Connect To Level Up Your Leadership

A few years ago, Forbes posted an article titled, “New Research: Women More Effective Than Men in All Leadership Measures.” The article mentions several ways that women score higher on important leadership measures than men do, and then proceeds to discuss the fact that the hiring and promotion pipelines for women leaders are significantly less populated than those of men in leadership, and how companies can build more effective pipelines to foster women in leadership roles all the way up to the C-suite. It’s an interesting read, and will either bear out your confirmation bias or argue against it—feel free to engage as you’d like!

Stepping back from the topic of gender while reading the article, you see one thing standing out—the key advantages of women in leadership that they define are all around one larger topic—connection. The article defines these advantages as including, “Women leaders score significantly higher in their capability to ‘connect and relate to others,’” and “Female leaders more often lead from a ‘playing to win’ orientation—focusing on their natural curiosities about what matters most to the future they are creating and partnering with others to move toward that vision,” and “Women build and cultivate stronger connections.”

S0…women leaders are “good at leadership” by connecting with others—specifically using partnerships, relationships, and emotional intelligence to advance the company and leadership goals by connecting with and engaging people around those goals. That is good data for everyone in leadership, not just women. Because while women might be “better” at these things from an evolutionary, biological, or societal-systems standpoint, leaders from all genders are capable of excelling in these areas. We have (hopefully) all worked with great leaders of various genders who were great at seeing their teams as human beings, connecting with them, motivating them and leading them to shared accomplishments that lifted all the boats in the proverbial harbor.

And, of course, we’ve probably all worked with leaders of various genders that were terrible leaders, incapable of projecting a shared vision, content to never acknowledge anyone else, only concerned about their individual power, performance, and metrics, and unconcerned about others in their sphere, never showing collaboration, connection, or emotional intelligence, yet still finding their way to the leadership chair through some systemic or personal feat.

A takeaway from that Forbes article about women in leadership, then, can be that we should develop more effective pipelines to elevate women into leadership roles (in my personal opinion—yes, we should definitely do this for so many reasons!).

But another takeaway can also be that anyone can be a great leader, if they actively cultivate the tools to become a great leader, and if they genuinely care about and connect with the people they are leading. When we choose to lead from a place of shared vision, humanity, curiosity, humility, and respect, great leadership naturally occurs, and everyone—of all genders—is better for it.

Pop The Bubble on Early-Stage Startup HIring

I was on a business expert panel a few years ago speaking to an MBA class at a local university. The topic was startups and business impact, a topic I am very passionate about, so I was happy to be a participant on the panel and talking to the next generation of business leaders about the potential for businesses to change the world for the better. I was seated on the panel next to two startup chief executives, one of which was asked about hiring for startups, specifically how to hire the founding team, the leaders that will create the business from the ground up. The male executive next to me responded that startups “typically have to hire already very successful experienced tech employees or financially independent young men” to join their founding teams initially, because “those are the only people who can afford to take the market rate pay cut with equity options that early-stage startups provide in terms of compensation.” He went on to explain that women and older men with families and successful established careers were less likely to take the high risk of joining a new startup because they had more at stake in terms of losing family incomes and already established earning paths.

I managed (barely) to keep myself from jumping out of my seat next to him. I responded when he was finished with, “I’d like to challenge that assumption by saying this: there is a wide world of business out there. There are people out there today who are absolute superstars, working in places that you haven’t even considered. They’re working hard running non-profits, retail stores, teaching, providing healthcare, working in social work, doing all sorts of different work. There are people in each of these areas, and many more, that are absolutely brilliant leaders, intelligent strategists, fantastic teammates and individual contributors, and they are working for a salary every day that is much less than your founding team will be making. You haven’t even considered that to take a startup founding salary would be a pay INCREASE for some of them, with huge potential upside..and even if it isn’t, these smart people might want to pivot or take the risk to do something completely new to them, and your business might hugely benefit from the different perspectives that they bring to the table. We have GOT TO START being more creative about who we hire, there is a whole world full of fantastic candidates outside of the tech/startup hiring bubble.”

I was fired up, and the executive, of course, agreed with me, he obviously did not mean to offend or dismiss other types of candidates, but it was a reminder to me that tech/startups can be an insular bubble, used to the way of doing things that they have always done them, and that has typically favored a certain type of founder/early-stage startup hire. It is fairly obvious that we do ourselves a huge disservice when we only open our hiring pool to people who look or act like us, or make assumptions about who will be the right candidate for this job based on where they went to college, which startups they have already worked for, who they know in the VC world, what their financial status is, how old they are, and/or how much risk they’re potentially willing to take based on our own internal calculations. It seems cliché to say that diversity is the key to a successful business (it is, look it up, it’s a business success no-brainer to be as diverse as possible), but whew, sometimes it seems like our implicit biases, bubbles, and staid hiring processes stand in the way of all of that.

I’m biased about this topic, obviously, because I am a social worker who became a successful tech executive. I like to think my way of looking at the world from outside the tech bubble allowed the company that I worked for to thrive in the business we created to serve different types of employees and clients, who also saw the world from outside the tech bubble. I am incredibly grateful to those founders that I was given the opportunity to make that leap from one career to another and become part of a great founding team, and the space to prove that I also belonged there and could thrive and succeed in the startup environment. But deep down, I already knew when I was working every day as a social worker that I could excel in the startup world or any other, I had all the skills, instinct and talents I needed to be a great leader and executive, I just needed the opportunity to show that, and when I was given the opportunity, I did.

So, founders, leadership teams, hiring managers: when you’re building your founding team or your early-stage leadership team, please, please, please widen the aperture of your hiring lens, you’ll get to see things you never thought you could, and your business will be better for it!

This Is All A Lot

When the clock struck 12:01am on January 1 of this year, you likely had an idea about how you wanted the year to go. Whether you were awake and cheering in a New Year, or you were sleeping soundly in a quiet slumber, you had a plan for what you’d like to accomplish. Formally or informally, we often mark the turning of a year (or maybe you use another tracking point—daily, monthly, etc.) with our goals, dreams and wishes for how we’d like to use the time to achieve forward momentum for our life in some way. “I want to eat healthier,” or “I’m going to read more,” or “I want to be a VP by this time next year.” Having defined goals is our way of giving structure to the desires of being “better” in some way. What do you want? How are you going to get there? Start here, start today, start now, and make a plan.

Nothing about that process is a bad thing. In fact, creating a vision and a plan and working your plan is the best way to achieve your set goal, it gives us focus in a world that is extremely distracting, and one of the best parts of my job is helping you create those goals and plans and helping you achieve them, for yourself and your business.

But I’ve been thinking about how we make our plans in a best-case-scenario bubble, not knowing what things will come along to either support us or knock us off course. The old Yiddish proverb, “We make plans and God laughs,” rings true, more often than not. Did we know that the world would look like this today at the beginning of this year? Nope. Waking up today looks different than we expected, in so many ways.

THIS (::gestures wildly at the city, country, world, internet culture, business culture, economy, etc. we are currently inhabiting::) is all a LOT right now. We are currently at a fever pitch of chaos, of change, of disruption. Some of it will lead to progress forward and new ways of living and working together. Some of it will lead us down a darker path, of conflict, of distraction, of societal shifts, away from connection and humanity.

So—here we are. Trying to exist, move forward, find momentum and our niche in a chaotic world. You didn’t know what today would look like when you created your vision, your goals or your plans for this time, and much of this is out of your control. But don’t underestimate the power of you in this moment—you hold the power for change. You can and should still set goals, decide on a path of action, and move forward. You can choose the path forward for you, your business, your career, your family. Start today. Or tomorrow. But definitely start!

The stories are strong around us for a reason. We turn to myths and heroes and legends because time and circumstance are cyclical, we have been here before in time, and we will be here again, and every time, there have been those who have moved us forward out of chaos and into light, up the spiral staircase into progress, so it looks just a little different the next time we find ourselves in a similar place. We can make those choices, too, and become our own version of a legend or a hero, even if just for ourselves and our lives and our personal and professional communities.

If you want help, I’m here to help—to listen, to support, to encourage, and to strategize how to move forward from here toward your goals and visions. Putting one foot in front of the other can sometimes be easier with others than alone, but you can do it however you’d like, and I believe at my core that even though This Is All A Lot—YOU are powerful and capable and I can’t wait to see how you shine in this moment, and how we move the world forward in our own ways right now. I’ll see you on the spiral staircase!

How a Vacation and a Tiny Pack of Earplugs Changed My WorK Life

I was a on a beach vacation a few years ago, trying to unplug from my very busy work schedule. I was the epitome of the cliché of the early stage startup executive—I was working too hard and too much and not sleeping at all, trying to manage my work responsibilities and the relentlessness of what felt like “being needed all the time by everyone.” I work fast, but the work came in faster, the emails never stopped, and my Type A self was driven to new levels of stress, high blood pressure, and teeth grinding in my sleep, trying to be responsive and helpful to everyone and everything coming at me every day (and trying to keep my email inbox at zero!) and mostly succeeding but sometimes failing miserably, enough to make me keep trying harder.

So there I was, on vacation trying to insert some equilibrium back into my life, and I was annoyed and cursing under my breath in my beach chair because I was trying to lay quietly in the sun, trying to listen to the waves crashing on the beach, so I could finally relax, and I kept hearing the conversations of the people walking by my chair instead. I have never been the type of person who can tune out other people well, I have been a people-pleaser all my life, and so I am usually attuned to the wants/needs of others before myself (though now this is something I am very actively working on!). But this particular day, I wanted to rest! And kept getting interrupted! And so I grumbled to my spouse under my breath about how annoyed I was that I couldn’t relax with all these people around me talking. And lo and behold, like the king of self-care, he reached into his bag and held up a new packet of earplugs. “Want these?” he said. “I guess.” I said, begrudgingly putting them in, blocking out both the conversations and the sound of the waves almost instantly. Within 10 minutes, I was asleep on my beach chair, napping peacefully in the sun (with copious amounts of high SPF sunscreen on and under a towel and an umbrella, I am a redhead, after all!).

When I woke up rested, I realized what had happened and said to my spouse, “I need earplugs for work.” What I meant—”I need a way to turn off the noise and the relentlessness of being “needed” all the time.” I needed to stop letting the work control me and start controlling the work.

And so, when I got home from vacation, I stared at my email inbox and my calendar and I made two very big changes. 1) I blocked 3 slots on my daily work calendar for email. 45-60 minutes each. One first thing in the morning, one late morning/ early afternoon, one end of day. I started only checking my email during these time slots, instead of having it on a tab open all day (and then responding all day). It turns out by giving emails certain time blocks, I was more focused on them and able to handle them more effectively, efficiently and more easily, and handled them all within those time blocks every day. It also meant that I was able to tune in to my meetings, calls, and work tasks more fully, and with far less distraction without that email tab dinging upwards all the time and distracting me as I tried to respond and pay attention to the meeting at the same time. 2) I started using the true concepts of inbox-zero to maintain control of my inbox. I would delete emails that were unnecessary/spam immediately, I would delegate emails through forwarding that weren’t my direct responsibility, I would defer it to another day or time frame using the SNOOZE EMAIL feature (the ACTUAL BEST THING for Type-A zero inboxers!), or address it/respond/do the task immediately until they were all cleared out. (For real though, use your snooze email button. It allows you to decide which things you have to do/emails you have to address by the end of today, and which ones can wait to act as a reminder to you until just before that meeting next Tuesday, etc. You’ll start to notice that you have email days that are heavier and redirect some of those less-urgent emails to your lighter email days. It’s a version of kicking the can down the road that is professionally helpful—it actually allows you to focus on the present—what is required TODAY by end of day? Do that thing. The rest can wait! I know this is so hard to believe, but try it with some lower-stakes emails and you’ll see how much it can help clear out your email inbox and get things in order and then you can feel more comfortable expanding to other emails!).

By changing these two ways of interacting with my email inbox, I changed my work patterns, and even I was surprised by how effective it was in giving me back my attention and lowering my stress levels. I essentially put “earplugs” on with regard to my email so I couldn’t be distracted by responding to it all day every day, and could focus/take care of what I needed to take care of today. And ended up taking better care of myself in the process.

Lessons of this story: 1) take your vacations, they allow you to step away and think differently about your work, and 2) putting boundaries around your email (or any other repetitive work tasks) will put you more in charge of your work, instead of your work being in charge of you. Try it!

The Motivation For Change

Change begins with awareness. It is easy to be unaware of our internal thoughts in our very busy world, we are surrounded by constant noise, conflict, and busyness distracting us. But in the quiet moments—right before we fall asleep, when we turn off the podcast, when we’re sitting in the car—we occasionally tune in to ourselves, to the thoughts swirling around in our consciousness. And there it is: the friction that we experience when there is space between where we are and where we want to be.

Sometimes, that awareness is personal—we want a nicer house or a better neighborhood, we want a partner with different qualities (or to be blissfully left alone!), we want our family life to be easier. Sometimes, it’s professional—we want a higher salary, a better position, more responsibility (or less!), recognition. Sometimes, it’s business—we want more clients, more revenue, better processes for our company.

The awareness of these thoughts makes you feel like you can’t settle. Something is out of your reach, and it causes you to become aware of the space in between.

We don’t like feeling that gap, it’s uncomfortable to realize that there is a delta between here and there. But that space is the key to your success! The awareness of that delta is the trigger that motivates us to change. Once we become aware of it, an unconscious process starts to churn—and we become restless. We start thinking about how things could be different if they changed. We start to assess the cost of not changing. We start to hope and to explore our options. And the churn becomes louder and more uncomfortable until it reaches a peak, and then—we decide to make a change.

It’s always a choice to make change, but we often make that choice because the cost of staying the same and being uncomfortable in the gap is too much for us to bear. Deciding to make the change is the “easy” part, the actual process of making change is the hard part, of course. But today, amidst the noise of your busy life, I want to challenge you to just spend some time finding the quiet and your internal thoughts, thinking about where that restlessness is percolating just under the surface. Those thoughts and feelings are worth paying attention to, they are calling you to a change for the better!