Joelle K. Jay

business leadership

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Of Brilliances and Blind Spots

What could you achieve if your business were 38% more effective, or if your customers were 44% more likely to be satisfied with your results? Would it make a difference?

For years, I’ve been an avid proponent of Strengths-Based Leadership. In a nutshell, the theory argues that if we want to be our best, we need to capitalize on our strengths. According to research from the Gallup organization (as reported in Now Discover Your Strengths by Clifton and Buckingham, among others), in organizations where leaders are encouraged to build on their strengths, the business is

•         50% more likely to have lower turnover

•         38% more likely to have productive business units

•         44% more likely to have higher customer satisfaction.

You can improve your own results by building on your strengths. I call it Tapping Into Your Brilliance, and it’s the Fourth Practice of Personal Leadership.

Of course, we don’t always know what our brilliances are. But you can find them. My favorite resources are Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Marcus Buckingham’s Go Put Your Strengths to Work, both of which offer you the chance to take a quiz that reveals to you your strengths.

But it’s not just our strengths that need work. It’s also our blind spots. Cece Sutton, the president of the retail banking group at Morgan Stanley, agrees:

“Great leaders work on themselves. They’re acknowledging and aware of the things they need to improve on to be better. I don’t know all my blind spots, but I know a lot of them. I’m not always conscious of them, but I do think about them and try to improve.”

What’s especially dangerous about our weaknesses is that they’re so hard to see. Think about that blind spot in your car – how scary it is to realize that another vehicle could be hiding back there, threateningly close, and you can’t even see it.

To excel as a leader, you’ve got to be able to see into your blind spots. To help leaders with this process, I’ve created a feedback system you can use to discover both your brilliances and your blind spots. It’s called The 360 Investment, and you can find it at www.The360Investment.com.

You can also learn more about Strengths-Based Leadership by downloading a free copy of my white paper, The Best of You and the Rest of You: Making the Most of Strengths-Based Leadership.

For now, just give it some thought. What are two of your strengths, and how can you make them work for you? What is your one biggest weakness, and how can you prevent it from holding you back?

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here for more information.

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From Brilliance to the Best

In The Inner Edge, you learned the practice of tapping into your brilliance. You now know your distinct natural attributes, as well as how to leverage them for a more powerful effect. The more you practice applying your DNA strategically to achieve your vision and reach your goals, the more you can do and the better you can do it. Then you’re not just brilliant, you’re truly being your best.

Being Your Best
“Being your best” may sound like a cliché, but let’s think about it more deeply. Each of the three words in that phrase is important.

Being. When you are being your best, you are focusing on the way you are. “Who you be” in any given moment is about your character, your alignment with your vision and values, and your ability to integrate your life and your leadership. It’s not what you do. It’s not what you win. It’s not what you have. It’s who you be that helps you tap into your true unique value. Focusing on the being aspects of your attributes (being caring, being inspirational, being strategic) will tie you to your brilliance.

Your. The biggest difference in being brilliant versus being just good lies in the operative word your. The goal is not to be the best. The goal is to be your best. Being the best is about ego. Being your best is about commitment. Can you be both? Sure. You probably will. But your attention must be on what you can do to succeed – not on beating everyone else. That’s a much more powerful position.

Best. “Best” is a moving target. Have you ever done what you thought was your best, only to surprise yourself by doing even a little bit more? The idea behind being your best is to push past the limits of what you thought your “best” would be. Find the edge – that spot where you really feel you cannot do one iota better. That is your best…for the moment, until next time where you find out yes, you can do even better.

Being your best instead of being the best is the opposite of the “nose to the grindstone” mentality that drives our culture…and drives many leaders to destruction. Being your best is being so yourself that you naturally excel.

And if you’re really ready to Be Your Best, use the worksheet, Your Best, in The Inner Edge: The Extension. Click here to see a preview or to purchase The Extension at https://www.joellekjay.comthe-inner-edge/.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be discussing what it means for your to Be Your Best – and how to get there. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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Turn Before You See the Island

If you truly mean to attain the vision you have set for yourself and your organization, you can’t just be organized. You’ve got to be strategic.

It’s the Second Practice of Personal Leadership: Find Focus.

Joe Pinto, Senior Vice President–Technical Support Systems at Cisco, explains.

“It’s important that leaders sit back and plan. My leadership team and I get together every three to four months. We sit down, and we have a couple of key stakeholders sit down with us, and we plan out where we’re going. We spend probably one fourth of the time looking back over the last three or four months, and three-quarters of the time looking forward to what decisions we’re making to run the business. [Our organization] is such a big engine that if we decide to turn the ship when we see the island, it’s too late.”

Planning ahead like this is critical, whether it’s for work (like when you’re planning your team’s direction), professional goals (like your own career advancement strategy), or a personal desire (like the way you want to experience the new year). It’s a commitment. It’s a sacrifice. It’s also a leadership “best practice.” So if you want to be a great leader, you’d best practice.

Again, here’s Joe’s three-part formula for finding focus:

1. Every three or four months, schedule a planning session.
2. Look back over the previous quarter.
3. Look forward to the decisions ahead.

I’ve created a guide that you can use every time you use this process. It’s called the Focus Areas Planning Guide, and it’s available (completely free!) at www.TheInnerEdge.com. Just click here.

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. The eCourse includes a set of brief leadership practices illustrated with the words and experience of a real business leader who exemplifies the practice. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Email joelle@pillar-consulting.com now for more information.

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Cycling Your Way to Clarity

Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, is a leader I’ve come to admire. He contributed to the book, The Inner Edge, and in fact, endorsed it. (To read his review, click here.)

In my workshops, I often use Patrick as an example for the First Practice of Personal Leadership: Get Clarity.

I like to distinguish between clarity and vision. Vision is the desired, ultimate end result; clarity is the ability to keep that vision alive day after day. Both are essential to succeed in any endeavor.

Patrick once told me he has had cancer three times, and each time he recovered, he has ridden his bike across the United States, from California to New York.

Think about the vision Patrick must have had for these cross-country trips. Arriving on his bike in New York. Finishing the ride. Maybe symbolizing beating cancer. Or celebrating life.

Now compare that to the clarity Patrick needed to get through the ride. Imagine what must have gone through his mind when the road got long. Or cold. Or hot. In the middle of the prairie and through every little town, every flat tire, every hungry mile. Why am I doing this again? Oh yes. Celebrating life. That constant reconnection to the vision is what we call clarity. It’s a different process than getting a vision. It’s pulling yourself from wherever you are, no matter how distant or disconnected it may seem, back to that vision once again. It’s that process of reconnecting, reconnecting, reconnecting that got Patrick through those rides.

And although he didn’t say it, I imagine the same was true for the cancer.

Clarity takes time to cultivate; sometimes we come by it easily and sometimes it takes a little more effort. Patrick once said to me, “Bicycling, I used to think about the Atlantic Ocean. I thought, as long as I’m pointed east and I’m still pedaling, I have to be getting closer.” When you have clarity about what you want, even if you don’t know exactly how to get there, you will be getting closer to your ultimate vision in every step.

I like to learn from leaders like Patrick. If you do, too, you may be interested in a series of leadership profiles I offer called Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. For more information email Info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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Be a Better Leader, Lead a Better Life

Are you practicing personal leadership? How do you know?

As I wrote in my last post, lately I’ve been going back and rereading the interviews I conducted for The Inner Edge. I’m reminded as I do of the incredible wisdom of leaders, and I thought it would be valuable use of this blog to post excerpts from some of these interviews.

All of the interviews illustrate the Ten Practices of Personal Leadership. Perhaps it would be useful to review the practices now to kick off this series. Here they are:

1. Get Clarity. Connect clearly and instantly to your long- and short-term visions of success.

2. Find Focus. Focus your attention on top priorities even when the world around you is pulling you away.

3. Take Action. Stop spinning your wheels and start driving with direction—easily, swiftly, and in less time.

4. Tap into Your Brilliance. Identify what’s exceptional about you, both positive and negative, and use your uniqueness to your
advantage.

5. Feel Fulfillment. Discover what drives you—your values, meaning, and purpose.

6. Maximize Your Time. Think differently about time and learn to do more with less.

7. Build Your Team. Develop your own private team of supporters—not just fans, but advocates who will help you succeed.

8. Keep Learning. Keep adapting and improving in this world of unending change.

9. See Possibility. Take advantage of the hidden opportunities all around you—the ones most people miss.

10. All . . . All at Once. Align and integrate your life so you can enjoy and excel in every moment of being a leader and leading your life.

Remember: in order to effectively lead your organization, you also need to lead yourself.

Be sure to visit the website, www.TheInnerEdge.com, where you can find out about getting a copy of The Inner Edge. You’ll also find an extensive collection of free worksheets and audios, plus workbooks, eBooks, a thriving community of leaders like you, coaching services, complementary articles, and more.

I’ll be back soon with the first interview – my conversation with Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com!

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Make it Happen – Let it Happen: Experience the Possibilities

The 9th Practice of Personal Leadership, which we’ve been discussing this month in The Inner Edge Book Club, takes us on a path where our action-oriented business ideals almost seem to clash with a spirit of possibility.

But the ability to see possibility is how we often find the greatest opportunities in life.

When we’re going down the road to success in our culture, we often adopt the mindset of “Make it Happen.”  Our thinking in this mode (the “active” mode) is rational, strategic, goal-driven, and with it, we push forward at all times, relentlessly pursuing our goals. We’re focused and logical.

There’s another option – the mindset of “Let it Happen.” Our thinking in this mode (the “receptive” mode) is open to possibilities at all times. We’re not giving up our place at the front of the pack, but we’re allowing space there for possibilities to emerge. In this state, we’re accessing our intuitive natures — our optimism and insight.

Where these two modes converge is where the magic happens. It’s where new possibilities emerge. These may be business opportunities you’ve never considered or noticed. They may be solutions to problems you’ve been working through. They may be terrific insights.

We’re exploring the convergence of Making it Happen and Letting it Happen this month in The Inner Edge book club. And we’re learning strategies (“invitations” as I like to call them) to “let it happen” more easily and with better results. If you’d like to join us, please email me.

You can also learn more about how the book club works by clicking here for a description of The Inner Edge Community.

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Your Inner and Outer Edges – Your Möbius Strip

People are often curious about the large yellow image on the cover of The Inner Edge. Is it an 8? Is it the sign for infinity? Actually, it’s neither. That mysterious image is actually a geometrical shape, a Möbius Strip.

What’s unique about a Möbius strip is that as you trace your finger along its sides, you will find that where you may start on the outer edge, as you move your finger you will end up suddenly on the inner edge. Keep tracing and you’ll be on the outer edge again.

I chose a Möbius strip as the cover illustration for The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership, because it symbolizes for me the inner and outer aspects of your leadership. As I studied the Möbius strip, I was struck by the continuous movement, from inside to outside and back again to inside — what a perfect metaphor for the infinite value of our inner and outer harmony!

When you delve further into The Inner Edge, you’ll find that I focus almost all of my attention on the personal, internal aspect of leadership, and I do that intentionally because I know that that’s the core of any outer success you’ll find, either in your business or at home.

The Möbius strip reminds me that effectiveness as a leader is intimately related to personal thoughts and feelings.

As you work on your Inner Edge, developing clarity, focus and vision, you’ll find these personal strengths correlating with your team management, planning and business leadership. In fact, you’ll find that they are one steady stream.

This is leadership from the inside out. It’s creating a continuum from your inner world to your outer. When these two are humming on the same Möbius strip, you’re in alignment, and great things happen.

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Leadership is for Everyone: You Are a Leader

Leadership does not live solely in the corner office anymore, and it’s not just for business executives either. Everyone is a leader in some way. You are a leader.

When I began to speak about leadership, I met some people who truly believed that leadership was not relevant to their lives. They didn’t manage an office, didn’t lead a construction crew, and didn’t have children. How could leadership be applicable to them?

My intuitive answer then is the same as my well-studied answer now: leadership is relevant to each and every one of us. Think of all the ways you interact in life, whether some of those are in a business role or not. I’ll wager that you’ll find that you are a leader in some of your roles.

Here’s something from The Inner Edge that I’d like to share with you: Beyond business leaders, professionals, teachers, and other obvious leadership roles, you’ll find leadership in many aspects of life. Look for it in community activities, families, amongst friends, and in categories such as inspirational and thought leaders.

Look around you, and think of how you are spending your day. You’ve been a leader for others at some point today, and beyond that, you’ve been a leader of your own life all day.

No matter who you are or what you do, you get to take the lead in your life. No one else will do that for you. No one else can. You may or may not have a fancy suit, a nameplate on the door, and an assistant just outside. But every single one of us is leading a life, which may be the most exciting kind of leadership of all.
Excerpt from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership by Joelle K Jay

Lead your life well: lead it from your Inner Edge.

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Your Leadership Shapes Your Life

In The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership, I talk about something that I passionately believe: The way you lead shapes your life. By this I mean much more than simply creating life-to-work balance. I’m talking about leading from the inside out.

I explain this concept in The Inner Edge. We work together on it in our Inner Edge Community, and I’ll be blogging about it over the coming months right here, with you as my partner. I invite you to submit your thoughts, discoveries, experiences, successes and challenges as you familiarize yourself with the practices in The Inner Edge.  I encourage you to experiment with the practices described in the book, the workbook and other materials, and I hope you’ll share your ups and downs with us here on The Inner Edge blog.

Join us on our Facebook page, too, as we do our utmost to connect Inner Edge readers and participants. Also, I invite you to sign up for the free Inner Edge Newsletter. I want to make sure you have all the tools you need to help you find your Inner Edge.

Your leadership is a gift. Your world – whether it’s your personal sphere of influence, your business organization, or the world at large – will be bettered by you being your best. I’m here to support you in that effort. So, please join me, and we’ll work together for your greatest success.