunity, calm, vigor and stamina are also catching.  When you’re spirited and resolute, you’re testing everyone else.  People who continue overreacting have to be weeded out before they infect your workplace.

Recession-induced fear and stress stimulate self-bullying

Mostpeople are afraid of the economic forecast.  Some have lost jobs; more will.  Some have lost retirement funds; more will.  Some have lost hope; more will.  Fear and stress stimulate mostpeople to huddle around the campfire, worrying, whining and complaining about their uncertain future.  They convince themselves that they’re too weak and helpless to succeed.  They’re victims together. A long, cold recession or depression is the consensus prediction.  But that’s not the prediction for my life and it doesn’t have to be for yours either.  And that’s not because I have guaranteed money flowing in or I’m sure my business will be immune to the next little ice age.  There’s a different reason.

We each have self bullies.

The little, self-bullying voices:

• Know our every fear and weakness, our every mistake and sin.
• Demean and ridicule us, discourage and depress us.
• Predict failure, as if they want to make us lose hope and give up.
• Don’t like us even though they pretend to be trying to help us.
• That are so persuasive.

We know where we heard those voices that told us they knew better – our parents, relatives, siblings, teachers, ministers, schoolmates, peers.  We know how we made their voices into our self-bullying voices.

I refuse to listen to self bullying.  I refuse to be a victim of my times and circumstances.  You also can rise above mostpeople.

Don’t be a victim of your past.  History is not destiny.  Command yourself.  Ignore self-bullies.  Our self-bullying voices do not know what’s best for us, do not know the future and can’t accurately predict that we’ll fail.

Of course, the economy is lousy and times will be hard.  Most of us won’t be able to maintain our previous standard of living.  Mostpeople are angry because they thought they were guaranteed increasing wealth and security if they did things right.

We haven’t been trained to survive a depression.  So what?  We can survive and even thrive.

Think about what our ancestors survived.  There has always been rotten weather like recessions and depressions, poverty and war.  They’re part of the natural weather cycles – hurricanes, tornadoes, snow and ice storms, avalanches, droughts or floods, earthquakes and tsunamis.  There have also been plagues, famine, pestilence and war.

If we let recession-induced fear and self bullying sap our strength and will, we won’t have the right stuff, we won’t act skillfully and the economic tide will pull us under.  We have within us the inheritance of an unbroken line of people who thrived.  We have within us the seeds of strength, courage and joy.

These economic ice ages have happened in America before.  For example, economic crashes occurred in about 1787, 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1897, 1907 and the great depression from 1929-1941.  The rest of the world had similar experiences.

What can we do when we get down on ourselves?  We need WILL and SKILL.

• In order to succeed, we must choose to ignore self bullying, choose to command ourselves, choose to create the futures we want, no matter what the circumstances.  As individuals, we must have the WILL to persevere, with grit, determination and resilience.

Call that hyper-critical, fear-mongering side of us a “self-bully” so we’ll react with passion and power against it.  So we’ll rally ourselves against its words.  We wouldn’t lie down in front of those old bullies and we wouldn’t let ourselves be abused by bullies now.

• We need SKILL to ignore our self-bullying voices – turn off the discouraging TV; stop listening to people moaning, whining and complaining; stop listening to victim stories.  Walk away politely from mostpeople who wallow in the dumps of fear and panic.  If you’ve kept your job, don’t wallow in survivor’s guilt.  Get off the emotional roller coaster.

Find friends who don’t waste their time worrying about the economy, but instead handle things in as little time and with as little wasted energy as possible.  Find friends with inner lights that give them joy even when they don’t have all the comforts and toys they once did.  Become such a friend.

When the self bullying voices start again, tell them we’ve heard all that before and if they want to help us, they can use a different voice and become encouraging coaches that strengthen our spirits.  Fill the IMAX screen of our minds with the future we hope we’ll have and the friends we want in our lives.  Throw ourselves into activities like physical exercise.  Don’t feed our addictions; eat well.  Feed our spirits with movies, music and books that lift up our spirits and renew our energy.

• We need SKILL to make plans to keep our jobs or find others, to spend less while still treating our spirits better.  We need skill to get over our feelings, plans and expectations.  Loss of riches, comforts and dreams is not really the end of the world.  Get going again.

Find a coach to keep your spirits up and organize your efforts.  Read the self-bullying section in "How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks."

While the growing recession is the world in which I function, it’s not the world in which I live.  I invite you wonderful people to enter the world that is waiting for you, if you but have the courage to take the first steps.

"What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."    Ralph Waldo Emerson

Getting over parents who wound their children: the 2nd stage of growing up and leaving home

Obviously there are great parents.  And there are children who repeatedly wound their parents.  But let’s focus on parents who repeatedly wounded their children … and still continue to bully and control them even after the children have become adults. Whether that’s done consciously and intentionally, or the parents are righteous and oblivious to the effects they’re having, or they think that they’re preparing their children to be humble and moral or to face a hostile world, the pain is real and the effects can last for decades.

Before we review a typical case study and offer the keys to moving on and creating the life you want, let me ask, have you been wounded by your parents?

In general, boys are wounded just as much as girls, but let’s look at Irene.  She’s now a skilled and competent nurse, but getting there was a long struggle.  Her parents relentlessly belittled, denigrated and punished her.  They didn’t hit her often, but they forced her to do everything their way.  They knew best and were always right; she was always wrong.  They said that her character and personality was fundamentally flawed.  Despite everything they did for her benefit, they knew she’d never be a good or successful person.  She’d always be a loser.

In response to their hostile criticism, emotional blackmail and verbal abuse, Irene became insecure and shy.  Although she was very mature and competent in her professional life, when she faced her parents, she became a little girl again.  She was intimidated by their certainty and rules.  Facing these bullies, Irene became a self-bully; bullied by the old attitudes, beliefs, rules and critical voices she carried in her head.

Irene was like so many other wounded people in life-long therapy.  She was completely focused on her parents’ continuing bullying, on resisting them, on hating them, on finally pleasing them, on getting past them.  She gnawed on the bone of her parents endlessly.  She was depressed and sometimes suicidal.  She thought she needed repeated catharsis to keep functioning.

The relationship with her parents consumed her life.  Irene kept trying to convince them to give in to her and to approve of her so she could feel good.  She just wanted them to be fair and reasonable … and to like and appreciate her.  She thought she mustn’t ever create a safe distance from them even though they still bullied her.  The guilt would be overwhelming.

Let’s focus on the perspective that gave Irene back her life.  I think there are developmental transitions we all go through.  The first stage of growing up and leaving home is when we leave physically.  Most of us go to school, get jobs, get stuff (homes and cars), get spouses or partners, get children, get debts … get self-supporting.  We often move away so we can spread our wings without our parents’ eagle eyes on us.  Then we think we’ve become free and independent adults.  Externally, maybe.

We usually make this outer transition between the ages of 16-35.  When did you?

But that’s only the first transition.  There’s a second, necessary transition before we become truly unique, independent selves.  In this transition, we clean out the internal mental, emotional and spiritual homes we gave our parents.  We discard everything we took in when we were children.  And we take in what fits us now.  Some of the attitudes and ideas may be the same as our parents have, but much of it will be different.

In this transition, we get over our parents.  The present and the future we want to create become the focus of our world.  Our parents aren’t the focus any more.  They no longer fill up our world.  We move them off to the side or into the background, whether they like it or not.

Now we can take in attitudes and ideas as adults; adjusting them with our adult experience and wisdom.  Children take in ideas as black-or-white, all-or-none RULES, and apply those rules everywhere.  There’s no gray for them.  Adults know there’s gray in many areas.  We all did our best and it was good enough to keep us alive and get us to where we are now.  But we didn’t have the experience to judge with wisdom.  We misunderstood, misinterpreted and had very narrow visions.  We were kids.

This second transition is usually age and life-stage dependent.  For example, our careers reach a plateau, we can see the children leaving home, we become middle-aged, we notice the same, repeating life patterns and lessons, or we wonder if we’ll ever fulfill our heart’s desire.

Are you there yet?

When we’ve done this, we’re no longer controlled by our parents’ voices, rules, beliefs and attitudes.  We have our own view of life and what’s important for us and how we can get it.  We can create the life we’ve wanted, independent of whether they like it or not.  We may or may not reject them; we’re simply not controlled by them or by having to be like or different from them.  We make up our own minds.

When Irene saw her life’s movement with this perspective, she heaved a sigh of relief.  She wasn’t a loser or flawed sinner caught forever in an insoluble bind.  Her parents’ opinions of her faults and what she needed to do were merely their personal opinions, shaped by their upbringing.  Nothing more truthful or important than personal opinions.  She no longer put them on a pedestal.

She wasn’t helpless.  The situation wasn’t hopeless.  She was normal.  She just had to persevere in order to create a life that she could call her own.  And if her parents didn’t like it; so what?  They didn’t get to vote.  If they wanted to get close to her, they have to pass the tests of her 9 Circles of Trust.

Some people get this in a blinding flash when they’re relatively young.  For Irene, it took much longer.  The transition wasn’t easy for her but it was do-able.  She felt free and light, like a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders.  She was always stubborn.  Now she could use her stubbornness to persevere.  The light at the end of her tunnel was the life she’d always wanted to live.

She won’t let her parents wound her any more.  The big difference from decades ago was that now she was just as tall as they were.  She was an adult.  Keeping herself safe from them was more important than old rules that had led her to accept their abuse and control.  When she made her parents’ opinion unimportant and she turned to face the light at the end of her tunnel, she could feel her wounds healing, as wounds naturally do when no one is picking at the scabs.

Where are you with your parents?  Where are you with your own growing independence?