Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hello and welcome to the Healthy leaders, Healthy teams series of Your path to success with Ruth Kearns Wollmann, a podcast created to inspire, encourage and equip you on your Personal leadership journey. Today I want to start by asking a question. Have you ever felt like you were not being seen for who you truly are? A classic version of this for me is when you become a parent and all of a sudden you're getting introduced as so-and-so's mummy. It's the great leveller, isn't it? Whatever your job or your title in the world, for your child you'll always be mum. And for the daycare, perhaps you'll forever be the mum or the dad who's always running late. In this situation, we can joke with one another a little as parents, can't we? Because we're in the same boat. we're all juggling being 100% there for our family, 100% there for work and we're doing our best. And it can be refreshing and certainly important to be reminded that I'm more than my title, my profession or the sum total of what I've delivered by the end of the week. But in other circumstances it can be really destabilising and this can show up whether you're navigating a big transition, Or simply trying to grow as the leader you already are. For example, if despite your efforts you feel you're not seen at work for the value you bring, you're being overlooked or underestimated. Or if you're beginning to realize your values no longer fit with the organization you're in, and you don't feel able to speak up for what you consider to be right. Or perhaps you're waking up to the fact that you followed a career path that doesn't suit you as much as you thought it would. That something's missing. Or perhaps you're actually in transition right now and directly asking yourself the question, what do I really want in life? Allowing yourself for the first time in a while to ask what else is possible. Whatever your situation, being confident in who you are and who you're not is a key quality of leadership. It allows you to step out of your comfort zone while not losing your sense of integrity. And as you do that, you also create the conditions for those you lead. to do the same. Now in this episode, I want to talk about how you can better get to know who you are at your core and how this can become a pillar of growth on your Personal leadership journey. I think of your core self as who you are at your best, a combination of what you're good at, your strengths, what you care about most deeply, your values, and how you show up most naturally when you're at your best. So the bright side of your personality. Picture three overlapping circles, like a Venn diagram, and at the center of those three things, where they meet, is your essence, what you bring to the world, your purpose, if you like. This is the inner work of leadership, the work of knowing and leading yourself before leading others. Now, I had planned to talk about managing your energy this month, but I was inspired to record something about... identity and who we are at our core because I saw how clearly it had emerged as a thread in Michelle Wright story last month and how relevant it is to many people I've been talking to recently whether it's related to a transition they're in or how they want to develop as a leader so I'd like to start by looking at Michelle's story from last month's episode through this lens Her story of transition from working as a partner in a busy London medical practice to becoming a health educator and communicator after moving to Switzerland 22 years ago, and how her clarity about who she was and who she was not was key to navigating her path. Michelle Wright left the UK with her husband, who'd been offered a job opportunity here. She was up for the adventure. A part of her was excited about something new, even though another part of her... didn't know what would be possible in Switzerland professionally. What she knew she had in her hands were the medical qualifications and her experience in general practice. What she knew she didn't have was the ability to speak French. So that's exactly where she started, getting her medical qualifications recognised and learning French so she could integrate. As she began that process and explored what was going on locally, she started to get more in touch. with why she'd ended up working as a family doctor, and the strengths and passions that had got her there. She realized she'd chosen to become a general practitioner rather than some other kind of doctor because she loved building connection with people and helping them understand how to manage their health. As people in her new community started coming to her with health questions, she realized how much she loved that communication part, the health education, the prevention side of things, and how her skills and experience met a real need. That thread led her back further still. Communication had been a part of who she was long before she studied medicine. As a child, she'd wanted to read the news on BBC. She'd studied medicine because she wanted to help people and she cared. That's a value, isn't it? Her curious, determined personality meant she was open to discovering new things and willing to work hard and push through as she built her own path. She ended up with a radio programme in Switzerland on health. and then met another British GP with similar interests. And together, they started a health education company called HealthFirst. She wasn't afraid to try new things. A part of her personality, she had been discovering more and more since leaving the UK and stepping out of her comfort zone. But she also knew what she wasn't good at. She'd never trained as a business person, and she was clear that she didn't know what she was doing at first, particularly with the HR side of things. She knew there were parts she could learn, but she also knew she needed to partner with people who had strengths and skills that she didn't have. Knowing who she was, what she was good at, what she cared about, and how her personality shaped the way she worked, helped her build from a secure base. But it's not only that. At the centre of those things that represented who she was, she also found her mission, her strengths, Building relationships and communication, her values, preventative medicine and empowering others to manage their own health, her personality, openness to new things and determination to see things through. Those are Michelle's three circles. There's a saying I love from an American author called Frederik Buechner, the place you're called to be is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep need meet. One thing Michelle Wright told me at the end of our interview, which I didn't mention in last month's newsletter, is that she is proud that through her company, she doesn't only help people with their health, she's also able to provide a salary for the people who work for her company. I hear a sense of purpose and meaning here too, that I often hear in business owners. They find meaning and satisfaction, not only in serving their customers, but in serving their employees too. Now, Michelle Wright didn't sit down with this framework, of course, as she was navigating her path, but her understanding of who she was and who she was not anchored her, guided her and fueled her momentum. And reflecting on this with intention can do the same for us. So before we move on to talk more about how this applies specifically to leadership, I'd like to invite you to take a few moments to connect to who you are at your best. to bring to mind an area of your life where you feel like you're really able to show up at your best and what that's telling you about who you are at your core. So I invite you to bring to mind a situation, it could be recently or from the past, where you felt a deep sense of resonance with who you are and a deep sense of satisfaction. It could be a project at work or outside work. It could be in a particular community or relationship, something where you feel you're in the right place, you're in flow, you're making a contribution, you're adding value. As you bring that situation to mind, think about who you're being, which of your strengths are showing up, which of your values are being honoured. Which parts of your personality are being expressed? Name all the positive aspects of who you are that are present and visible in this situation. And what's the impact of you showing up in your best here? Now ask yourself, How can I do this more often? In what other areas of my life would I like this to be the case? And now I want to invite you to reflect on an area of your life where there's rather a sense of dissonance with who you are at your core. There might be a feeling of tension with your values or a place where you're not able to show up fully at your best and maybe you don't even really know why. As you bring it to mind, just notice what's going on in this situation. What emotions and thoughts do you have about it? Get curious about which of your values may not be being honoured. Which of your strengths are being overlooked? Which parts of your personality don't you feel able to express in this situation? Now if you're finding this sense of disconnect particularly relevant you may want to set aside some time later to do a bit of journalling about it and as you do so stay curious about what's getting in the way of you showing up at your best. What is it about the circumstances or the situation you that's leading to this mismatch? In what ways are you holding back and why? Situations of resonance and dissonance are like a stress test. They help us see and name more clearly who we are and what's important to us. And when we can name these things for ourselves, we're better able to articulate them and let our values guide our choices. when things around us seem unclear, as they do in periods of transition or rapid change, for example. But you don't need to be in transition for this to be relevant. In today's rapidly changing, complex world, knowing who you are and what you stand for is a key part of Healthy leaders. And not so that you can resist change or ignore it, but to create a secure base from which you and the people on your team you can stretch outside your comfort zone, can get curious and navigate change without losing your sense of self. I wonder, have you ever worked for a leader who gave you a secure base from which to stretch and grow? I know I have. I remember one particular general manager when I was at Procter & Gamble who was very clear about the vision and the goals but also had quite a strong personality. He was unapologetically demanding and caring at the same time. He was generous in celebrating successes, but he didn't tolerate sloppy thinking. He liked to call a cat a cat, as he would say. But at the same time, he knew every person in the organisation well enough to write a personalised thank you note at the end of the fiscal year. I remember him telling me years later, Ruth, I want every person in my organisation to know how what they do contributes to the bottom line. He set clear expectations, then gave lots of freedom to deliver them. He was open to hearing your point of view as long as you could clearly explain why it was relevant to the strategy. He built a strong team around him and he didn't try to do anyone else's job, but he expected you to be the best you could be at yours. It was an assignment where I was given a lot of freedom to try new things, my point of view was taken seriously, and I both thrived and grew. Let's be clear, this person wasn't perfect, but he knew who he was and we knew where we stood with him. He didn't try to please or appease others, nor did he need us to polish his ego. A leader who knows who they are is like a strongly rooted tree, able to weather the storms, move flexibly during rapid change and uncertainty without losing integrity and create a secure base for others to grow. Now I know not every leader is like that. I'm sure we'd all love to work for that type of leader and we'd all like to be that type of leader. I'd like to suggest that becoming that type of leader starts with the inner work of leadership. Knowing who you are at your best your strengths, your values, your personality, and connecting back to that core self as the place from which you can stretch and grow. But it also requires awareness of how you show up under pressure and criticism and an openness to face your weaknesses, your negative patterns and your shadow side and to find your own secure base to work on those too. That's exactly where we're headed in the next episode of Healthy leaders, Healthy teams, which will be coming up after next month's leadership interview. Thank you for listening to your path to success with Ruth Kearns Wollmann, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if you have, please do share and subscribe if you haven't already done so. And if you'd like some support discovering more about your strengths, values and personality, and how they can guide you on your Personal leadership journey, drop me a message or book a curiosity call. You'll find the information about how to do that in the show notes. And you can find me you at yourpathtosuccess.ch. Until next time, stay curious, be courageous, lead the way.