IN THIS ISSUE:

Being Vulnerable to Be Strong. Take your assumptions about a great leader and check them at the door. Our feature article this month argues that the very behaviours and traits we associate with vulnerability can be characteristics of a wise and inspirational leader. Read article

Frog Pond: Reflections from a Values-Based Organization. Leadership Without Boundaries: Utilizing Professional Skills in our Personal Lives. Melanie Parish learns the advantages of sharing her skills and knowledge regarding team systems coaching as a volunteer board member; both she and the board reap the benefits. Read article

What’s Out There. Fierce Conversations. Leadership can happen one conversation at a time. Susan Scott's book shows us how. Read article

The Culinary Coach. Corn Five Ways. August means corn season, and across southern Ontario we're all ears! Our culinary coach shares five fabulous ways to cook up summer's yellow gems, and her advice is anything but corny. Read article

If you would like a printable version of this newsletter, please visit www.sageportfoliogroup.com/archives.html

---

Being Vulnerable to be Strong
By Sue Edwards

In my coaching with leaders, I find they frequently discover that their long-held beliefs about what makes leaders successful flies directly in the face of what happens in real life. They demonstrate leadership characteristics based on commonly-held beliefs, such as:

Belief #1- All leaders must communicate verbally with power and charisma.
Belief #2- Leaders must convey a steely strength.
Belief #3- Leaders must compromise themselves for the good of the organization.
Belief #4- Previously-gained skills are the foundation for success at the next level.

Down the road, they get the startling wake-up call that these purposeful behaviours have not resulted in the successes they had hoped after all. Frankly, they would do better to flip these beliefs on their head! True leadership success and your greatest impact comes from the flip side of behaviours that you may have been socialized to exhibit as a strong leader. Your real power lies in awakening to the leader already inside you rather than layering on externally-driven leadership qualities like a corporate cloak.

I invite you to consider how four leadership success strategies may apply to you. You’ve Gotta…

Be Vulnerable to be Strong
Listen to Be Heard
Be Selfish to Serve
Let Go of What Got You Here

In this article, we consider what it means to demonstrate strength through vulnerability.

Success Strategy #1- You’ve Gotta Be Vulnerable to be Strong

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”

- Lao-Tzu (600 B.C.)

Think of times when you’ve felt vulnerable at work. Asking for help may have left you feeling vulnerable with the person you asked. Or, you may have experienced regret after admitting a weakness or disclosing a need for personal development to others. This is very natural in a society that teaches that vulnerability represents weakness. In fact, definitions of vulnerability refer to susceptibility to physical or emotional injury, criticism or attack.

Yet, time and again, I’ve seen employees walk over hot coals for leaders who express vulnerability versus those who convey omnipotence. It is difficult to hook in at an emotional level with a leader who wears an armor of perfection. Much of my coaching work with both male and female executives involves supporting them in removing the Teflon® layer of self-protection that gets in the way of their ability to lead from a place of true power. They are inevitably seen to be stronger leaders as they mature into the willingness to demonstrate vulnerability.

Leaders who are able to deliver effectively stated requests for help are seen as resourceful and strong individuals. When they demonstrate the humility to ask for help, they earn the respect of others. In turn, the leader who asks for help is strengthened by the very support that is provided.

Kira recently made a shift in how she was interacting with her boss. When he asked to prepare presentations, she assumed that she was expected to go away, develop the content, deliver it at the required meeting and then wait for feedback from her boss. Her boss was highly-regarded for the impact of his presentations and his openness in asking others for assistance. Kira, on the other hand, was well aware that presentations were not her strong suit. When she took a hard look at how this approach was working for her, Kira was able to see that she was not fully leveraging her boss’s support. She could learn far more about creating presentations that have “oomph” by walking-through a draft with her boss—focusing on the content plus her delivery—and obtaining feedback earlier in the process.. So…she made the request for his upfront support.

The outcome? Her boss was delighted to coach Kira and was enthused about the opportunity to leverage his own strength and impart skills to her. By taking the time to work together preparing for a number of Kira’s key presentations, she benefited from her boss’ thought process. Kira’s presentations now have punch! She delivers with the confidence of someone who has great material and is well-prepared. She now rarely needs corrective feedback after-the-fact. Equally important is that in the very act of asking for help, Kira has demonstrated to her boss that she is effectively leveraging resources around her.

Leaders also demonstrate strength in vulnerability through their response to receiving tough feedback. Many leaders have experienced 360 degree feedback assessments (surveys that provide feedback from the boss, peers and direct reports). In observing the reactions to feedback for more than 100 leaders, it is clear to me that those who benefit most from a 360 process are those that disclose the results and build collaborative development plans in response. Recently, one of my coaching clients was told by her peers that it was extremely brave of her to reveal the themes in her feedback. They admired this disclosure and even asked how they could support her. Of course, the more support she receives, the stronger she becomes.

The reinforcing cycle of strength through vulnerability continues to spiral upwards.

Coaching Questions:

• How are your assumptions about vulnerability preventing you from building strong connection with others?
• If you had no concerns about being personally criticized, what might you disclose more openly?

Exercise:

Consider an important goal that you are stuck on right now and can’t seem to gain any traction.

• Think of someone you could ask for support to get you jump-started with respect to this goal. What specifically do you want to ask of them?
• How can you establish accountability to yourself to ask for help in achieving this goal?

This article was excerpted from the book chapter “You’ve Gotta Flip It On Its Head! Four Key Strategies for Leadership Success” in Awakening the Workplace 2, released June 2007. If you are interested in learning more about this book, or purchasing a copy, click here [http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/javanof.asp?MerchantID=70399&ProductID=3581690]

 

Leadership Without Boundaries: Utilizing Professional Skills in our Personal Lives
By Melanie Parish

During my early years as a coach, I used my coaching skills with my clients but didn’t apply them elsewhere. Over time I have learned to consciously bring my coaching and leadership skills to all aspects of my life. This has been particularly evident as I have studied and delivered more team coaching and relationship systems coaching. Suddenly every relationship in my life has become more visible. I have heightened awareness of relationships and better skill at dealing with them. Sharing my coaching skills with others has become a vibrant, passion-filled aspect of my life.

As part of being a contributing member of the communities to which I belong, I often participate in leadership roles. Hence I am a new member of the board at my church. At the annual board retreat, I joyfully facilitated two exercises from my team systems repertoire. I facilitated the creation of a group agreement: an agreement we make about how we will work together during the upcoming year. This is a process where everyone talks about what he or she needs in their relationships on the board in order to be the best possible contributor. I was struck by the willingness of the introverts to engage with this exercise. We learned that we need some quiet spaces so people can think. We learned that we need to take time to make some decisions that may be deemed “emergencies” so people feel they are making good decisions. We decided to be truth-tellers together. We decided to look at or read the agreement at the start and end of every meeting and that we would make additions as needed.

Later, I also took the group through an exercise that both introduced a kinesthetic learning to the day and created new skills and language for the group to use as we work together. This exercise uses a "meta-skills wheel" to help participants examine processes or locate solutions. "Meta-skills" are a lens through which one can see a situation in a new way. We looked at our work as a church board through the lenses or meta-skills of things like “collaboration” and “deep democracy.” This was very powerful way to let us literally walk together through what is important to us as a board. It gave us a sense of each other and our shared goals. It was an exercise that required a skilled, practiced faciliator who could both convey theory and physically engage the participants in the process.

A month after the retreat, we have come together beautifully as a board. We speak out, we discuss, we make hard decisions and we change our minds if the data we see is compelling. We are highly functional. I believe the work we did at the retreat set the stage for us to trust each other. Opportunities for further team development have arisen; at a recent meeting I talked about team toxins: blame and criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt. These are the things that get in the way of group or team performance. People on the board say that the exercises we did during our retreat and the learning about teams I bring to the group is working.

When people learn new skills (including our clients who hire us to bridge learning gaps with their executives), they often struggle with how to implement these new skills. It can feel uncomfortable to act differently at work as new skills are acquired. I have found that if I share all of who I am with the communities I am a part of, then all the skills I possess are utilized. I also give myself time to make the changes so they feel natural, not forced. I am glad that I have taken the step to bring my skills to the communities I am a part of, and I am honoured and inspired to see that I can make a difference.

Frog Pond: Reflections from a values-based organization is a monthly column that explores the connection between business and social responsibility. The title for the column comes from the last, but perhaps most profound, of the five values upon which Sage Portfolio Group has been built. We call it “frog pond”. Sitting beside the frog pond at Sage Portfolio Group’s head office in Dundas, Ontario on a warm summer evening with a glass of wine and meal made from locally grown organic produce has taught us to value local roots and global consciousness, quiet contemplation and sharing with others, dreaming big and common sense. Articles written for this column take the abstract principles of Sage Portfolio Group’s “frog pond” value and make them both real and useful. Dip your toe to test the water … or dive right in!

Fierce Conversations
By Jennifer Dawson

Yet another of the inspirational books making the rounds at Sage Portfolio Group is Susan Scott's Fierce Conversations, a quick read that uses concrete examples and evocative phrases like "let silence do the heavy lifting" to move us from conversation avoidance to conversations that, as Scott asserts, can change the trajectory of a business, a career, a marriage, or a life. Conversations are symbolic of the relationship: superficial conversation equals superficial relationship, deep conversation is indicative of a real and meaningful relationship. A conversation is not fierce because there is unconstructive conflict and winners and losers, but because those involved have the courage to be honest, open to alternatives and collaborate on a solution. Get talking!

What's Out There is a monthly column highlighting thought leaders and trail blazers in the business world today -- people, organizations or subjects that push boundaries, break down barriers or build bridges in novel or unexpected ways.

 

Corn Five Ways

Corn consumption is rich in family and cultural traditions. Do you use butter and salt?  Do you use your knife to apply butter, or do you get up close and personal with it, rolling the cob right on the butter slab? Do you use those little corn holder tines that go in the ends of the corn? (And are they cute, like little cows or yellow plastic cobs with smiley faces?) Or, in your family, do you just grab it and hold it? (And sometimes yell 'ouch'?)

There are five ways that I like to cook corn. And I don’t mean frozen corn. I mean the tasty, pick-it-up-from-the-
road-side-stand sort of corn that makes living in farm country great.

Boil It: This is the traditional way and it is pretty darn good. Don’t add salt when you boil it—adding salt will take out the sweetness. Shuck the corn right before cooking and boil for about 15 minutes.
Steam it: Husk it and steam for about 20 minutes.
Roast it: Leave the husks on and toss it on your barbeque for about 25 to 30 minutes. Or, remove the husks and toss it on the BBQ for about 15 minutes. I baste it with butter at the end. The kernels brown a bit. Yeah, this one is my favorite!
Off the cob: Cut the kernels off the cob and include in any stir-fry dish or freeze for the winter.
Microwave it: Leave it in the husk and microwave for 10 to 15 minutes or until it is steamy inside.  Corn is the perfect food to microwave, with its built-in splatter-sheild!

However you make it, fresh corn says summer. YUM!

The Culinary Coach is Melanie Parish, founder and CEO of Sage Portfolio Group. Good food is about culture, community, family, physiology and fun. Each month we share one of Melanie's tried-and-true recipes, or some of her kitchen wisdom, in celebration of the power of food to strengthen, nurture and inspire. Cheers!

This month's contributors:

Sue Edwards, ACC, is President of Development by Design.  She has over 22 years of experience as a professional business coach, management consultant and human resource manager.  She’s been a successful entrepreneur since 1996. Over her career, Sue has enhanced organization, team and individual performance.  She has particular expertise in coaching leaders moving into new roles and new organizations.  Sue is the author of Congratulations, you’re hired! A coach’s guide to a successful transition.  She is a contributing author to Awakening the Workplace II and Leadership Gurus Speak Out.  Sue has been interviewed on Canada AM, by the National Post and West of the City magazine.

Melanie Parish, CPCC, PCC, is an accomplished speaker; executive and team coach; entrepreneur; and is the founder of Sage Portfolio Group. She has a 20 year background in sales, marketing and business development. Melanie regularly works with business owners who want to create incredible, profitable businesses. She has been a coach since 1999. Melanie is certified through the International Coach Federation and The Coaches Training Institute.

Jennifer Dawson is a cultural anthropologist, researcher and writer for Sage Portfolio Group.

About The Leading Edge:
The Leading Edge is published monthly by Sage Portfolio Group and written for a readership that includes coaching clients, human resource professionals, business leaders, fellow coaches and the occasional aspiring gourmand. Our goal is to offer a combination of wisdom and wit--sourced from our own in-house experts and other respected leaders in the field--in an easy-to-access e-zine format. A hard copy version is published bi-annually. We welcome editorial questions, comments and story ideas; please direct these to the editor, Jennifer Dawson, at jen@sageportfoliogroup.com. If you find value in the articles we invite you to pass them on to a friend with the recommendation to sign up directly for The Leading Edge at www.sageportfoliogroup.com. Articles from The Leading Edge can be reproduced in an in-house publication provided that Sage Portfolio Group is credited for the article.