Day 7

Day 7: Every day forever-after The LeaderShape Institute

Our friend and University of Michigan program coordinator shared with us that they recognize Day 7 on the 7^th of every month. We LOVE this idea and are going to join in on it.

Like the University of Michigan, on the 7^th of each month we are going to ask folks to wear their LeaderShape gear (shirts, hats, jackets, etc.) as a reminder of everything that was learned and discovered during The LeaderShape Institute. We hope you’ll post and tweet some pictures for people to see! Your picture may remind others of their own experience. We also encourage you to take a moment to talk with someone about how The LeaderShape Institute has influenced how you live and lead. Wear it and share it!

We’ll also be sharing a Day 7 blog post each month. We hope these posts will provide you with some things to think about, talk about, and basically move you to act! Because if LeaderShapers aren’t out in the world making a difference, who is?

Additionally, we’ve begun a couple of email campaigns meant to inspire, motivate, and inform. You can look at it as a few moments to reconnect with LeaderShape and propel you forward in your daily life and in your efforts to help us to create a just, caring, thriving world. If you’d like to sign up, visit here.

For folks who haven’t attended The LeaderShape Institute, you can still join in on Day 7! All you have to do is connect with something that you truly, deeply care about and take action on it. Talk about it, learn more about it, make a plan to do something about it! You don’t have to have attended The LeaderShape Institute to do good work in the world.

Here’s to Day 7! We hope you’ll join us along the way.

Boston Bound

39 sessions of the LeaderShape Institute are happening in May. Included in that count is our first National Session of 2012. We are headed to the Connors Family Retreat and Conference Center and will kick off the session on Sunday, May 20. Faculty will arrive on Friday and will spend the day on Saturday getting ready for the over 60 participants who will be spending six days living in a state of possibility and place of integrity.

That’s not all that will be going on while we are in Boston. Our Board of Trustees will be convening for a meeting in town as well. It will be our first meeting with recent graduates of the program sitting on the Board.

Not long ago, LeaderShape put out a call to recent graduates inviting them to apply to serve as a member of our Board of Trustees. After combing through many, many outstanding applications, two LeaderShapers were selected - Roger Chen and Jonathan Naber. Roger attended The LeaderShape Institute in 2010 at the University of Michigan and Jonathan participated in 2009 at the University of Illinois.

But wait! There’s more! (smile)

Since so many people are going to be in town, we thought it would be a great chance to bring LeaderShapers from the Boston area together by holding a reunion and reception on Monday, May 21. If you are in the area and want to join us, please do! You can find the details here.

So many wonderful people working towards so many wonderful things! We. Are. Excited. And we hope that wherever you are, and whatever touch you are having with LeaderShape, that you are excited about the possibilities before us all.

Tell Your Story—In a Book!

The authors of Exploring Leadership: For College Students Who Want to Make a Difference (and friends of LeaderShape) are working on the third edition of the book and they need your help!
The authors are seeking 100-200 word “essays” written by student leaders describing actual events that they have experienced.  They are particularly interested in essays on the following topics:

•    Understanding Yourself as a Leader
•    Understanding Others as a Leader
•    Components of the Relational Leadership Model -

• Being Inclusive as a Leader
• Being Empowering as a Leader
• Being Purposeful as a Leader
• Being Ethical as a Leader
• The Process of Leadership
  

•    Leading with Integrity
•    Leading in Communities
•    Leading in Groups and Teams
•    Leading Organizations
•    Leading Change
•    Renewing Yourself as a Leader
 

Submissions should be sent to Tim McMahon by mid-June. Essays included in the book will be printed with the students name and institution.

We hope you’ll consider sharing your story and/or passing this information on to student leaders you know.

The Role of Optimism in Leadership

One of my favorite quotes about effective leadership comes from a book, Resonant Leadership. In the book, Boyatzis & Mckee, suggest that “Optimism is a way of looking at life…this outlook actually influences how you feel and what you think about things that happen to you and around you. Optimistic people tend to believe that good things will happen, and when bad things do happen, that the situation is bound to change for the better fairly quickly." Leadership scholar Warren Bennis said it like this -  "In short, every exemplary leader that I have met has what seems to be an unwarranted degree of optimism – and that helps generate the energy and commitment  necessary to achieve results." So here's a question, How are you perceived by others? Are you viewed as an individual with a hopeful and positive outlook? A person who envisions an exciting future? A leader who breaths life into the organization and its members? Or, are you perceived by others as a negative force. An energy drain?

Now, do not get me wrong, an unrealistic sense of optimism can be detrimental to organization as well. Overly optimistic people may have a difficult time confronting the brutal facts or facing the challenges inherent in each organization. However, the unique individual who carefully balances the realities of organizational life with an optimistic outlook is a powerful force. Optimism energizes others toward a better future in a powerful way. So as you reflect on your role as a leader or even leaders who have come in and out of your life…think about their general outlook and the tone you set with others.



This post comes to you from Lead Facilitator Scott Allen.

Anyone Can Make Facilitative Contributions

 

At the LeaderShape Institute or Catalyst, it’s easy to know who the facilitators are… it’s in their titles: Lead Facilitator, Cluster Facilitator, etc.  But just as leadership is more about how you behave than what your title is, so is facilitation about the contributions you make regardless of your role
Break down the word facilitation and you find two components:  facile which means easy and ation or actions.  So simply put, facilitation is defined as actions that make things easier.  So what is facilitation trying to make easier? Possibilities include:

• Individuals working together more effectively 
• Diverse perspectives being more thoroughly explored
• Individuals feeling comfortable contributing and speaking up
• Groups efficiently accomplishing more and in less time
• Creative thinking and innovative solutions emerging
• Individuals exercising greater ownership over discussions and accountability for decisions reached.
  

Just because we sometimes have individuals designated as facilitators doesn't mean everyone else can abdicate the responsibility they have for the group to function well.  And if you are in a formal position of leadership, you can draw on the values, beliefs, and techniques of facilitators to more effectively engage those you are leading in the work that needs to be done. These include: 

• Using active listening skills including paraphrasing, summarizing, reflecting, and questioning; 
• Encouraging and generating participative discussion in groups;
• Stimulating creative thinking through brainstorming/other idea-generation processes; 
• Ensuring strategic consideration of alternatives and informed decision-making of appropriate choices;
• Managing contrasting perspectives that might result in conflict among members of a group; 
• Intervening with individuals and groups without taking total control of the situation;
• Designing meeting processes to accomplish a wide range of goals and objectives;
• Drawing out others' opinions in an objective and nonjudgmental manner;
• Supporting teams in various stages of group development;
• Helping individuals and groups reflect on their experiences and capture relevant learning; and
• Leading/desigingn inclusive group processes that honor different learning styles Help shape more powerful and strategic questions for exploration.
  

As Roger Schwarz says in his book, The Skilled Facilitator,"Being a facilitative leader means changing how you think in order to change the consequences you help create."  So think about the groups and teams that you are a part of: (1) What are the consequences you want to help create?  (2) What would be required for that to occur in each group? (3)What shifts in your thinking might help you do contribute to the group doing so? 

 

Interested in learning more?

Every Friday throughout 2012, Jeffrey Cufaude (a former cluster and lead facilitator) is offering a post at his blog that explores some aspect of facilitation in order to help you change how you think, and ultimately, change the consequences you help create. http://www.ideaarchitects.org Search for posts labeled facilitationfriday.

Descriptions of Jeffrey’s six favorite facilitation resources can be found here: http://bit.ly/facilitationresources

Values – an International Experience…

In July of 2002 I had my first encounter with LeaderShape by serving as a Cluster Facilitator at Allerton. I’ve described to many friends and a colleague working in Student Affairs administration that serving as a Cluster Facilitator was really one of the best gift had been given because of all of the shared learning that resulted from that wonderful experience.  In 2007 I had a second opportunity to serve as a Cluster Facilitator in Doha, Qatar when I was working in Student Affairs with the Qatar Foundation (QF). As a result of collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University – Qatar, QF was afforded the opportunity to sponsor the first LeaderShape in an international context. It was an amazing experience and I felt very fortunate to be a part of it.

I have heard it said that you have to leave your culture to really truly come to know it. I found that to be true for me while living as an expatriate in the Middle East. I learned that leading with integrity and being committed to a particular set of values was just as relevant, and important to my friends in Qatar, as it was to me coming from a North American cultural context.  Thank you LeaderShape® for teaching me time and time again the value of leading with integrity – this is a life-long gift for which I will always be thankful!

-Kevin

Kevin Konecny has served as a Cluster Facilitator for The LeaderShape Institute at a national session in Illinois as well as at the first session for the Qatar Foundation in Doha, Qatar. He has also played in integral part in bringing the program to Seminole State College of Florida. Kevin's next adventure is an entrepreneurial one as he transitions from higher education to the CEO and Managing Partner of I Repair Now, LLC.

One Word 2012

I bought this card several years ago because I liked the saying. I decided to frame it , and keep it on my desk as a reminder for those moments when self-doubt began to creep in. And while that sounds like a great idea, if I am truthful, it really has served more as a decoration than an inspiration. Sure, I understand that leaping, or stretching yourself, is a good idea. But the net that I often imagine has large person sized holes, just big enough for me and my ideas to slide right on through.

As I reflected on my 2011, I knew that I wanted some sort of jump start for 2012. I had had some really awesome life altering experiences over the past 12 months (LeaderShape being one of them), but I hadn’t really figured out how to make the changes I knew needed to be made. I was feeling stuck. Feeling full of potential and promise, but not sure where that potential and promise needed to go. A New Year’s resolution felt too limiting. There were lots of individual things I wanted to focus on, and choosing only one felt like I was taking the easy way out. I also felt that a resolution might limit my success because my hyper focus on one goal would take away from seeing the other possibilities that were available. That’s when I decided to jump on board with the One Word (http://myoneword.org/) movement.

My one word for 2012 is brave (http://julieclarsen.com/2012/01/01/reverbbroads11-wrap-up/). Each time I am unsure about something new, I remind myself, be brave. And being brave doesn’t mean that I know it’s going to turn out okay, or that I know I will succeed without any challenges. To me, being brave means that at the end of every day I know that I have stayed true to my authentic self, whether that meant taking a risk, speaking up for my ideals, or saying “no” when I knew I already had too much on my plate. Being brave means not waiting until you know the outcome will turn out the way you’d like, but instead taking that chance while you can still affect the outcome.

“When we consider we are ready, it is already too late.” - Paulo Coelho

The net may not be where any of us want or hope it to be, but the reward for being brave enough to take the risk will always be there to catch you.

Julie Larsen served as Cluster Facilitator in June of 2011. She currently works as an Academic Advisor for the University of Texas at Dallas and Community Manager for AlumniChoose.org. You can find her on Twitter @julieclarsen.