Tuesday at 2:00pm with Russ

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

In this New Year I'm going to continue to explore some leadership quotes that might challenge us, inspire us or remind us of different aspects of the leadership journey. This is part of my personal journey to keep growing, learning and being stretched! Join me each Tuesday at 2:00pm (PST). It will take you just a few minutes to read through the 2 sections of this post, but don't miss the final section where I share some of the things I'm reading, listening to and enjoying this week.

You can find past posts on my website HERE.

Enjoy!

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

“Changing your mind doesn't make you a flip-flopper or a hypocrite. It means you were open to learning." Adam Grant


What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.


A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

This month I'm going to look at some quotes from organizational psychologist and bestselling author, Adam Grant.

Adam Grant has done a lot of writing, so I see quotes from him all over the place. I learned about him first when I read his book, "Think Again" and was challenged as a leader to understand my self-awareness. The quote above goes along with this because for me, part of being more self-aware is simply my ability to recognize that I'm not always right and that I need to be continuing to learn and adapt in my leadership development.

I remember a time when I thought I had accomplished it all and knew it all. I was confident, I had risen to an area of leadership, and people looked up to me. The problem was that I was 20 years old, and while I thought I had arrived, I soon realized that I was just beginning to learn some of life and leaderships toughest lessons.

Over the past 39 years, I have learned, failed, started over, corrected, fell down, jumped back up, moved forward, moved backwards, and been on one of the most incredible rides of all time!

And yes, I've changed my mind, my position, my opinion, my strategy, my approach and my vision over and over again.

The world is constantly changing, and so am I.

Don't be afraid to change your mind.

Think about one of the greatest examples in your life when you changed your mind about something. What was the catalyst for that to happen?

DEEPER STILL:

INC. shares a great article on "being a flip-flopper" (article linked below) and one of the points they make is simply that "leadership is about making the tough decisions" and it's our job to communicate these changes and opportunities in real-time, as we make them.

What people don't like is when we change things without communicating what's going on. We can build confidence, support and our team will follow when we communicate along the way, not simply after the fact.

I remember early in my career attending a strategic planning meeting. We had prepped for this off-site retreat, and we were going to put the details in place for our vision and plan. I showed up to the retreat, and everything had changed: our leader wanted to go in a new direction, all our our plans were set aside, we had to re-boot and re-build quickly to fit the leaders goals.

I didn't mind the sudden turn, but they did a horrible job communicating with us about WHY we were making the change, and then they didn't acknowledge all the work and effort we had put into the plan, but just dismissed it and asked us all to pivot to the new vision.

Again, the new vision was good, but I felt under-valued, taken advantage of, and no one ever answered my questions.

Changing your mind or approach is OK, but be sure to bring people along with you on the journey.

Think of a "change" you might be in right now. How can you better communicate to those around you what's going on while you're in the process?

 

Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:

Source: www.leadermundial.org