LoveFest 2013

I am so excited to share with my latest project with you – LoveFest 2013!

Along with Laura Wilson, CPC, (Love Coach Laura), we are honoring 11 other people who integrate love into their work in BIG ways!

This FREE virtual event, LoveFest 2013, next week, September 16 – 19 demonstrates the exciting transformational shift from fear and competition modalities toward love and collaboration with heart-based methods.

Our speakers represent thirteen major areas of life (politics, leadership, business, money, health, sports, community, relationships, self, intention, networking, social media, sales, and education) experiencing the profound benefits of shifting to a love-based approach.

You will hear from money and business expert, Maria Simone, sales expert Carolyn Coradeschi, social media and marketing coach, Tassey Russo, the go to business coach for healers, Karen Monteverdi, bullying prevention expert, Vicki Abadesco, and several other experts bringing love to work in corporate America, communities, schools, business, health/wellness, weight loss, making money, sports, arts, and of course, relationships.

Not only will you hear 13 of us talk about this shift from fear to love, but you will hear about the incredible results that we and our clients are experiencing from this shift!

I sure do hope you will join us at our FREE virtual event, LoveFest 2013. Just click here to register!

Don’t miss Jone Bosworth, J.D.’s interview, “Unchain the Heart of Democracy”, or Sandy Zeldes’s interview, “Love: Your Weight-Loss Solution” and so much more!

Join us today!

Register at http://www.LoveFest2013.com

“See you” at the Fest!

With love,
Maria

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

Your Way Out of Conflict

Like presence, when we fully connect with those with whom we are communicating, when we find common ground, we come together. Our ability to find common ground is easy when you combine presence, power listening, and perception shifting, with intuition.

Discover shared values, shared objectives, shared goals, and/or a shared vision. You are now on your way to discovering the true issue of the conflict. This clarity creates a shifted environment to now empathize with this person, which will move you into a collaborative vibe.

Once you’ve determined the true issue, now together, you can create a shared vision of collaboration…a plan to move forward. Remember as you create your plan of collaboration, apply the four actions of presence, power listening, perception shifting, and intuition, while always staying focused on common ground.

When you create your plan of collaboratively moving forward, remember to include follow-up, keeping the lines of communication open, demonstrating your commitment to improvement, and always be gracious—thanking the person for bringing this issue to your attention. Shoot for always ending the conversation on a positive note.

With love,
Maria

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

Processes, People, and Grace

There are many leadership books that talk about processes and policies. “The tragedy of our time is that we’ve got it backwards. We’ve learned to love techniques and use people. This is one of the reasons more and more people feel alienated, empty, and dehumanized at work. Many organizations today would be surprised at how much more people would be willing to give of themselves if only they felt loved.”1 Organizational leaders have been serving the processes and the policies, not the people.

As the Rev. Dr. King, Jr. said, we need a heart full of grace. Grace is found in love. Grace is the knowledge that you’ve been blessed, and so you respond by giving freely to others. Grace personifies elegance, politeness, and generosity of spirit. Our generosity of spirit is shared in an Love-Based Leadership organization. An organization steeped in love, is an organization steeped in grace.

How do you see grace manifested in the workplace? As always, I love hearing from you.

With love,
Maria

Freiberg, Kevin, and Jackie Freiberg. Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

LUV and Manufacturing

Two of my favorite examples of Love-Based Leadership (LBL) in action include Southwest Airlines and Semco.
 
Southwest Airlines has demonstrated repeatedly that a holistic, loving focus (they are the “LUV” airline!) has brought abundance and meaning to their leaders and employees. They learned that when employees are trusted to make decisions, and when they have ownership of their work, they often come up with better solutions than those the company could have found. They responded much quicker to customers’ demands and the employees directed their energy toward innovation, seizing unique and creative market opportunities at critical times. “The Southwest story demonstrates over and over that people will act responsibly and do more than expected when they are given the freedom to think on their own.”1

The manufacturing company, Semco, demonstrated great love for their employees with the change from the traditional models of doing business to an organizational culture that honored and respected their people. As Ricardo Semler, CEO put it, “To survive in modern times, a company must have an organizational structure that accepts change as it basic premise, lets tribal customs thrive, and fosters a power that is derived from respect, not rules. In other words, the successful companies will be the ones that put quality of life first. Do this and the rest—quality of product, productivity of workers, profits for all—will follow.”2

What LBL organizations do you know of and how do they demonstrate LBL?

With love,
Maria

1. Freiberg, Kevin, and Jackie Freiberg. Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.
2.0Semler, Ricardo. Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace. New York: Warner Books, 1993.

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

Fear-Based Leadership Vision Statement

Fear-based leadership exists, but can easily be erased.

Remember that both fear and love cannot be present at the same time.

Love-Based Leadership (LBL) doesn’t look like fear, doesn’t smell like fear, and doesn’t walk like fear. Perfect love drives out all fear. LBL doesn’t just proclaim that people are important because it says so on the mission statement posted on the wall. LBL leaders do not say one thing and do another.

An organization where LBL is not practiced is secretive: a fertile ground for non-truth. An organization without LBL is steeped in office politics and scarcity thinking—the fear that resources are limited and everyone is out to get yours. Information is not shared, rather, it is hoarded. There is no sign of spirit or energy.

The focus and vision of organizations where LBL is not practiced (a fear-based organization) could read: 

We recognize there is only a limited amount of (money, people, projects, resources) and we will do anything to make sure we’ve got most, if not all of it (money, people, etc.). We tell our people they are important and they believe us because they are incapable of making any decisions on their own. We are the best because we said so.

What do you think a Love-Based Leadership vision statement would say?

As always, I love hearing your perspective.

With love,
Maria

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

Micromanagement is a Four-Letter Word

Micromanagement is really just FEAR-Management.

In the workplace, fear-based leadership is manifested in a number of ways. We see fear in leadership when employers do not trust the employees to do the jobs for which they were hired. Many managers are fearful of losing control, resulting in micromanagement. Micromanagement is a classic display of fear.

I once had a student challenge me when we were discussing micromanagement in class. He thought the concept was exaggerated. I then shared with him an experience I had while working with a homebuilder. We were opening up a new community in a different state than our corporate headquarters. After we selected a mailbox and a holiday green color (the same color as the community logo), management asked that we paint the mailbox we selected using the exact same green paint and then ship it back to corporate headquarters for the company president to approve the mailbox and paint color!

What are your worst micromanagement stories?

With love,
Maria

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

The Bull S#%T About Power

Let’s break open the lid on the belief that power must be kept tightly in order to be effective – BULL S#%T!

Power, like abundance and love, multiplies when you give it away.

That is why I cannot understand why leaders are so afraid to share power and empower others.

Power multiples when you give it away – really!

Boleman and Deal wrote in Leading with Soul, “When people have a sense of efficacy and an ability to influence their world, they usually seek to be more productive. They direct their energy and intelligence toward making a contribution rather than obstructing progress or destroying their enemies.” At Saturn automobile factories, employees are empowered to stop the assembly line any time they see something wrong. The employees have pride and ownership in their product and they are the quality control.

Another benefit of shared power is the reduction in conflict. We often suppress our feelings when we feel powerless. When this happens, our anger can only be contained for so long, then the conflict and anger comes spewing out, often times in a rage. Empowered people empower others. In a Love-Based Leadership organization, shared power equals shared ownership. You cannot have one without the other.

Have you empowered someone today? If not, what is holding you back?

With love,
Maria

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

With or Without Meaning

Did you know the majority of heart attacks occur around nine o’clock on Monday mornings? “

One study showed that the most common factor in these heart attacks was that the victims were people whose work had become joyless striving. In other words, they could not find meaning in their work, and their lives had become so out of balance that, one Monday morning, their bodies said, You are not going to work today. Zap.”1
 
I remember a discussion I had with the general manager of a regional division, discussing with him the importance of finding meaning in work for our employees and leaders. His response was, “I think meaning at work is over-rated.” Overrated? We spend the vast majority of our adult lives at work.

One of the primary purposes of a leader is to inspire vision and motivation in those he or she leads, and few things are more inspiring and motivating than meaningful work.

If we don’t have meaning…what do we have? We must know the "why" behind the things we do, we are at unrest and certainly unmotivated.

As always, I welcome your input. What is the most meaningful aspect of your job and why?

With love,
Maria

1. J. A .Autrey, & S. Mitchell, Real power: Business lessons from the Tao Te Ching (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), p. 23.

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

Not all Power is Created Equal

Power is a hot topic. Not all power is equal. Bertram Raven and John French identified five different power bases: legitimate, coercive, expert, reward, and referent.

Legitimate power is the type of power that comes with a title or position. Coercive power is one that imposes force on others, like the king who threatens to behead those who disobey. Expert power is the type of power that comes with knowledge or information that someone else does not have. Reward power comes from bestowing upon someone something of value, and referent power is the power of respect. Like anything else in this world, all forms of power can be for the greater good or for selfish and egoic purpose.

While empowerment may make some leaders nervous, it also makes some followers uncomfortable. In Scenes from Corporate Life, Earl Shorris wrote, “Men who cannot conceive a happiness of their own accept a definition imposed upon them by others.” We have been taught for too long to let others define our thoughts, feelings, jobs, lives, and meaning for us. What to think, what to wear, how to feel—is it any wonder we get nervous when we receive permission or power to design aspects for ourselves?

As leaders, we must teach. We teach and show others how to stand in this power. We invite them in to learn, to grow, to create, and to commit to a purpose greater than our own. When we create and commit to the larger purpose, we seek the greater good. We become a community of we and our instead of me and mine.

What is your best empowerment experience? I love to hear from you.

With love,
Maria

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

Love, Love, Love

Love of Self, Love of Source, and Love of Others (the love-based leadership model) all require love, trust, and commitment to growth and development in the workplace. If trust and love are not ever-present, then fear-based decisions will result. “For centuries the human species has been discovering that it is the creator of its own reality, making the discovery, and retreating from it in disappointment (because the wizard [referring to the Wizard of Oz story] is not what we expected) and in fear (because the freedom the discovery brings is unknown and terrifying).”1. Fear is powerful; so powerful that it alone creates a false reality of that which is feared in the first place. Victor Frankl illustrates, “It is characteristic of this fear that it produces precisely that of which the patient is afraid…the wish is father to the thought…the fear is mother to the event.”2. Once again, choice is everywhere, calling for a decision between choosing love to guide us or fear to guide us. “Man is not born slave or free, but creates himself as one or the other through free or voluntary action.”3.

Fear, again, holds us back from achieving so much. We are afraid to show that we care, afraid to open our hearts, and afraid that we may appear vulnerable. The irony in this is that when we really care about the individuals we lead, love multiplies. When people know, see, and feel that you care—they do the same. “Love really does keep on giving.”4.

With love,
Maria

1. Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn't What it Used to Be (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990), p. 29.
2. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p. 125
3. Madan Sarup, An Introduction Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1993), p. 18.
4. Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, Leading with Soul, p. 88.

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

Leadership with Maslow in Mind – Part 1 of 2

Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, we can see how our basic and safety needs are met, just by having a job and a paycheck. The pay affords us the ability to meet our basic and safety-level needs.

The third tier, belongingness and/or social needs, are the connections with others we crave. Often, after a certain period of time on the new job, we seek relationships with those with whom we work. Going to lunch, taking coffee breaks with each other, or perhaps a cocktail after work are all ways in which we fill these belongingness needs. It is not unusual for someone to say they "hate the job, but love the people they work with".  This is an important sign for leaders to notice.  As soon as those employees get their social needs met outside of work...they are gone!

Our esteem needs are when we seek outside approval from others. We want to know we are valued and appreciated. Employees always remember leaders who are good at this. We often remember how we felt when someone said something to or about us, rather than the specific words uttered by the person. How we felt about those statements or actions has a much longer duration and more deeply affects us than the actual words. I remember while growing up I often heard my mother repeating one of her favorite mantras, “Actions speak louder than words.” How true mother, how very true! This is often the place that we lose “good people” at work, because they don’t feel valued and honored.

The highest level of needs Maslow presented was the need for self-actualization. This is where we seek, with a ferocious hunger to find meaning and purpose in what we do. OK, we may start a new job and begin the quest of the hierarchical pyramid all over again, but we will eventually be right back to this higher order of need. Meeting this need is the fulfillment of meaning. People leave organizations when they reach this need level because their work is not a conduit to their meaning-seeking behavior and need.

How can you leverage this knowledge in your leadership? As always, I love hearing from you.

Love and motivation,
Maria

Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.

The Teaching Leader

I love the Buddhist saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” In my many years of teaching formal courses at the university level, I am a student right along with the class I am teaching. When I teach, I learn. I have yet to teach a class where I have not learned something from my many teachers, also known as my students. We are ever changing in this world and the cycle of learning and teaching never changes, unless of course we find ourselves closed off from learning. In order to be a good teacher, we must first be a good student.

As we teach, we must remember that we are not transmitting information—we are transforming lives. That may sound a bit dramatic, but that is exactly what good teaching does; it transforms. Transformation comes about through many different forms: motivation, persuasion, mobilization, influence, and of course miracles. When we teach, we are in essence saying, I care about you, you are important, and I want to help. Wow, who wouldn’t be motivated forward with that type of message? Motivation also comes from demonstrating belief in others. Teaching affords us an opportunity to build esteem and self-efficacy. Think of Maslow’s needs hierarchy; esteem and self-actualization are the top highest levels. Teaching and learning meet both of the high order needs for yourself and for those you teach.

Through the process of teaching, we build trust when we facilitate teaching with a learner-centered approach. Remembering that we are not just transferring information, but transforming others, we teach according to the needs of others. I use the same approach when I do training, coaching, or motivational speaking. First, I discover the needs of the audience and tailor my work to meet those needs. Of course, I provide resources and information to support their transformation, but first I must find out where they are stuck and where they want to grow.

Effective teachers in a classroom setting know this and adjust their lesson plans to accommodate emerging needs that come up during instruction. We call these moments, teachable moments, when we can seize the opportunity and use it as a springboard for learning. A Native American proverb illustrates this concept, Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I'll understand. Once we identify the needs of the people and address those needs, then learning occurs and the outcome is performance.

Remember this acronym:

Time - Take the time to invest in the development of others.
Empathy – Have empathy for those you teach, respecting the place they are in at that moment.
Awareness – Come into the teaching exchange with full awareness and presence.
Care – Create a safe space for learning to occur that is filled with care and compassion.
Help –Remember that when we serve others, we are truly love-based leaders.

How do you teach in your leadership roles? I love hearing from you.

With love,
Maria

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Why is integrating love so important into our leadership? The answer is simple: because fear is not working and love is a much more powerful source.

Here are some other reasons to lead with love:

• We have organizations full of over-worked, over-stressed employees who find little or no meaning in the work they do for eight to ten hours each day.
• We have become paralyzed and/or complacent in the workplace, stifled by fear running rampant in today’s organizations.
• Without meaning, we lack purpose and engagement. Love is the conduit to meaning.
• Fear can be motivating for a while, but it is not sustaining. Love nurtures, expands, and grows.
• Love honors, cares for, values, respects, and trusts others.
• Love creates an organizational culture that is conducive to knowledge creation. If we don’t create, we will perish.
• We reap what we sow, and if we plant seeds of fear, we will reap more fear. If we plant seed of love, we will harvest a love-filled culture.
• Successful organizations such as Southwest Airlines, SEMCO, Tom’s Shoes, and Zappos are built on love and are reaping the benefits because of it.

That’s what love has to do with it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

With love,
Maria

Love-Based Leadership

As we close out this month of Love, let’s look at how we can translate that into a love-based leadership model. In my book, Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance, I present a very simple, yet profound way to lead based on three pillars: Love of Self, Love of Source, and Love of Others.

Leading with the Love-Based Leadership (LBL) model, we find meaning, authenticity, value, abundance, and purpose in and through our leadership. Those we lead find motivation, creativity, loyalty, commitment to the task, and value in their jobs through meaning.

Many of us share the common desire to find meaning in our daily work. A leadership model based on love recognizes the importance of living holistically by integrating love, health, wellness, and spirituality into all aspects of our life.

When we lead with the three pillars, we first focus on Love of Self. This is not an egoic love, but rather one where we honor, care for, and respect our self. While developing this pillar, we look to develop: 

• Intuition
• Truth-telling
• Truth-receiving
• Leverage the power of choice
• Perception-shifting
• Presence
• Health & wellness

When we incorporate the second pillar into our leadership, Love of Source, we seek to connect with our Source. This connection fuels:

• Inspiration
• Creativity
• Happiness
• Faith
• Perseverance
• Peace
• Love

In the third pillar, Love of Others, our leadership expands outward to include family, community, and our organization. This practice creates:

• Forgiveness
• Knowledge creation
• Learning cultures
• Shared ownership
• Shared power
• Collaboration
• Meaning

Shifting from fear to love is transformative. This shift will not only transform your organization; it will transform your life.

With love,
Maria

Culture Creation – Part 4 of 4: The Deepest Element

As we conclude this exploration of organizational cultures, we go to the deepest part. Values, like beliefs, are elements extremely important to us, but we are not aware of them until we face a situation that forces them into our consciousness. Integrity, honesty, and ethical beliefs are a few values that often drive organizational and ethical behaviors.

As a coach, I usually begin a coaching relationship with a values clarification exercise. Values are foundational elements to the ways we think, act, and behave. Organizations are coming into awareness about the importance of value identification and are creating value statements to guide the organization. These value statements are as important as the mission and vision statements.

The deepest elements we find below the surface of the tree are the assumptions that feed the entire person and organization, passing through each element all the way through the roots, trunk, and branches to the tips of the leaves. Our assumptions are the most deeply ingrained of all the elements, created by our mental models.

Mental models are the lenses or filters by which we view the world, and no two are alike. Comprised of our familial, educational, community, religious, personal, and professional experiences, our mental models help us make sense, assumptions, and judgments about our life experiences. For example if I said, “pop” what would you think? Some may think of their father, a loud noise, a gun, gum, or soda. Whatever you thought of is reflective of your mental model.

So how do we create a culture based on love and love-based leadership? We start with the roots and work our way up. We begin with awareness and make conscious, strategic choices to create an environment based on love and not on fear. We recognize our own mental models and broaden our beliefs. We wrap awareness around our values and deepen our understanding of how they affect our beliefs and behaviors. We strategically infuse our organizational culture with continued learning and development. We intentionally instill a sense of shared ownership and power in the work we do, providing channels for meaningful work experiences, and we wrap all of these strategies in love.

As always, I love it when you share your insights.

With love,
Maria

Culture Creation – Part 3 of 4: The Beliefs Bridge

Last week, we looked at the elements of the culture above the surface, behavior. The trunk, bridging the branches and leaves above the ground to the roots below, are the beliefs we have individually and the beliefs we share collectively. Beliefs are the support to the behaviors demonstrated on the surface through the physical, language, ceremony, and story elements. The organizational beliefs are sometimes spelled out through the mission and vision statements, as well as policies and procedures. Many times, the beliefs are not in our consciousness until we are faced with a situation where we must examine them.

Because beliefs are the trunk or the stabilizing factor that directly fuels behavior, it is important for us to recognize the power beliefs have over our behavior. For instance, the Pygmalion effect is a phenomenon whereby you believe your team will fail, and in the end, they subsume that negative energy are not successful. Conversely, if you believe the person you just promoted into that position will succeed, the odds are that they will be successful. Our underlying beliefs affect our behavior. In the first example, you may not be available to the team for support, direction, and/or guidance. In the second scenario, you may be fully present to help that person succeed, providing mentorship and encouragement. Just as Henry Ford stated, “If you believe you can or believe you cannot, you are correct.”

Below the surface, beneath the leaves, branches, and trunk, we understand how the tree is nourished. The root structure is more elaborate and complex than the tree itself. This is true in our organizational cultures. The deeper we go below the surface, the deeper ingrained are the elements that feed into beliefs and behaviors. In those depths, lie the values, mental models, and perceptions that are so deeply ingrained that we are not even aware of them.

On Thursday, we will go to the deepest recesses of our cultures. Let me know your thoughts, comments, and questions. I love hearing from you!

With love,
Maria

Culture Creation – Part 2 of 4: The Stories We Tell

As the branches thicken, closer to the trunk, we think of the strength that stories carry within organizations. These stories can be stories of love, care, and pride in the organization’s accomplishments or they can be stories steeped in fear and told in ways that leverage fear and manipulation.

Stories told in organizations often become organizational legends. I remember working for a land developer when the CEO was flying in to visit us on his private jet with entourage in tow. A story that circulated among the staff was that he hated blue. Needless to say, none of us wore blue that day. I must admit that I found it odd that he “hated blue” since the company logo was a deep blue appearing on all of our signage, stationary, collateral material, and business cards. The legend was so strong and fear-based that not one of us tested the validity of the story.

Positive stories often depict the humble beginnings and dedicated work of early employees, shared year after year with the newer employees. To our prospective buyers, I would offer the story of how our company grew and showed them our wall of photos of communities that we had developed to “tell the story” of our company’s history. This form of storytelling instilled confidence in buyers that we had experience, integrity, and credibility. In fact, we called this space our credibility wall.

We also shared funny stories each year at the holiday party about humorous experiences we had with customers and with each other. Stories bond people together, connecting one another through shared experiences while meeting needs for belongingness and esteem.

On Tuesday, we will look at the bridge in our culture of the behaviors to our most deeply rooted values mental models and perceptions, the bridge of our beliefs. Don’t be shy, let me know your thoughts or questions!

With love,
Maria

Culture Creation – Part 1 of 4

One of the most popular questions I am asked is, “How do we create an organization like love-based leadership?” That is a big question! Love-based leadership begins with self-discovery, self-awareness, and self-growth; however, the organizational culture is a big part of this dynamic.

Because the organizational culture is so important, I am devoting the next four blog posts to taking a deep dive in understanding culture. This is a first for our Leadership Revolution A Call to Hearts blog—a four-part series! Let’s get right to it.

Like a tree, the culture of an organization has many interconnected components—each one linked to and vital to the growth of another. Three primary parts comprise the culture including behavior, beliefs, and values/assumptions/mental models which equate to the tree’s leaves/branches, trunk, and roots respectively.

When we look at the most visible feature of the tree, the leaves, we see the physical elements. These physical elements are the most superficial part of a culture. In organizations, the physical elements represent the actual physical spaces within the organizations. What do we see as we approach the outward vestiges of the organization? Is signage prominently and attractively displayed? Do you receive a warm greeting by the receptionist when you walk in? Is the building well kept or is it in disrepair? Other physical elements we notice are photos and signs on the walls, mission or vision statements proudly displayed, employee of the month plaques, the walls, windows, cubicles, volunteer thank-you plaques and trophies, gathering spaces and other physical clues.

The next element we notice is the language spoken. In any culture, a shared language brings people together and allows for efficient, quick communication. Often we notice a unique slang, acronyms, and industry-specific terms in organizations. I remember when I first entered the sales field and the staff referred to the next lead (person) who came in the door as an “up” which meant to get your butt up out of the chair and go sell to them!

Ceremonies, rituals, and routines are the next layer of culture. These elements are more substantive than the leaves as they are thicker and closer to the trunk. Organizations sometimes strategically plan ceremonies and rituals such as annual award dinners and employee or customer appreciation luncheons. However, routines and rituals of a less formal nature are just as solid and telling of a culture. In one organization where I worked, we always celebrated an employee birthday with a song and a cake. It was our tradition (ritual) that the guest of honor cut and serve the cake to all in attendance.

On Thursday, we will explore the power of stories in our organizations. Let me know your thoughts, comments, or questions.

With love,
Maria

Your Circle

Jim Rohn, the great businessman and motivational leader stated, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” What does this say about us?

When we think about this statement, we may immediately go to the literal, physical people in our circle. This concept is realized when we start taking on new patterns in our speech, behaviors, and mannerisms. Have you ever noticed someone in your circle saying a new expression or demonstrating a different laugh? You realize very quickly exactly where they picked that up when you meet their friend or colleague and you hear the same inflection, term, or laugh. We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

What makes up our time with these five people in our circle? Do we spend the day criticizing and gossiping? Are we sharing ideas; are we planting seeds of fear and destruction? Are we raising others up, nurturing minds, bodies, and spirits? Do we spend time with our five learning, growing, expanding? The choice, as always, is yours.

I love being alive at this time in history. I can spend time with many of the great thought leaders—dead or alive by connecting with these people through technology. I can pop in a CD, DVD, or plug into my iPad and watch or listen to a lecture, presentation, or audio book and hear these mentors and teachers anytime I want! I can CHOOSE my circle of five and never leave my home or office…so can you. We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

Let’s be mindful with whom we choose to spend our time with, and our minds and time will be filled with wonder.

With love,
Maria

Let There Be Leadership Light!

“There are two ways of spreading light…To be a candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton

In this season of light, I ponder what light represents in our lives and how that relates to our leadership. I love Edith Wharton’s perspective of spreading light, but what exactly does that mean?

Spreading light comes in the form of lighting up a room. As leaders, we can light up a room with our presence; being fully present to others. We do this by listening without distraction, giving our full attention to those around us.

We can also spread light through our attitudes and behaviors. We spread light through love, care, and compassion. Light takes away the darkness. We know that smiles are contagious and a great conduit to spreading light and love.

As leaders, we can also be the mirror that reflects light. Through encouragement and support of those we lead, we see the light in their eyes, their behaviors, and their attitudes. Mentoring those we lead, reflecting back their greatness is one of the most profound activities we can do as leaders.

We also reflect light by “lightening” the load of others. We can help lighten the heaviness of others by supporting our teams literally and figuratively. Serving those we lead is an example of love-based leadership.

Light in the darkness and lightening the load are profound ways we demonstrate love-based leadership. In this season of light, I wish you a blessed holiday season and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.

With light and love,
Maria