Interesting read by Shelby Lorman on Thrive Global describing a new study published in Human Relations that looks at how we learned our work-life balance behaviors and suggests that there is a correlation between our own work-life balance and what we learned from our parents. Whether we learned through observation and experience or through direct messaging, adult study participants indicated that their own habits in work-life balance were influenced by the nuclear families in which they were raised.

Growing up in a modest, blue-collar home with a working dad and mostly stay-at-home mom, I was raised with the notion that I would go to college (as the youngest child and first to do so in the family) and have a successful career and happy family.  My mother would share her “dream” that I would become a high-powered business woman, have a loving husband and smart, beautiful children.  I would have it all. She’d been denied the opportunity to pursue higher education through life circumstances and nothing would prevent me from achieving that dream (whether I wanted it or not).

That message was told to me for as long as I can remember by both my mother and my paternal grandmother who lived with us. My grandma would tell me, “I just want to live long enough to see you graduate from college,” and her dream was for me to attend Vassar, a stone’s throw from where she raised her family, a school she believed was the end-all-be-all for young women to achieve success. Sadly, she died when I was 12 and I did not attend Vassar, but it was one of the first places I visited in NY because I wanted to see this magical place that my grandma believed would change my life.

My mom and grandma’s dreams for my education and career was how my life was “storied” into my family and it became reality.  Mom encouraged me to pursue a degree in business and later encouraged my career as a working mother, but she thought that should be the “happily ever after.” Not realizing that when you groom someone to value education and seek achievement, there is no end point at which they’re satisfied that they’ve learned enough or achieved enough.  When I invited her to my master’s graduation, she told me she didn’t think I’d been serious about this school thing, and what did I need another degree for? What would that get me?  Didn’t I have enough?

And of course when I enrolled in a doctorate, the message by that point was, “now you’re just being selfish, this is ridiculous. What about your husband and kids, aren’t they more important than another degree?”

I’m confident now that my mom appreciates the value of my education and the happiness, sense of achievement and satisfaction this journey has brought for me and my family–a work-life balance that is still a challenge but better than it could ever have been had I stopped so many years ago.  And when I see her again in the next life, I know she’ll tell me so.

We asked ourselves: What do I do in a mindless way that interferes with my effectiveness as a leader? My #1 mindless action that interferes?
Processing out-loud. Occasionally when I’m presented with a question for which I don’t have an answer, I’ll think out loud until I work out an answer. At which time I might see a look on the other person’s face asking, “What the *h3!!& is she talking about?”

“A mindful leader embodies leadership presence by cultivating focus, clarity creativity and compassion in the service of others. Janet Marturano, Finding the space to lead.“

And I loved an idea from the TLT organization at Portland State University: Once a month, they schedule a catch-up day, calendars are blocked off and people can work wherever they want (on campus) to get caught-up.  Maybe once a month is too often to start, but the idea of once a semester would be fun to try.

Closing with a pic I took on a flight in a 182 traveling above the Hudson Valley. I’d like to put more opportunities in my path for reflection and mindfulness on a regular basis.

This topic, in a nutshell, is why I most wanted to come to this Institute.  I’ve led successful teams, but leading leaders of teams (and leading leaders of teams who lead leaders of teams) can be challenging to ensure that clarity of communication flows bi-directionally, and because I’m a people-pleaser, learning to overcome the feeling that you have to please all the people all the time.  At LTLI we learned about the needs of followers: (based on reams of Gallup survey data):

Using my strengths (as determined by the Gallup Strengths Finder instrument), the best way to do this is to:

1. Listen!
2. Feedback that is valuable and constructive
3. Coach

And certainly not the last thing we learned but the last thing I’ll share here is one “truism” for working in a team: Share your personal user manual (ie, how you operate). Don’t leave people guessing what to expect from you, be up front about what you expect, what you will and won’t tolerate and how best to communicate with you.  In other words, ask your team members what their likes and dislikes are and share yours.

Better knowledge and communication is key.

Note to self: You can’t please all the people all of the time, but you can exhaust yourself trying.

Wow! What a day!  Our heads are swimming with the wisdom, insight and knowledge being shared by the faculty at this Institute, and we’re greedily taking it all in and trying to sort and contextualize for our own situations and purposes.  While there was so much value in everything we did and learned (even the hilarious team horse-drawing exercise in which our team’s horse ended up looking like a pregnant pooping pinocchio dog named Sea Misty of Long Beach), a few of the many take-aways from today:

1. On leadership: “If it’s hard, you’re probably doing it right.” And some days, leading is hard.
2. On influencing: “The first follower transforms the lone nut into a leader” … the dancing guy video demonstrates the value of influence and the importance of followers to create a movement. Okay, so this is a flaky example, but illustrative because some days we feel like the lone nut waiting for others to join the dance.
3. Using “Yes, and …” and “How might we…” exercises to encourage and engage our staff and stakeholders in conversations around possibility and change.
4. Our group MTC (Make the Case) exercise very quickly brought together five strangers from across the globe (six, including our faculty mentor) and built a collaborative team of colleagues and friends.

In terms of contextualizing what I’m learning, it will take some ‘noodling’ to put the pieces together but I can already envision how to use some of these strategies to make inroads on organizational challenges.

Looking forward to what tomorrow brings.

This week I’m attending the Educause Learning Technology Leadership Institute, an intensive week-long event designed to build leadership capacity with individuals like myself who lead or aspire to lead similar organizations. I’m inspired to continue with this blog (which I never gave up on, just didn’t prioritize the time to keep it going). My key take-aways from today:

1. My leadership journey is not unique, others have experienced similar circuitous and frustrating routes to get where they’re at.
2. Map people’s values to the organizational strategy;
3. When people are operating ‘below the line’, it may be because one of the following feels threatened: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness or Fairness.

More reflections tomorrow!

January 2015 – trip to Minneapolis, spent a wonderful week with my sons. 

February 2015 – Enjoyed good times with great colleagues

March 2015 – Conference in DC and spent time with old friends.

April 2015 – Hosted the TLT Colloquium with speaker Bryan Alexander.

Re-joined Civil Air Patrol to participate with my daughter and husband.

May 2015 – Another trip to Minneapolis for Mother’s Day

Long Island Adventure Race I – provided race safety and security and ran the event with Team 10

June – Visit from my ‘Big Sis’ Theresia 

Camping!! My favorite summer activity.

July – Summer beach fun, after-work libations with colleagues and three new additions to our family, Apollo, Artemis and Hermes.

August – Happy Anniversary!

September – More Long Island Adventure Race 2 fun, saying goodbye to a good colleague, and teaching MBA students in Manhattan

October – Disney!

November – Fun in Manhattan, coaching two CyberPatriot teams and hosting a women’s leadership Institute.

December – Great end to a great year! Laying Wreaths Across America at Calverton National Cemetery, work holiday party and celebrating with the Mighty 10 team, Civil Air Patrol

Wow, I hadn’t realized what an incredible year this was.  I’m so thankful to my family, old friends, new friends and those I’ve yet to meet. You all make my world a better place.

In 2016 I’m saying ‘yes’ to the things that will help me grow and be a better leader, better me, better partner, better friend and better parent.

What kinds of things do I want to say ‘yes’ to this year?

Yes to simplifying the world I live in.
Yes to being still and being present.
Yes to stretching myself in ways that are exciting for me.
Yes to thinking and living outside the box.

Wish me luck.

What were those goals?

Blogging more (at least 1x/week) – Fail!
Lunching with friends – Success!
Prioritizing free time – Success!
Patience – Success!

I’m very okay with the failure because I realized half-way through the year that it wasn’t a good goal for me this year, so I mentally moved it off of my  list.  Lunching/coffee with friends was an excellent goal and went a long way toward helping me with #4 and through this process of reaching out, staying in touch and following through, I developed a small network of wonderful colleagues whom I now confidently call friends.  And the patience piece, boy did that pay off.  My patience was tried and tested many times and I learned to sit back, reassess my thought patterns and readjust to change my mental schema.  And it worked.  So all in all, a successful year of assessing and working toward my personal and professional goals.

For 2016, I’m in the process of formulating goals and will post those on or after the New Year (no promises!)

In the past month two leaders whom I’ve trusted and respected have resigned.  One, the CIO of our unit, took a better job at an Ivy League in the Midwest (good for him) and was recently honored at a farewell reception for his good deeds and overall “good guy” status.  He will be missed for the energy, enthusiasm, vision and humor he brought to the organization and the trusted relationships he developed.  The other is the leader of a non-profit that I volunteer with who resigned suddenly quite unceremoniously after a months’ long battle with our local governing body.  I’m quite sure he won’t be honored and his sudden departure will place others in a difficult position of taking control and trying to fly the organization through very politically stormy skies.

With Leader #1’s announced departure, I felt like I had the wind kicked out of me: sad, disillusioned and angry at the situation. I’m happy for he and his family, it’s the right move for them, but I’m sad for us as an organization and for me as one of his subordinates because he was taking the organization in a new direction and his vision was putting our unit in the spotlight in a very positive way.

With Leader #2’s abrupt departure, it again felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.  Ouch.  This guy is a great communicator, charismatic, friendly and approachable, and made me feel welcome the moment I walked in the door.  He too, was forward thinking and innovative.

So what happened from a leadership perspective? Leader #1, while also charismatic and a great communicator, is an introvert and naturally a quiet person.  He kept his thoughts and opinions to himself, and even those he disagreed with never knew it.  He maintained working relationships with difficult people and didn’t burn bridges.  Leader #2 did the exact opposite.  An extrovert, he has a magnetic personality but cannot keep his thoughts to himself.  If you’re an idiot, he tells you (and everyone around you) that you’re an idiot.  He raged public wars with his superiors and frequently framed people in the worst possible light and bad-mouthed anyone who got in the way.  My mom would have called him a ‘sore loser.’

So here I sit, taking yet another deep, cleansing breath.  Both my work and volunteer organizations are on a precipice and we may be able to continue under new and interim leadership along the same trajectory, or we could crash and burn.  Both are large organizations and in situations like these, people are waiting and watching for signs of backsliding and if this happens, others will either quit and leave or quit and stay.

I’m one of those people, watching, waiting and taking lots of deep, cleansing breaths.

As this article points out, NOT raising your hand when you might want to but are afraid of what others will think of you, silences many great ideas and important questions. 

My advice? Practice.  When the stakes are low, and again when the stakes are higher. And yet again when the whole room is watching. Don’t be afraid because you’ll be heard and recognized for your contribution. And the next time it’ll be easier–until you feel like your voice is necessary and important and you can’t be silenced any more.