Sigh. The ALA Leadership Institute is over. It went by so fast and was such an amazing experience.
Now I find myself tasked with continuing the good habits I developed while there, such as writing about the leadership lessons my Yogi tea bag teaches me (or reminds me of) every morning.
It's only been one day since the institute came to a close and the tea is already holding up its end of the bargain - water has been boiled; tea bag acquired, opened, and plunked in and is currently steeping.
Now for my part.
Feel great, act great, and approve of yourself.
When I first read the tag I envisioned feeling great as I remember feeling about Christmas morning when I was a kid - excited about the mountains of gifts Santa would bring to the point of not sleeping and only having one response to everything put to me (at least I remember it seeming this way in my head): a delighted squeal. It was just an overwhelming sense of joy for everything and everyone.
It's sad to admit but this feeling is temporary. Or at least it is for me. I wish I could have those feelings of squeal-worthy joy 16 hours of the day (not when I'm trying to sleep) but then I started thinking that maybe that type of greatness-the kind associated with an emotion or emotions-isn't meant to endure.
Instead, embodying the qualities that define a great human being is a more reasonable goal because those qualities can be practiced, can become habits, can endure partly because these qualities are not identified with high emotion, unlike my squealing joy.
Be great. What defines a great human being will differ slightly from person to person and culture to culture but for the sake of bringing this post back to my experience at the leadership institute, I'm going to posit that the same qualities we defined for a great leader are the same for a great human being.
Feel great. Once we identify one-two qualities we specifically want to improve then it just becomes like practicing any other skill. You know how if you fake a smile for a few seconds by putting a pencil in between your teeth you eventually start to feel like smiling all on your own? I believe we can achieve the same effect with leadership qualities and I'm sure research has been done on this I'm just too lazy right now to bother to look it up but if you're reading this and you can quote some supplemental articles and/or books, I'd appreciate you commenting those!!
We can train our brains to behave in certain ways but as we learned in the institute, it has to be intentional. We have to do it on purpose. Let's say I'm a Negative Nelly and through conversations with colleagues and friends, and through self-reflection I realize that my negative outlook is impacting my interpersonal relationships and thus effecting my ability to be a good leader. So, I decide to make my first reaction - whether spoken or unspoken - to all situations to be, "hmm, this could be a good thing." I phrase it this way intentionally because, 1) the "hmm.." causes me to pause and I realize that when I say, "hmmm" my face changes to this:
My eyes look up and to the left which, if I remember my college psychology accurately, means that I'm thinking. I could be thinking about experiences I may have had previously, etc. But I am considering which takes time away from reacting.
2) In addition to the "Hmmm,,,", I say "...could..." because for me it's a word of possibilities. It's open and neutral and there's no ownership in it. Then I make the biggest change and flip my script and 3) say "...good..." because I'm trying to retrain how my brain thinks about situations. When my default is ...bad/crappy/negative/wrong... etc, I really just want to flip it 180 and go for the good/great/wonderful/positive.
Approve of yourself. When I'm doing great and feeling great, I find it hard to think of an example of when I wouldn't approve of myself but I think what the tea bag is alluding to is the topic of confidence. Confidence in knowing that what I'm doing is great. And that brings me full circle to having more conversations with colleagues and friends, and doing more self-reflection to check in. Awareness of what we are doing and how we are being (self-awareness) is crucial to, 1) developing confidence and 2) being able to approve of ourselves.
So, which leadership quality do you want to work on and how will you try to trick your brain into adopting that quality?
Feel great. Once we identify one-two qualities we specifically want to improve then it just becomes like practicing any other skill. You know how if you fake a smile for a few seconds by putting a pencil in between your teeth you eventually start to feel like smiling all on your own? I believe we can achieve the same effect with leadership qualities and I'm sure research has been done on this I'm just too lazy right now to bother to look it up but if you're reading this and you can quote some supplemental articles and/or books, I'd appreciate you commenting those!!
We can train our brains to behave in certain ways but as we learned in the institute, it has to be intentional. We have to do it on purpose. Let's say I'm a Negative Nelly and through conversations with colleagues and friends, and through self-reflection I realize that my negative outlook is impacting my interpersonal relationships and thus effecting my ability to be a good leader. So, I decide to make my first reaction - whether spoken or unspoken - to all situations to be, "hmm, this could be a good thing." I phrase it this way intentionally because, 1) the "hmm.." causes me to pause and I realize that when I say, "hmmm" my face changes to this:
2) In addition to the "Hmmm,,,", I say "...could..." because for me it's a word of possibilities. It's open and neutral and there's no ownership in it. Then I make the biggest change and flip my script and 3) say "...good..." because I'm trying to retrain how my brain thinks about situations. When my default is ...bad/crappy/negative/wrong... etc, I really just want to flip it 180 and go for the good/great/wonderful/positive.
Approve of yourself. When I'm doing great and feeling great, I find it hard to think of an example of when I wouldn't approve of myself but I think what the tea bag is alluding to is the topic of confidence. Confidence in knowing that what I'm doing is great. And that brings me full circle to having more conversations with colleagues and friends, and doing more self-reflection to check in. Awareness of what we are doing and how we are being (self-awareness) is crucial to, 1) developing confidence and 2) being able to approve of ourselves.
So, which leadership quality do you want to work on and how will you try to trick your brain into adopting that quality?
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