Sharing Courage

I've written about the interplay between Fear & Courage before, but I recently came across some new ideas related to courage and encouragement and thought those might be a good follow up to last week's thoughts on Help!

I've actually heard two new ideas related to courage that are related, so let me describe each one and then see if we can connect the dots with a fun story.

En-Courage: To Give Courage

I was chatting with some leaders last week and as we were talking one of them said they found it so helpful when they understood that to en-courage someone was to actually give them some courage.  Now, that may seem like a "No duh, Stephen!" to you, but it felt like it really opened up an insight for me. Maybe I've always viewed encouragement as a simple way to help someone else feel supported or like I had their back, but this made me think that what I am actually doing is working to actually increase their courage within themselves. That is an insight that helps me think about en-couragement more as a powerful part of em-powerment, where I am actually trying to support someone in using their own power, which might require me passing them some of my courage for them to use.  

Borrowing Courage

Sometimes I think we need to be able to borrow courage from another individual or group of people in order to help us keep moving. We may not have enough courage in our own hearts, so we need to reach out and borrow some from others we trust. Maybe they can see things from a different perspective, or they've actually accomplished this task in front of us that is requiring some extra courage, but whatever the case may be, there are times when we need to borrow a cup of courage from our neighbor to help us keep moving forward.

I think you can see how these two ideas match up pretty well, but let's see if the story helps bring it all together.

I recently witnessed a situation in which an adult was trying to encourage a young person to take a risk and be a bit more adventurous on a trail.  The younger one had been pretty brave up to a certain point but had allowed fear to cause them to stop and not go any further (they froze). The adult started with some simple verbal en-couragement, giving reassuring messages to try and empower the younger person to keep moving on their own power.  However, at one point the adult also came over and took the hand of the young person, which was this powerful act of actually being able to borrow courage from the adult.  Through both the en-couragement of the adult, and the ability to borrow courage by the young person, they were able to finish out the trail together!

As you reflect on your life right now, where do you think you can be an en-courager? Is there a particular person who comes to mind that you are wanting to continue to support and empower? How might you give them some extra courage to keep climbing? Maybe you are in a situation that has just about got you locked up and frozen in place? Is there someone nearby or a trusted colleague or friend who's maybe been down this road before that you might be able to "grab their hand" and borrow some of their courage to keep moving? 

Here's to Sharing Courage on the trail this week!

Be Well,

Stephen

Center was created to support individuals and teams so they can live from their Purposeful Center.  We specialize in professional coaching and leadership development and we’d love to support you!  Click on our Services page to book a free consultation.

Help!

I was chatting with some leaders last week about how important it is to ask for Help when we need it. But we also admitted how hard that can be because it can give the perception of being weak, especially as the leader!  However, I would like to propose that one of the greatest signs of strength and wisdom in a leader is when they admit they may not know something and ask for Help from others.

Let's think about it like this, as a person grows in their leadership capacity they are often taking on greater responsibility. All of those areas of responsibility may not be tasks they are completing themselves, but they are responsible for making sure they are getting handled somewhere.  And some of the best leaders I know surround themselves with people in those areas who are experts at those tasks.

For example, I have a number of friends who are CEOs or Executive Directors of their organizations. Part of their responsibility is to oversee the budgeting and financial planning, but several of them aren't wizards at Excel! If they were tasked with creating all of the financial reporting documents and procedures, the company would fall apart! But they have surrounded themselves with other people who are Excel wizards (by the way, maybe that should be a new official title?!). The CEOs are responsible for the budgeting process/oversight, but the other individuals take ownership for the task of putting it all together in an appropriate way.  So, when the CEO needs a report for the board, or a meeting in the community, they reach out - Help!  

Here's the thing, could my friends become Excel Wizards if they had enough time? Sure, but how much time might that take, and would that be the best use of their time? Instead, they realize they don't have to be an expert on everything, and it's actually a sign of strength to depend on their fellow team members and trust them to Help!

As you think about all of your areas of responsibility, where could you turn for some Help? Who might be in your circle of teammates that might have different strengths and gifts than you? What would it take to remind yourself that asking for Help isn't a sign of weakness, but it's actually a sign of great strength?

Here's to asking for Help this week!

Be Well,

Stephen

Center was created to support individuals and teams so they can live from their Purposeful Center.  We specialize in professional coaching and leadership development and we’d love to support you!  Click on our Services page to book a free consultation.

Practical Authority

We've been looking at ideas around power and authority the past few weeks. So far, we've examined the differences between Positional & Relational Authority, and the healthy Sharing of Authority.  In this installment I want to think about some practical ways that healthy authority can be utilized. To help with this process, I want to touch on two areas of application.

Credit/Blame

In his classic book, Good to Great, Jim Collins has a powerful chapter describing what he calls Level 5 Leaders.  One of the characteristics of these truly great leaders is what they do with taking credit and assigning blame.  In almost every study he conducted, Collins found these leaders were quick to pass along credit to other people on their team or in their company when things went well. Very rarely did they take credit for any successes that were being achieved. In contrast, when things went wrong, they didn't point fingers at others but took the blame for what was happening on themselves, even if they didn't have anything directly to do with the problem. Very rarely did these leaders ever throw anyone else under the bus. In other words, even though these leaders were often the people at the top of the org chart with the most positional authority and maximum power, they gave away as much credit as possible and took as much blame as possible.

Praise/Correction

I wish I could remember where I first heard this approach to using your authority in correcting or giving praise to a teammate, but I've never forgotten it! This adage simply says, "Praise in public. Correct in private." This practical approach to using authority actively looks for opportunities to tell someone you believe in them, or you are grateful for the job they are doing. It can include naming a strength or characteristic of an individual or group for who they are and what they bring to the team or organization.  In contrast, this approach recognizes that whenever you need to give someone some constructive criticism or direction on correcting a behaving or job performance issue, that is best handled in a private settings where there isn't as much of an opportunity for shame or embarrassment to arise.

As you consider these two practical ways to use authority, which area of focus would make the most impact if you were to give it some attention? Is there a particular situation, person or context that comes to your mind where it would be helpful to either give away some credit or take on the blame? What about praise and correction? Who could use a boost right now by giving them some important and authentic praise in front of others? Do you need to give some constructive feedback or make a correction with someone? How could you do that in a strategic way that was more private so you don't bring about an opportunity for embarrassment?

Here's to using our Authority Practically this week!

Be Well,

Stephen

Center was created to support individuals and teams so they can live from their Purposeful Center.  We specialize in professional coaching and leadership development and we’d love to support you!  Click on our Services page to book a free consultation.