by Heather Plett | Jan 19, 2010 | Leadership
It was day one of the staff retreat. The day that my team was meeting under my leadership. Staff and volunteers had come from across the country and I had to lead them, inspire them, and encourage them. The trouble was, I wasn’t feeling very inspired myself. I was just feeling…. well, kinda blah. Low energy and low motivation.
Halfway through the day we took a break. It was a beautiful day and we were close to the woods and the river, so I went for a walk. Near the Red River, in the middle of a small wooded area, I spotted the largest tree I have ever seen in this province. It would have taken about 4 people with their arms fully spread to make a circle around that tree.
I spread my arms as far as I could reach and leaned against that big solid tree, my face pressed up against the rough bark. I stayed there for a few minutes, just leaning. Borrowing energy from a tree that had stood through more than a hundred prairie winters and a myriad of floods, storms, and pestulance. Soaking up inspiration from a life-force that had born witness to endless human and animal stories. Finding encouragement in this remarkable source of oxygen, shade and beauty. All the while, thanking the Creator for this love-song shaped like a tree.
Refreshed, I returned to my meeting.
by Heather Plett | Dec 2, 2009 | Leadership, things I've learned
I am just bursting with good energy today. BURSTING! I want to write a post and tell you all about it, but I’m having a hard time putting into words what has happened this week. I keep starting and stopping, typing and then deleting.
I think I need to stew over this one a bit – let it mellow – before I try to explain what good things have happened, and how some really challenging things have shifted into amazing possibilities.
For now, let me tell you a few things that have become more clear to me this week:
- When I am authentic and vulnerable with people, more often than not, I will be supported in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
- When I really trust my leadership gifts, I am capable of more than I could have dreamed.
- When I recognize that I don’t have to do this alone, I am caught off guard by how powerful teamwork can be.
- When I acknowledge the fear, but then go forward anyway, I surprise myself with my capacity for boldness.
- When I slow down, value the time for contemplation and reflection, and ignore the people who would like to rush me, I am way better off in the long run.
- When I trust my own vision and wisdom in an area I am immersed in, I am much further ahead than when I assume others have more expertise than I do.
- When I get my ego out of the way, and let God guide me through rough waters, I don’t have to paddle so hard.
I feel a little like crying right now, but the tears would be good tears. They would be tears of relief, healing, and happiness.
by Heather Plett | Nov 30, 2009 | fearless, Leadership
Today marks another beginning. I have a new employee starting today. It’s the first of the three we hired recently – the other two will start in the new year.
It’s a new beginning because it marks a new chapter in my journey as an evolving leader. I’ve been a positional leader for a dozen years or so, but each role I take on pushes me to a new level. (I purposefully say “positional leader” because I believe there are all kinds of ways of being a leader without every having the position.)
Expanding my team this year and adding a big new strategic plan is going to stretch me (and my team) in ways I haven’t been stretched before. In this year of trying to be more fearless, this may very well be the biggest step I’ll take.
Today I am being called to:
- trust my instinct more.
- be bold and push forward into spaces I’ve never been before.
- thicken my skin and brave the resistance that always comes when we push into something new.
- challenge those people who don’t want to give their energy to the team’s direction and purpose
- be authentic, vulnerable, and humble, even at the risk of embarrassing myself
- trust my own wisdom and my ability to be the “voice of authority”
- be true to myself and what I believe I am being called to do
- be brave enough to admit failure and strong enough to pick myself up and try again
Six months ago, I put a big proposal forward to the board. It was approved, though not without some resistance on the part of both board and staff. Six months ago, I started slipping into a deep pit of restlessness, fear, frustration, and yes… I believe depression. I wrestled with demons that said I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, or capable enough. I battled obstacles I wasn’t prepared for, with two staff resigning, challenges with a consulting company, conflict on my team, and all measure of personal angst and unease.
This week, the board meets again (for semi-annual meetings). I’m still a little fearful and still not sure I can do what I know I need to do, but something in me has shifted. I’m ready to move into this new challenge. I’m ready to trust that I am not doing this alone – that God has equipped me with the skills I need to succeed, or the courage I need to fail.
Let it begin.
by Heather Plett | Nov 18, 2009 | Leadership
Driving across the prairies last week, after 3 intense days of meetings, presentations, and connecting with my national staff, I had one of those lovely epiphanies that comes once in awhile when we’re open to them. The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon and the gentle light was glistening off the railroad tracks. The yellow light was so warm and inviting. I pulled onto a side road just to gaze at it in wonder, and the thought came to me, “this is what hope looks like”. It looks like a warm welcoming light on the horizon. It looks like glistening railroad tracks inviting us down a gentle journey into something new. It looks like a familiar and cozy, yet intriguing and mysterious prairie landscape. It looks like telephone lines connecting us to the people we love.
It felt so good to recognize hope again. I’ve been through a tumultous time these past six months and I was beginning to feel like hope was stubbornly hiding behind a huge mountain of stressors and frustrations. I was so unsettled and restless I was ready to toss some of the things I cared about just to feel free again. I’d come up against so much resistance and apathy, I’d begun to doubt the value of my own wisdom and ideas. I’d lost some of my effectiveness and imagination and I wasn’t sure how to get it back. I had huge hurdles to cross in my leadership role and I just wasn’t sure I had the strength (or capacity) to cross them.
Six months ago, I was lost in the shadows. I took a week off work and spent most of the week crying. I was completely overwhelmed with my life (mostly the career part of it, not the family part) and couldn’t see the way out. There was no shimmering railroad track on the horizon beckoning me forward. A few months later, I came very close to quitting my job or at least taking an extended leave of absence. The timing was really horrible, though, since I was about to launch a big new marketing and fundraising strategy that included the hiring of two new people and a whole lot of difficult work with a marketing consultant (with the board looking over my shoulder). On top of that, two of my other staff handed in their notices, so I had four positions to fill and four people to integrate into a team that was, at best, a little dysfunctional.
I struggled through and tried to find other areas in which to place my hope. I launched a new website, I became part of a new fledgling community, I connected with some very dear friends who share some of my leadership challenges (Pinky the Bear – you know who you are), and I went for a lot of walks. Each of those things worked for awhile, but mostly the relief was short-lived and soon I found myself floundering in hopelessness again.
Last week as I drove, something in me shifted. The stressors didn’t all disappear, but most of them began to feel like they were manageable again. I can hardly tell you how refreshing the meetings and connecting time with my staff were. I was beginning to feel like I had something to offer as a leader again. But at the same time, I was recognizing that some of the things I’d taken on I didn’t have to carry by myself – other members of the team were willing and able to carry them with me. The newest member of the team brought with her such brightness and initiative that I was beginning to believe that some of the transitions we’re going through will be just what we need.
Yesterday we completed the final interview for the fourth and final position. Shortly after that, I finished writing my overdue board report in which I got to reflect on all of the work I’d actually managed to accomplish in the last 6 months despite the darkness. Suddenly, I felt like skipping down the hallway.
This feels like hope and OH, how I’m ready to follow it into the light!
p.s. I’m beginning to dream about writing a book on “leading with creativity, connection, and courage”. As hard as they were, these past six months have felt like the perfect testing ground. I have a feeling the next six months – when the true test of whether I can lead in bold new ways comes – will be further grist for the mill. If anyone has ideas on what they’d really love to read in a leadership book, spill them in the comments below!
by Heather Plett | Nov 5, 2009 | Leadership
Our deepest fear
is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be
brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
(Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure
around you.)
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fears,
our presence automatically liberates others.
– Marianne Williamson.
This quote has been on my mind a lot lately. I think I am afraid of my own power.
For the last several months, I’ve been thinking that I wanted to do something “fearless” at the end of this year and in my dreams that meant quitting my job and jumping into self-employment.
But then some things happened. I took an online break for awhile to re-examine what I really wanted. I pushed past some of the stuff that had been blocking me at work. I took charge a little more. I got a little more creative at work. I read a book called “How Remarkable Women Lead” and realized that I truly do love leadership and would miss it if I weren’t doing it any more.
It started to dawn on me that my desire to leave my current position was not really about being more fearless, it was about running away from fear. You see, I have a whole bunch of big opportunities at work right now – new staff to hire, a big new social marketing strategy (and a budget to go with it) – and deep down, it was scaring the crap out of me. It was calling me to move into a whole new level of leadership and (especially given the fact that I was dealing with some dysfunction issues on my team and 2 people quitting, as well as some frustrations with a consultant) I was quite sure I was going to fall flat on my face. It was more pressure than I’d ever felt as a leader, because now I was having to prove to the board that what I’d proposed and got funding and approval for was the right direction for this organization to take, even if most of my team members (and some board members, truth be told) were not standing behind me.
I’m still quaking in my boots, and I still might fall flat on my face, but you know what? I think I can do this. I think I have more leadership ability than I thought.
Trusting your own instincts, being bold in the face of resistance, risking failure and disgrace – it’s all really quite scary. I still have so much to learn about fearlessness.
by Heather Plett | Jun 30, 2009 | Leadership, things I've learned
Sometimes (like when I’ve had to do another round of performance reviews and have to listen to the same complaints and witness the same resistance to change or self-improvement year after year) I feel like a complete failure when it comes to leadership. At those times, it helps me to remind myself what I’ve learned about leadership. It usually turns out I know more than I thought I knew.
1. Most of the well-meaning leadership books out there are crap. Okay, they’re not TOTALLY crap (some are actually pretty good), but they can lead you down a dark and narrow passageway that makes you feel like you can’t possibly succeed if you don’t do x,y, and z from one book and a,b, and c from another. Read too many of them and at some point you will throw up your hands and say “I really SUCK at this leadership thing!”
2. You have to learn to trust your heart, not the leadership books. More than anything, remember to be authentic. Show them the real you. People will follow an authentic leader, not the one who’s mastered the art of imitating what’s in the books.
3. If you’re a person who needs a lot of affirmation in order to succeed, don’t get into leadership. Hardly anybody remembers that leaders need affirmation. The people you lead will look to you for affirmation, but rarely, if ever, will they affirm your work.
4. Leadership can be really, really hard. And seriously draining. It can suck the life right out of you if you’re not careful. Do not enter the profession lightly. Be prepared to give a big chunk of your soul to the work. If you’re not prepared for that, find something else to do.
5. Every leader needs to find ways of ensuring they can stay healthy when there are way too many pressures and expectations and the people you lead are acting like normal flawed human beings and they don’t recognize how much they ask of you. Take up yoga, write in a journal, find a career coach or counselor, join a mentoring group, or find a really good friend who’s also a leader who knows what you’re going through.
6. Carve pumpkins sometimes. Remember to have fun with your team. One of my best leadership moments was the time the team I used to lead got together to carve pumpkins for the Halloween pumpkin-carving contest. Not only did we win, but our team really gelled over pumpkins and wine.
7. Be honest – even if that sometimes means hurting people. This is especially tough when you’re doing annual performance reviews, but staff need to hear things like “you have not been extending enough grace to other members of the team” now and then or they’ll NEVER get it.
8. Be vulnerable. Let your team catch a glimpse of the fears and insecurities you’ve been hiding. They don’t have to think you’re perfect all the time. This can be really, REALLY scary, but it can also help the team connect on a deeper level than they have before.
9. Find good people. If you don’t have supportive people on the team (who have the team’s best interest at heart), find a way to get rid of them. And if you have to keep saying the same things over and over again at every performance review, there’s a good chance it’s NOT sinking in and the person should probably move on.
10. Communicate. And then communicate some more. And when you’re convinced you’ve been open and transparent enough, trust your gut and don’t take the complaints seriously. Because the thing is – even when you think you’ve done a great job of consulting everyone on the team on a major decision, someone will invariably complain that they didn’t know what was going on. Get used to it and suck it up. You’ll never satisfy everyone.
