As I work on my book about leadership, which will come out in 2023, I’m happy to talk with my developmental editor on a weekly basis.
He pushes my thinking, challenges my ideas, and encourages me to make sure the intersections of my writing are aligned.
The joy of letting our minds go wherever they want. Sometimes, this wandering will lead to a memory that fits with a wish, a dream, or what you want to say.
This week led me back to age 5 and what I learned from my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Dufton.
In university, I enjoyed learning about Erik Erikson’s work on the stages of development, which is so key to understanding where we are today in the world and with ourselves.
Mrs. Dufton taught me to be independent in my thinking and my choice of work and also in which toys I was drawn to touch, learn from, and play with.
If you look at the stages of our psychosocial development, it’s fascinating to me that this model can be used in present-day leadership training in 2022.
Our life story shows how we’ve grown as people and how we’ve dealt with both good and bad things.
It is when we examine ourselves and conduct our own self-intrinsic audit of what we carry and why.
This is a conversation I have daily with leaders.
Your life shows up in your leadership.
Your leadership shows up in your life.
There is not one sector that does not have this connection because we are all human beings.
Erikson’s model from 1950 has much to teach us. When we revisit each stage of our development, we can find the strengths, weaknesses, or perhaps some shades of gray that need to be revisited.
The stages that make up his theory are as follows:
Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy from birth to 18 months)
Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Toddler years from 18 months to three years)
Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool years from three to five)
Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority (Middle school years from six to 11)
Stage 5: Identity vs. Confusion (Teen years from 12 to 18)
Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young adult years from 18 to 40)
Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle age from 40 to 65)
Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair (Older adulthood from 65 to death)
Living your truth, for me, is putting myself first and doing the things that make me happy and fulfilled on a daily basis.
I’ve recently returned to in-person speaking. I had colleagues and friends ask why I waited so long to return.
I was not ready to return.
We all have our safe havens of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. I had migrated, like the rest of the world, to all the online platforms for my clients, and it was working. I didn’t feel that I was missing out or that the quality of my presentation was less because I was online.
Any decision we make in our lives, be it professional or personal, is on our terms. We decide what, when, who, how, etc.
It certainly feels good to be back; however, I will maintain the modality of online and in-person. Having the freedom to be there for my clients – and myself.
☑️ Embracing imperfection
☑️ Navigating unprecedented times
☑️ Listening. Deep listening
☑️ Seeing people
☑️ Creation of life by design
☑️ Meeting people where they are
Enjoy a little video snippet below from a recent online presentation I did to a large corporation for their leadership team across Canada and the United States.
The nine-dot problem is an age-old lateral thinking puzzle that was particularly fashionable in the ’70s and ’80s. Each player is given nine dots in a 3×3 grid and asked to draw a path between them using the fewest number of straight lines possible without putting down their pencil.
Some people think that the nine-dot problem is where the phrase “out of the box thinking” came from, but others say it came from a 1945 cognitive performance test called Duncker’s candle problem.
Participants in Duncker’s test are given a candle, a book of matches, and a box of push pins. The task is to attach the candle to the wall so that when it is lit, no wax drips down the table. The box, which at first glance may seem to exist only to hold the push pins, needs to be used in a useful way for the solution to work.
Martin Gardner called this puzzle a “classic geometrical challenge” in a 1959 collection of Sam Loyd’s work. The constant part of the challenge is that it shows how our thoughts tend to put unnecessary limits on how we can solve problems. The most common answer to the puzzle is shown below for those who are unfamiliar. (Source: Research Gate).
Today, we use a buffet of assessments for hiring, onboarding, promotion, and many other facets within the talent management pool.
Here is a small list:
1. DISC 2. CliftonStrengths 3. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) 4. Kolbe Index 5. The Neethling Brain Instrument (NBI) 6. Gallups Strengths Finder 7. The Energy Leadership Index (ELI) 8. The Habit Finder Assessment 9. Saville Assessment 10. Enneagram 11. The IHHP Emotional Intelligence (EQ) 12. Hogan Assessments
My point is that we are not a “one size fits all” society. I am using the food metaphor as we are all individuals in our likes, dislikes, and ways of how we think and use our own level of metacognition.
Each sector has a variety of choices for us to choose from, yet when it comes to people, we specify a certain modality or way that puts all people into one method and/or category.
What about the people who don’t test well?
What about the people who have anxiety?
Food for thought: If a student doesn’t tell well, there are other ways of assessing and grading the lessons and information being taught to ensure the learning has been achieved. Why hasn’t this been incorporated into business acumen processes?
Are you truly offering the best assessment to accommodate your team and organization at large? 💙
This week has started off with great introspection.
By definition, introspection means:
The examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes.” Quiet introspection can be extremely valuable” (Source: Oxford Dictionary).
Conversations with my personal trainer, my friends, my colleagues, and a CEO today.
They wanted to talk about their own introspection, events happening in their work life, and what is going on inside of them personally.
I do not take these conversations lightly as it demonstrates the foundation of a connection — trust and rapport.
It’s a privilege to listen.
This level of conversation is deep.
I lean in.
I hear.
It’s truly the greatest gift we give to each other. 💙
“Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.” -Khalil Gibran
When you read this, does it offer you a self-audit to how you really listen?
When we listen wholeheartedly we hear the emotion and what is not being expressed in word.
This quote was first introduced to me when I was becoming a certified yoga teacher in 2016.
The main reason I became a yoga teacher was to become a better listener, hone the mind body connection, increase my knowledge of breathing techniques, further hone my meditation practice and deepen my yoga practice.
Yoga by definition is science of the mind.
It really isn’t about the yoga mat, the postures, bending of your body, holding postures or breathing.
Yoga has helped me excel in equanimity. Having mental calmness and composure for all that I do.
I truly believe that this allows compassion and energy to intersect beautifully with leadership.
This is the gateway to heart-centered leadership.
When we know who we are —this is the gateway to being a true, effective, kind leader.
We are all energy.
Compassionate leadership IS part of being a heart-centered leader.
Yoga is very much like leadership. You can’t make any changes unless you show up and are willing to look at who you are first, be willing to unlearn, change, evolve and be a true role model.
There is so many words that start with P that have common space, place and usage in our language.
As you read these words, think and feel where they show up in your life. This list is my own Top 6:
Presence
Present
Power
Patience
Potential
Personal
This is an anchoring list to use when you are thinking, rethinking, reviewing, pondering or looking for a self-audit or answer to something you are pondering.
I change, delete, do whatever I need to do with my schedule.
My friend lost her husband 10 month ago.
Today’s lunch was about presence.
Talking.
Listening.
Observing.
Feeling.
Crying.
Reminiscing.
All the feels.
My friend is grieving at a visceral level.
She said, ”I need some wisdom from Deb Crowe.”
This fall long weekend in Canada is Thanksgiving. I anchored in being present to this moment.
Where is her level of gratitude.
She has grown, moved forward, stopped and cried these last ten months. Lunch gave us time to add laughter, revisit fond memories, speak in a happy way about her husband.
We talked about the ’new’ version of who she was.
It was one of the best lunches I’ve had in my life. 💙
In his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey writes his observations:
I noticed a startling thing: Almost all the writings that helped build our country in its first 150 years or so identified character as the foundation of success. The literature of what we might call “The Character Ethic” helped Americans cultivate integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, and the Golden Rule. Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography is a prime example. Compared with the early success literature, the writings of the last 50 years seem superficial to me—filled with social image consciousness, techniques, and quick fixes. There, the solutions derive not from the character ethic but from the personality ethic: success is a function of public image, of attitudes and behaviors, of skills that lubricate the process of human interaction. I don’t say these skills are unimportant. But they are secondary.
-Stephen Covey
The pandemic is bringing us back.
Leadership is like everything else (fashion, food, etc.).
Leadership is returning to its roots. To a generation with new eyes, beautiful morals and values, and a willingness to put family first and people first in business.
To leaders who are willing to UNLead and adapt to the history of leadership and have mastered the art of heart, I applaud you. 💙
My Irish Nana used to day, ”when the going gets tough, the tough get going!”
As I matured, I certainly understood this more.
When life is tough – lean in.
When the plan goes astray – lean in.
When you are vulnerable – lean in.
Some of the best moments in time are when you lean in to hear that little voice that is yearning for your attention. The voice that can get muddied by life.
I share it with the world, yet it’s really for my own heart work and thought leadership.
Today, I had the pleasure of having lunch at a place that has been on my life list, yes, not a bucket list, life list.
It was a tea room in the middle of a forest with majestic, tall trees.
Mother Nature is my foundation, my home, my renewal — always.
I had the pleasure of joining a couple who had been married for 54 years.
The family that owns the tea room prides themselves on making all food from scratch.
It was like walking back in time and it felt so welcoming on all levels.
The wife has suffered a stroke and wanted to have lunch with me on her anniversary of all days to get my advice and medical knowledge for her next direction for rehabilitation.
As I sat and listened to her and then answered all her questions, I basked in a revisited thought of who and what I used to be — a disability case manager.
My office may be gone.
My staff moved on to new jobs.
My knowledge — tucked in my mind and engraved in my heart. 💙
It allows me time outdoors, wind in my hair, listening to my favourite playlist and it’s me, my bike and mother nature.
I left my home with no expectation.
I decided to ride for the pleasure of riding.
No obligation on time, distance, etc.
The sun on my face.
The wind in my hair.
The thrill of releasing the day and embracing me time.
The wind challenged me on this ride.
It made me think about how life can challenge us.
We can choose how we respond.
For me, I increased my speed and rode through the wind and had a great laugh and enjoyed a good ’ole classic rock song – any guesses what I was listening to? 💙
I often think of the conversations I have had when I am volunteering at hospice.
It’s such an honour and priviledge to sit and be with someone at the end of life.
I often receive great wisdom, such as:
Eat the cake
Take the vacation
Drink the wine
Embrace the pause
Laugh more
Live each day as if it was your last
I have kept such advice in the forefront of my habits of thinking.
I spontaneously choose to do self-care and ’feel good’ things on a regular basis. This week I visited our local fall fair. I have not been to this fair since my children were small (over 20 years!).
I walked around in awe. I smelled the food, loved the music, witnessed the joy of all in attendance and I paused to take it all in.
I even ate a pogo dog, sat in a chair and watch young people enjoy one of my favourite rides.
I took the hour to embrace memories that I have engraved in my heart and loved to reminisce, enjoy and live like a kid in the moment. 💙
As we continue to settle in and back to routine and structure, most professionals (with children) are allowing themselves six weeks. Mid-October gives a glimpse of light that all is being settled back into for work/life/school.
I never dreamed that my Women’s Self-Care Conference, which I created in 2018 and took across Canada in 2019, would cultivate the discussion of mental resilience.
Forgiveness and self-care tools were topics of discussion at the conference and were familiar modalities in each of the provinces, which I found fascinating.
Since 2020, we have been severely challenged globally. We’ve endured so many different things faster than the speed of light.
While we have all lived through fear and uncertainty, we have found comfort and solace in acts of kindness.
Heart-Centered Leadership took the forefront, which was long overdue.
We have redefined mental well-being. We (the global community) have coped well with whatever life has thrown at us, and the outcome has been an appreciation of who we are and our own potential.
Sometimes we have to think and look outside the box. The answer is not always found in a book.
Resilience has been and is an important concept, and I have seen this first-hand with executive teams, VPs, and C-Suites.
Embracing the vision, calibrating a new vision, and, most importantly, being there for their teams during a vital crisis.
One VP mentioned to me last week that “Four in five Canadians said the pandemic offered an opportunity to reconsider their life priorities.”
Because of this level of introspection, I have helped 70 executives move since the start of the global crisis.
I recently spoke at a large financial institution. Within two hours of my presentation, a female executive chose to resign. She conveyed that she needed to hear my message and reassess her life. Working 80+ hours a week was not what she wanted. She also shared that the pressure was “too much”.
As we return to routine and structure, it’s a welcome feeling for many.
Today, I ask you to consider the 3 M’s.
Ask yourself where you are currently in your leadership journey.
Master
Mentor
Making A Difference
I was asked to translate our global heart-centered leadership poster by a CFO into Persian.
This poster continues to be a daily guide to align you and your heart-centered leadership.
What are your top 3 qualities?
What is the one quality you are working on?
Our poster has now been downloaded over 132,000 times worldwide and is now available in 21 languages:
🧡 Afrikaans 🧡 Arabic 🧡 Bengali 🧡 Chinese 🧡 Dutch 🧡 English 🧡 French 🧡 German 🧡 Hausa 🧡 Hebrew 🧡 Hindi 🧡 Italian 🧡 Japanese 🧡 Korean 🧡 Malay 🧡 Norwegian 🧡 Persian 🧡 Portuguese 🧡 Russian 🧡 Spanish 🧡 Vietnamese
Please feel free to share as we continue to spread joy and love around the globe with our heart-centered leadership.
Download here with no signup: https://lnkd.in/deYrZzjQ
Heart-centred Leadership + Diversity, Equality, Inclusion = A Universal Language 🧡
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Source: U.S. National Park Service
I’ve also admired Eleanor Roosevelt. I’ve been thinking a lot about her as a female leader in history. She was astute, wise, unapologetic and truly a heart-centered leader. 💙
The quote above has had me taking time to pause and embrace it’s meaning.
I have been jotting down some thoughts of how it can and does show up in my daily life.
As we continue to live it’s important that we:
Try
Grow
Fail
Succeed
Live
Love
Laugh
Lead
Life is to be lived.
Life will be all emotions.
To show up each day — a bit better than yesterday.
Today, we are giving our Uncle Gerry a beautiful send off. A traditional catholic funeral followed by an Irish wake.
In April, I was in downtown Toronto at a meeting. I was five minutes from his apartment.
I called and asked Uncle Gerry if I could come for a visit. He was so delighted and said, ”When are you coming!?” I said in 10 minutes! He laughed.
We had a wonderful visit and my daughter Laura joined us. We had a cup of tea on his Irish china and cookies. It was the perfect day for a morning visit and a great conversation I will cherish forever.
Gerald Michael Crowe
Uncle Gerry was a highschool teacher. He always love to tell everyone that he taught John Candy.
He also did a lot of work globally to help others. He worked with Mother Teresa to build homes for orphans. When Mother Teresa passed away, Uncle Gerry was given a private invitation to attend her funeral.
He was a true heart-centered leader in all that he did. 💙
In February, I had a beautiful discussion with a young woman.
She has pursued post secondary education and earned her degree.
She realized that she now earned her degree, however, she was still unfulfilled as she felt pressure and obligation from everyone in her life.
She eluded to me that she did not really know what she wanted to be or do.
We had a lovely conversation about making lists of what she loved, what she liked, what she didn’t enjoy and the dream list.
Fast forward to August and we had an opportunity to have another great chat. She is now studying daily for her LSAT.
Here’s the difference from February – her mindset, attitude and overall demeanor.
She eluded, ”I am studying daily and will give 100% effort when I write my LSAT. I am not emotionally connected to the outcome. If I pass, that would be wonderful, if I don’t I can and will try again.”
She also reached out and spoke to many lawyers in different areas of law and in their careers. Most of them shared with her that they failed the LSAT the first time and that it’s not the ’be all end all’ and to write it again and keep moving foward.
Language is so important.
Fail forward. You will never know where you might land! 💜
