I am back to my blog after a couple of months of huge change in my personal and professional lives. Always a driver to move forward and do better, I listed and sold my house (in one day on the market) to prepare for a needed personal downsize (buying a condo in Downtown Frederick, Maryland) to prepare for multiple contracts of professional work and travel. I hadn't planned to downsize my home so soon (I just turned 46 two weeks ago), but an opportunity of instant equity presented itself, plus my dream to live in my hometown city, so I had to pursue it.
I usually love change, especially for the better, but this was one of the most stressful times of my life. It required alot of work, planning and emotional acceptance -- much like the change that I have managed and promoted in my professional career. It took me a couple of months to do it, but I am happy that I pushed myself into the next chapter of my life, personally and professionally. My husband was a great supporter!
My consulting business is taking off, I have won a contract bid for the National Fire Academy with the Department of Homeland Security to teach Ethical Leadership; the American Management Association is sending me a contract to teach their professional development classes nationally; and Hood College has asked me to become an Adjunct Professor for their MBA program. I am honored and ecstatic to be apart of all of these programs and to help others excel in their careers! It is a good thing that I am an extremely organized person -- I can schedule all of these teaching engagements and still have time for business consulting.
During all of this change in the past two months, I took the time to improve my professional skills and credentials, by completing the International Public Safety Leadership & Ethics Institute (IPSLEI)'s dual-certification class to become a Facilitator of the IPSLEI Leadership Development Programs and Instructor of the Phi Theta Kappa Leadership Development Studies Program.
So I think you can understand why I had to take a break from the blog! But I am back and will be writing about leadership, training and development topics. Please let me know what you would like to hear about or if I can assist you in a big change at Contact.
Sunday was Mother's Day and today is my mother's birthday, which has me reflecting on what a profound impact my mother has had on my life, my leadership style and my sense of responsibility and commitment toward those who work for and with me. My mother spent most of her 35-year career working for the Federal Government and is now retired. After completing her bachelor's degree at night, while working full-time and raising three kids, she started her master's degree, but quit that program once she achieved a management position because she had obtained her ideal leadership position of a team of professionals. Mom always wanted to be a team leader, she loved working with people, she was energized by the diversity of people, she knew every team member personally, to help them grow in their lives and careers. Any time that I went to work with her, I was told by everyone how lucky I was to have her as my mother.
My mother valued mentoring and viewed it as her responsibility to her team, to help them grow as she had been helped in her career. I have always lead and mentored in the same way in my career, as I saw the difference in a team that supports and grows together is much more enjoyable to work in and more productive. Plus it is rewarding to help others see what they cannot see, to suggest how they can improve themselves and their work -- with a positive and encouraging work dialog, then later witness their growth and gratitude.
Not all leaders value mentoring, as my mother and I have both encountered in our careers. We both have left jobs that we loved after having to deal with managers who didn't care as much about their staff and developing them as they valued numbers and task completion. Ironically, being personally connected with your team and committed to them usually produces a pro-active work environment, increased retention and self-initiated accountability -- which naturally raises team and individual productivity. It takes a leader's personal commitment to mentoring her team to accomplish optimal organizational productivity. Thanks, Mom, for modeling this for me!
The two phases of Adaptive Leadership are crisis and change, as explained by Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky in "Adaptive Leadership in Practice." For leaders and organizations to consider creating and implementing adaptive change, they usually experience an urgent or emergency condition. Public safety leaders encounter emergencies daily and often try to implement quick technical fixes instead of adaptive change. Private organizations are less likely to implement change to improve their organizations, until there is a large crisis.
Here are Adaptive Leadership skills to turn a crisis into positive change:
Promote Adaptation
Doing what you have always done because it works, or used to work, keeps your organization stagnant. With constantly evolving economies and technologies, this makes it hard to grow or maintain existing customer loyalty. If you don't believe that your industry changes much, look at how much our society changes regularly -- cell phones, for example, constantly change to suit consumer demand. Future-thinking leaders are adapting to trends to maintain and exceed their market share. Small changes are a prudent method, enabling agility to easily modify and make the change more manageable for people in the organization.
Encourage Disequilibrium
Disturbance from crisis can be productive to encourage change, but too much can cause negative results in employees or customers fighting or fleeing your organization. Effective leaders manage the stress level for their organizations, moderating urgency and timeline demands to a manageable level, while pushing for more creativity and innovation.
Foster Leadership
Successful change happens when all levels of an organization embrace and implement it. Effective leaders empower everyone in the organization to contribute in a positive way. Diversity through listening to and learning from everyone, enables informed leadership, and enables a leader to admonish some of his own authority to create buy-in and new ideas. A fresh perspective enables a leader to disengage from the crisis and depart from his experience and emotions, enabling true innovation to occur. Authoritative leadership does not enable this kind of organizational environment.
For assistance in deciding how to implement change in your organization, contact us for advice. Get the perspective of an unbiased third-party to assist in your Adaptive Leadership.