Joelle K. Jay

leadership

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The Road to Heaven is Paved with Good Intentions

“Intentions” have gotten a bad rap, no thanks to that old saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” There’s actually something quite heavenly about setting an intention and having it fulfilled.

In coaching jargon, an “intention” is a concise statement summarizing a state of mind about who you intend to be, even in the midst of the changes and challenges of leadership. It starts with “I am” and ends with a value. A few examples:

“I am independent and confident.”
“I am courageous.”
“I am generous and compassionate.”

Each of these intentions describes a mindset you might choose at any given moment.

Leaders often set intentions when they need to stay cool in an intense situation, when they’re too busy to stay focused on what’s important to them, or when they are trying to make changes in their thinking. As you go through the stormy parts of life, your intentions anchor you to your values.

Why set an intention? Intentions shift your thinking away from negative self-defeating or counterproductive thoughts, and replace them with a mindset more aligned with your values. They also help you reframe a situation so you can choose how to act, think, and be for the best possible result. To give a few examples of leaders who have chosen intentions:

  • When Ryan, a corporate CFO, had to cut expenses, he set the intention to be resourceful and creative.
  • When Lei, a business owner, had to confront an angry customer, she the intention to be calm.
  • When David, an exhausted new dad, had to make an important presentation, he set the intention to be alert and focused.

An intention reframes the way you see a situation so that you can approach it in the best possible way – consciously choosing how to act, think, and be. Your intention has the power to change your perspective, open your mind, and shift your experience.

To create your intention, start by asking yourself, Who do I want to be as a leader? How do I want to experience my life? How do I want other people to experience me? What mindset or perspective do I want to hold? By purposefully choosing who you want to be, you enter leadership with the best of intentions.

Exercise

Practice setting an intention for an upcoming event – anything from your next meeting to a difficult interaction, to an evening at home. Use the Your Intentions worksheet in The Extension as a guide.

The ideas in this article are drawn from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and the accompanying eBook called The Extension. The eBook is designed to give you simple, engaging personal leadership exercises and activities to help you be a better leader, and lead a better life. Get your copy today! Click here for a Preview or Order Now.

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Having the Clarity to Get What You Want

William

In the heart of the Silicon Valley, deep in the middle of an office park, a lone light shone in an office on the 17th floor. Inside, William sat alone at his desk. He looked at the clock. Ten p.m.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he thought to himself. “This is ridiculous.” He’d started his day at four this morning. Another eighteen hour day.

He turned back to his computer. Staring back at him was the report he’d been working on since six. After seventeen years at this high-tech firm, William had become a regional general manager for product development. At his company, he had both power and prestige. Most days William had an enviable job: flying the company jet from coast to coast, dining with powerful people in fancy restaurants, and trying out flashy new gadgets. But tonight, all of that seemed empty. He thought regretfully of his ten-year-old soccer player at home and the game he’d missed this evening. He loved his job, but at the end of the day, he felt like just another suit working away his life.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth, the new head of her accounting division for a pharmaceutical company, dashed into her office. The nine-thirty meeting she’d just left had been exciting, but it had left her with plenty to do. Since she’d just gotten this promotion, she felt eager to impress, but suddenly she felt like she’d overcommitted. She wished she could just sit down for half an hour and collect her thoughts, organize her notes, and make sure she hadn’t missed anything. But no time for that. She dumped the stack of papers she was carrying onto the desk.

“Ugh,” she thought. “The pile grows!” She grabbed another stack and hurried out. Onto the ten-thirty meeting.

Grant

Grant had a lot to be proud of. The founder and chief cardiologist of the Southwest Center for Heart Health and Wellness, he was totally invested in its success. The Heart Center had been his idea. He’d dreamed it up, secured the funding, and built the organization from the ground up. Now doctors were seeing patients and the research was underway. Three years after opening its doors, the center was a respected organization for care and research. Grant was as inspired as ever.

“What’s next for us?” Grant wondered, his mind buzzing with ideas. “A bigger grant, a research breakthrough, a new wing? Maybe we need new staff or a high-profile teaching fellow…”

With so many possibilities, Grant barely knew where to start. Suddenly he felt overwhelmed. His heart started to race. He could see so much potential, and he wanted to do it all, right now! But he was only one man, and a cardiologist at that, not an organizational expert. He knew he needed to find a way to make the Heart Center thrive.

“But,” he asked himself, “how do I do that?” He stopped walking. “Seriously. How do I?”

What William, Elizabeth, and Grant have in common is that, despite their success, they all want something more. William wants something more for his life. Elizabeth wants something more for her job. Grant wants something more for his organization. The problem is none of these leaders exactly know what their “more” is. So they keep doing what so many people do: slog through the work with their heads down, ignoring that vague, unsettled feeling that they are not truly being the leaders they could be or leading the kinds of lives they want to live.

Perhaps you’ve felt the same way. You can be motivated, driven, and extremely busy and yet still not be as clear as you could be about exactly what it is you want.

What do you want? A promotion? Time for yourself? Better relationships with your friends and family? That ever-elusive work/life balance? None of these are possible unless you stop moving long enough to figure out what you’re after. Explore your ideas. Envision a different reality. In order to achieve success in your life and as a leader, you need clarity about what you really want.

How to get that clarity is one of the ideas I share with leaders in the book, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. To learn more, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find an overview of the book, endorsements by such thought leaders as Marshall Goldsmith and Stephen Covey, and more.

In The Inner Edge, you will get that clarity. Ultimately, you are not just going to become clearer about what you want. You’re actually going to get it.

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You & Improved

Do you have an ideal vision of yourself – the “you” you would like to be if only you could find the time…or had the right opportunities…or were given the right information…or made the right decisions? What would it be like to finally live that life? There’s actually a strategy you can use to help bring that vision into reality. I call it simply envisioning the future. Like a daydream, with meaning. In your mind, you see yourself succeeding: you…and improved.

Envisioning is not fantasizing; quite the opposite, it’s a practical, efficient technique to get clarity instantly by tapping into these rich stores of knowledge that sometimes get obscured in the chaos of daily life.

To envision your future, close your eyes and imagine yourself exactly where you want to be as a leader and in your life. Here are the steps.

Prepare. Set the context. What, specifically, do you want to envision?

Relax. Envisioning always works best when you are relaxed. Before you rush off to envision your future, slow down. Breathe.

Envision. Now imagine yourself at the time and place of your choosing – whatever and whenever it was you said you wanted to envision – and really see yourself there. Take it all in, using all of your senses and emotions, observing what it’s like to be you…then. Now take yourself on a tour. As if you were walking the scenes of a movie set, you move from one image to another. Your work. Your career. Your home life. You see it all while you’re there, visiting your future.

That’s it! Easy. When you’ve “looked around” this future vision of yourself, take time to debrief and interpret what you saw.

  • What surprised you?
  • Was there anything missing?
  • How did it feel?

Questions like these help you anchor the images while they’re fresh in your mind.

You can get additional insight by interpreting the images you saw. Recall the details and think about what they might mean.

Finally, to find out how this process has clarified your ideas about what you want, write down the answer to this final question: “When you have achieved what you want to achieve…when you have become who you want to be…when you have done what you want to do…what will be true for you?” Keep what you write. This is your vision.

Would you like to try this exercise in more depth? I’ve put up a FREE audio recording in my own voice that you can use to do this visualization the “real” way, with your eyes closed and a coach walking you through the process slowly. You will find it at www.TheInnerEdge.com and clicking on Worksheets and Audios (on the left). Look for the You and Improved Visualization Audio. Enjoy the process!

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Look for the Perfect

“Everything works out for the best.”

“If it’s meant to be, it will happen.”

Have you ever uttered these words? While many people believe at some level that “things happen for a reason,” they act as though they don’t trust the idea. If it really is true that that everything works out for the best, then every situation is perfect in some way.

Here’s an example.

Zach, an attorney, discovered this when he learned his business partner, Kareem, was leaving the practice. Zach and Kareem had built a business from scratch; he thought growing it big was what they both wanted. But people change. Kareem changed. He didn’t want a business anymore. He didn’t want the headache and the pressure. Now he just wanted to join a bigger firm, not build one.

Zach was determined to talk him out of it. He tried everything to help Kareem see the possibilities, and he tried to see every possibility for himself. But Kareem’s answer was no. He had decided. He was leaving.

After the emotions subsided (anger, resentment, denial, and determination), Zach took the practice over by himself.

“Well, at least one positive thing came out of this,” Zach thought as he signed the documents. “Now I get to be president.”

But Zach got to be a lot more than that. As he started to shoulder the practice on his own, he became more confident as a businessman. He took the practice in his own direction. He made bold decisions, branched out and hired more attorneys. The business grew, as did his reputation and profits. Best of all, he maintained a friendship with Kareem, who stayed in his corner – no longer employed by the business but still rooting for its success.

Zach didn’t know when Kareem said “no” to the business that the business was saying “yes” to Zach. A situation that at first seems to be a disaster can actually turn out to be perfect.

Looking for the perfect is especially helpful when you get an untimely surprise.

  • Benjamin got the promotion he wanted a year before he felt ready.
  • Enrique was awarded a giant contract the same year he was planning to retire.
  • Martina, the next-in-line for a public office, had to step into the job when an elected official had to step down for personal reasons.
  • Neal found out that after years of family planning, he and his wife were about to have not one, not two, but three babies.

In each of these situations, leaders were able to reframe a situation that initially felt wrong by believing it must have to be right. They looked for the perfect.

Believing life might be perfect as it is doesn’t mean you play a passive role in your life. You are still leading your life; you are still becoming the leader you want to be and creating your vision. But you’re doing so with an open mind, realizing that for reasons we don’t understand, some things might be “right” for us that we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves. Other things might be “wrong” for us even if we thought they were right.

Sometimes we find the opportunities we’re looking for, but other times those opportunities find us.

Exercise

  • Recall a time in your life when you got a “no” or “yes” that you weren’t expecting – maybe unanticipated (good or bad) news or a surprising change in direction.
  • How did the situation work out?
  • In hindsight, what was perfect?

The ideas in this article are drawn from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and the accompanying eBook called The Extension. The eBook is designed to give you simple, engaging personal leadership exercises and activities to help you be a better leader, and lead a better life. Get your copy today! Click here for a Preview and to Order.

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“I’ve been robbed!”

Recently I read a letter that started like this. See if you can relate:

“I was feeling robbed of my personal life. Even though I was physically present, my mind was a million miles away.”

The sentiment is rather heartbreaking, but it certainly isn’t uncommon. Someone else recently told me,

“I find myself wishing I could check into a hospital, because then I’d finally get some rest.”

Here’s another one:

“You have to race to keep up with everything. It’s all about getting ahead. If you slow down, you’ll get behind. I’m just so afraid of being in the backwater.”

If any of these comments resonate with you, you’re probably starting to feel a familiar twinge – that little squeeze in the heart that tells you, “I don’t want to live this way.”

Well, of course you don’t. And you don’t have to.

You can learn to lead your life in a way that preserves your talent while enhancing your quality of life. You can succeed without the sacrifice. Success without the stress.

You see, “getting ahead” has less to do with time and effort than it does thoughtful, reflective consideration: the kind of “inner work” that allows you to choose who and how you want to be. There are ways to win at work that also support your personal life. You can have it all without doing it all. Quality work and quality time at once.

I’ve written about all of this in The Inner Edge.

The Inner Edge is a book for high-achieving business leaders who aspire to reach the highest levels of leadership but want to do so without sacrificing themselves along the way. Instead, it shows leaders how to find the ideal strategy for achieving their vision and goals in a way that preserves their talent and protects the quality of life that keeps them at their best.

Every year, I take people through The Inner Edge in The Inner Edge Book Club. Would you like to read it with us?

Click here to read more about The Inner Edge Book Club

I’ll give you a little preview here. There are ten practices of personal leadership, and we look at them one at a time – one per month in a group teleseminar format.

As you read the book, you will:

• Get clarity about your vision
• Find focus so you can pursue that vision
• Take the most effective action to achieve your vision
• Learn to leverage your talents, teams and time
• Learn to lead in way that’s in alignment with who you are and who you want to be.

In short, you’ll learn how to achieve your vision and goals without sacrificing the quality of life that keeps you at your best.

Then you’ll find yourself saying what some of our book club members told me when they finished the book:

“Now, I’m more relaxed! My sense of humor is back, and I’m enjoying my kids more. I’ve learned how to set better boundaries.”

“I’ve stopped working 16 hour days! I’m much more focused and relaxed.”

“With the book club, I’ve been getting the extra hour I need to focus on myself. As a busy executive, I don’t have any extra time. It’s very hard for me to find the time to sit down and be thoughtful about what I’m doing. This opportunity gave me an hour once a month to focus on what’s most important and give it my full and undivided attention. As a result I am very clear about where I’m headed, and I know I’m on track to get there.”

Does that all sound good to you? Then come join us!

Here’s the link again to learn more about The Inner Edge Book Club.

When you join, you’ll also get bonuses with your membership, including 25% off all Inner Edge products and services and access to dedicated leadership coaches. Plus, since the Book Club happens month by month, you can unsubscribe whenever you like.

You have nothing to lose by learning to lead yourself. You do have something to lose if you don’t.

Come join us. Read The Inner Edge. Join the book club.

Learn to be a better leader…and lead a better life.

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FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

Leah Zellner, the president of a national resort group, dashed into her office, throwing off her coat.

“I’m sorry I’m late!” she gasped. “It’s been a crazy day!”

For the next five minutes, she raced through a litany of concerns: leading her company as its first female president, finalizing a merger, launching a new global strategy, moving into a new office, speaking at a client conference, throwing her daughter a wedding, and expecting her first grandson.

“You certainly are busy!” I commented.

“You have no idea,” she wheezed. “Meetings, calls, invitations, a trip to New York…”

I watched Leah rush about her office. Here was a woman who seemed to have everything she wanted: a glamorous, high-paying job, exciting travel, and a happy growing family. But today everything that made up her charmed life seemed to be getting in the way.

I wondered, “Is this what our busy lives have come to? That our momentous life events have become items to check off a list?”

Leah flopped into the chair beside me. “You know, it used to be that it was Ready, Aim, Fire. Then it became Ready, Fire, Aim. Now it’s just FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!”

Leah’s life as a leader mirrors many I’ve seen in my years as an executive coach. Every day, I see talented, accomplished leaders struggling because they’re too stressed, too stretched, or too tired of sacrificing. As a result, many businesses are losing their leaders, and many leaders are losing themselves. It’s become a stubborn predicament: how to achieve success without sacrificing your quality of life.

There’s another way to be successful as a leader in today’s world that is more thoughtful. More strategic. More reflective. You can learn to lead in a way that preserves your talent while enhancing your quality of life. You can succeed without the sacrifice. Leading well and living well, both at the same time. In the pages of this book, you will discover a new way to be a better leader…and lead a better life.

Leah is one of many leaders I profile in the book, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. This book isn’t about leading your organization or leading your team. It’s about leading yourself.

To learn more, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find an overview of the book, endorsements by such thought leaders as Marshall Goldsmith and Stephen Covey, and more!

If you like what you read, join us in The Inner Edge Book Club! We’re starting a new year this month. To learn more, click here!

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Losing Your Edge

In a few hundred years, when the history of our time is written…the most important event historians will see is not technology, nor the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time – literally – substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.

Peter Drucker

Do you think that’s true?

Is it true for you?

I spend a lot of time interviewing business leaders, and I’m often surprised at how disheartened they seem. Sometimes I wonder if this might be why: we have more to think about than ever, and somehow we have to be the ones to make it all work. When they feel disempowered, here’s what leaders tell me.

We are overwhelmed. Just juggling your workload fills every day; add in children, home ownership, personal finances, and the rest of your life, you can feel like you’re ready to collapse.

We are discouraged. Being a leader isn’t always all it’s made out to be. The pressure, the responsibility, and the poor models of leadership in corporate executives and public figures can sometimes make us wonder if it’s really worth it.

We are disengaged. Engagement is the degree to which you feel committed to your job, and it is a critical aspect of performance. Unfortunately, instead of gaining a sense of meaning from our work sometimes we just feel unmoved.

We are needed. As leaders we don’t always get what we need, but our businesses desperately need us. Nevertheless, we live in the Information Age, and business is driven by our knowledge. As leaders, we are needed to compete.

We are talented. The good news is that despite these challenges, it turns out we’re really talented. Years of Gallup research has proven that we are at our best when we are most ourselves and it’s clear there’s a lot more potential to be tapped.

We are leaving. Crowded by the pressures of modern leadership, we can’t seem to make it all work. That’s why so many leaders are responding in a quiet, decisive way: they’re taking their marbles and going home. With low set-up costs and instant access to global markets, we no longer need corporate infrastructure to fulfill our ambitions. We can do it on our own. We live in a free agent nation: going out on our own is flexible, it’s freeing, and it’s fun.

But having the opportunity to leave one’s job isn’t always the “win” it might seem. Businesses lose highly talented leaders, and leaders lose their home in the world of work.

What we need is a way for leaders to learn how to be better leaders while at the same time enhancing the quality of life that keeps them at their best. And we do. It’s called Personal Leadership – an aspect of leadership that honors the work leaders do as well as the people they are.

Are you practicing Personal Leadership? Take the quiz to find out! Go to www.TheInnerEdge.com and click on Worksheets and Audios (on the left). You’ll find a FREE Self-Assessment to help you understand where you already excel and where you need to put more attention to be effective in leading yourself.

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Getting an Edge: How Are You Staying Sharp?

This fall, I’m noticing a trend. Leaders are suddenly getting motivated! (If you’re one of them, you may want to join my Free Teleseminar called Getting an Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership next Wednesday at 12 PT!)

Maybe it’s that time of year – something about the feeling of a “new school year” seems to stay with us our whole lives. Or maybe it’s because the economy has been sluggish for so long that leaders are finally getting up off the couch and saying, “Enough! I’m going to do something!” In any case, the trend is for new initiatives to be launched, new ideas to be proposed, and new partnerships to be formed. This is the kind of energy and enthusiasm that will get these leaders ahead – ahead in their careers, and making a bigger impact.

How are you getting an edge at this time?

Let’s keep it simple. If you, too, are feeling the buzz of excitement that seems to be in the air, take these steps:

  1. See the vision. If you know your vision, connect to it now. See it anew! If you don’t know your vision, start dreaming! What do you want?
  2. Get focused. Where specifically are putting your attention right now? If you were going to “make something happen” related to your vision, what would it be?
  3. Take action! Identify one key step you can take right away. Put it on your task list, and go do it. Watch for results!

After that, as my friend David Bailin, an executive at Citibank, likes to say, “Rinse and repeat.” And repeat, and repeat. Next thing you know your vision will be a reality.

Readers of The Inner Edge will recognize these three steps as the first three Practices of Personal Leadership. If you’re feeling ready to swing into action and make some exciting things happen, come join us in The Inner Edge Community! You’ll find an energized group of high-achievers talking, working, and thinking together to learn the steps they need to take to achieve their visions.

The best place to start is by joining the Free Teleseminar I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. Here are the details!

Getting an Edge: 10 Practices for High Performing Leadership

Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2011,
Time: 12:00–1:00 PST
Cost: FREE

You will discover:

  • 10 leadership strategies every leader needs to excel
  • An executive coach’s top recommendations for being your best
  • Reflective questions designed to achieve your best performance and results

Join the thousands of high-achieving business leaders, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs around the world who are learning how to be a better leader…and lead a better life.

Click here to register for the teleseminar.

See you on the call!

Best wishes,
Joelle

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Leading on the Edge

As a leader, you have many great gifts. Your talents. Your opportunities. Your drive. What are you going to do with those gifts? How are you going to share them with the people around you and the rest of the world? To excel as a leader, it’s important to give some thought to these questions. Because the reality is that as a leader, the true gift you have to give…is you.

Sharing the Practices of Personal Leadership

Helen Keller:

“When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.”

You have already discovered what’s possible for you when you’ve come to see yourself as a leader. Now it’s time to share the wealth. How will you give your gifts to the people you lead? How will you give to your organization and the world around you? How big can you can really be?

As you consider how to give of your gifts, you create more gifts for yourself, for others, and the world.

And your gifts are desperately needed.

When I wrote The Inner Edge, this “leadership crisis” was the news of the year. Stories in business journals as well as Time, Newsweek, 60 Minutes and Good Morning America all reported that accomplished, talented leaders were leaving their hard-won careers to find more meaningful ways to live. The people featured in these stories invariably described a choice between success and quality of life – and in many cases, it was one they didn’t want to make.

Our culture, our organizations, the times we live in – they have a way of conspiring against our efforts to be our best. But better business should not come at the expense of quality of life, and quality of life should not come at the expense of business results. Work and life should be able to co-exist, happily and successfully. They can and they have.

But every day, millions of people drive onto the fast-lane and race their lives away – ironically missing the fact that everything they are doing to try to improve their life is actually running them into the ground. The work weeks get longer, the stress levels rise, and talented leaders burn out or move on.

We need a whole new paradigm for work and life, and it starts with you. My dream is that the next evolution of our ambitious, achieving society will be to learn how to get the results we crave in the easiest, most natural way – the way that feeds us personally and enhances our quality of life. But no matter how great your life becomes, no matter how well your business does, you are holding back something even greater that the world urgently needs. Part of being a leader is sharing what you’ve learned and empowering others, as well.

Maybe you will be the person who plants the seeds of leadership in the mind of the next great world leader. Maybe you will be the one to help shift your organization into a healthier, more life-affirming place. Maybe you will initiate positive changes in the world that today you can’t even imagine.

People like you who see themselves as leaders aren’t just leaders in their jobs. They are leaders by definition, wherever they go. You will always be the one people look to for help and support. You will be the one who asks the questions, has the answers, or creates the opportunities for incredible things to happen. At home, at church, at work, among your friends, in your political party, when you’re with your kids, when you’re giving to charity, you will be seen as a leader.

What will you do with that potential?

It’s an honor and a privilege to be a leader – a real gift. What kind of a gift do you want to be?

In order to answer that question, you’ve got to lead on every level: your inner edge, your outer edge, and your leading edge. Then you’ll be truly leading on the edge.

For encouragement along the way, be sure to listen to the free coaching Audio, called A Parting Gift – available on the website at www.TheInnerEdge.com.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be looking at the legacy you are leaving as a leader, and looking to the next level of leadership ahead for you. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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The Sacred Trust

Over the course of this year, I have been releasing wisdom and insight from the leaders who participated in my research for The Inner Edge. I hope you’ve enjoyed the posts. (And if you’ve been following them, please let me know what you think!)

Cheryl Scott, the former CEO of Group Health and a senior advisor for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was featured in an earlier profile. But she is not just an inspirational leader. She was also one of my husband Tim’s early mentors. We’ll include her twice.

For our last example of how world-class leaders have to be to achieve their status, I just want you to hear how Cheryl thinks. I’ll leave you with a quote from which she finds inspiration, in hopes that it will inspire you, too.

If you get to be a leader, which is a sacred trust, you feel extraordinary gratitude. It changes you.

There’s this great quote that I love from Albert Schweitzer.

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

How many people in their life get to have that?

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 to sign up!