Intuitive Leadership
I am not a teacher.
I have great admiration for teachers. They have the ability to take complex concepts and break them down into small components. Using those skills, they bring learners with varying levels of native proficiency to a place of understanding and application.
I have made a valiant effort, studying, preparing, and over-preparing for those times when it fell to me to teach, but it is not my natural skill. And that’s okay. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Some of us are birds and others are fish.
I love the book The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life by Boyd Varty. In it there is a quote by fellow tracker Renias Mhlongo; “I don’t know where I’m going but I know exactly how to get there.” That statement comes much closer to describing my leadership style.
I fall into the category of the intuitive leader in that I may not be able to explain every step along the way but I am confident in how to get there. My belief does not lie in my own personal ability to execute every component of a goal because any business’s success is tied to the work of the many. My trust is in how I understand my personal true north and in the intentional practices and the pole-watchers that I keep in place.
Intuitive leadership starts with personal development. For me, that involves a host of personal practices, morning, and evening routines that center my thoughts, examine my emotions, and set my intentions. My personal faith grounds me. These practices help soften my heart, sharpen my sword and prepare me for the day ahead. The people closest to me hold me accountable.
Intuition without deep personal work can be catastrophic. Without constraints, intuition can easily devolve into ego. It can blur the lines and divert your focus. It is easy to get lost in understanding your authentic values – making money without making a difference, confusing pleasure with joy, and creating goals that aren’t tied to purpose.
Intuitive leadership is most effective when tied with personal values. People trust a leader who leads from the heart and the gut. One without the other misses the mark. Everyone finds their own path to connect their personal values to their leadership style but if you want to lead with intuition, start with deep, committed, personal work.
Advertising & Authenticity
Who are we? What do we believe? What are we going to do about it?
Leo Burnett was an American advertising executive and the founder of Leo Burnett Company, Inc. He was responsible for creating some of advertising’s most well-known characters and campaigns of the 20th century, including Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger, United’s “Fly the Friendly Skies”, and Allstate’s “Good Hands”. In 1999, Burnett was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
I can’t take credit for the three leading questions above. Leo Burnett believed that every company should ask themselves those questions and they still apply today. The answers help businesses distill their understanding of identity, values, and intention – in other words, culture. Leo understood that “the work of [an advertising] agency is warmly and immediately human.” This human-centric statement resonates with me because I believe that there are few industries more engaged in the lifecycle of humanity than those in the multifamily industry.
The Impact of Culture
The Multifamily Collective is filled with content that credits culture as the most significant source of influence. The common language of shared culture is powerful. Entire countries, religions, and generations are grounded in shared beliefs, values, and practices which coalesce to form its culture. In business, a company’s culture is the most important factor in determining its long-term success. An organization that holds itself accountable to behaviors that are in genuine alignment with its published core values earns the trust and loyalty of its workforce.
Authenticity Matters
In all areas of life – personal, social, and professional – people are hungry for authenticity. Culture in word but not in deed is false and quickly fails the authenticity test. Depending on the source, reports show that consumers receive more than 5,000 attempts every day to influence their decisions. Targeted ads on Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and even Waze recognize where you are and what your online behavior trends indicate then use that information to make suggestions for you. Paid. Targeted. “Suggestions”.
Influencers are engaged in the business of influencing. In 2020, successful influencers earned somewhere around $1,000 on average per post depending on their statistics – reach, engagement, etc. When a person on social media posts authentic content about their life, passions, creative work, family, travels, etc., followers find it engaging and believable, and they develop a relationship with the person behind the content. When that same person shares an ad as though it were a legitimate lifestyle post, the consumer senses the difference immediately. The change in tone is jarring and the content no longer feels honest. It weakens the relationship.
Differentiation
With all the digital noise and constant demand for attention – how does any company stand out from the clamor and earn the trust of their customers? Consumers are savvier than ever before. They are also more cynical. Trust isn’t given away easily and everything begins to feel like a negotiation. Consumers sense the ‘salesy’ stuff coming from a mile away.
Adam Grant offers a different perspective in this quote, “Negotiation is not a duel to win. It is a puzzle to solve together.” When you approach negotiation with a customer as an opportunity to bring different voices to the table to craft a more optimal solution, the outcomes are better for everyone. Trying to WIN forces the other participant to LOSE. And no person is eager to feel like a loser.
Currency of Trust
If authenticity is the real currency of trust, then transparency, thoughtful communication, and a commitment to work together for the benefit of everyone involved is a simple formula that, when applied internally and externally, just may differentiate you from the noise.
Authentic relationships require real work. Transactions may be more straightforward, but they lack the mutually beneficial connectivity found in human-to-human relationships and when it comes down to it, we are all human, afterall.
What are you doing to stand out from the crowd and create authentic connections? Share with us below!
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Raindrops Keep Falling
Every week, I publish a morning vlog series as part of the Multifamily Collective content. As always, this week’s daily videos were each published as a stand-alone commentary, but in hindsight, it seems these particular videos may just be parts of the same story and I decided to connect those thoughts in today’s post.
Short-Term
In Short Term Memory, I encouraged our listeners to develop a short-term memory as it relates to adversities in their lives and instead to focus on your purpose.
We all tend to sometimes hyper-focus on our short-comings or mistakes – worrying over them as though they have some value when actually no amount of constant self-flagellation will erase those events. On the contrary, constantly beating yourself up only serves to distract you from your true objectives. Ultimately, your goals are starved for want of your attention while your missteps live only in history and pay you no dividends at all.
If your hours in each day were translated to dollars and you put all your money into the backward-facing bucket, how much is left at the end of the day to invest in your future? None. Exactly. But, if forgetting our personal mistakes were easy, none of us would waste our time thinking about them.
Unhappy
In Unhappy, I recount the startling results of a survey that stated that one in four Americans (25%!) classify themselves as unhappy. Those numbers are hardly surprising given the extended impact of the pandemic, increasing political division, loss of traditional social support systems, and more. Indeed, a troubling sense of dissatisfaction seems to be commonplace.
Once again, there are no easy surefire solutions. If there were, I would encourage you to join me on the rooftop because that is the perch from whence I would be shouting. While not a cure-all, it doesn’t feel like a stretch to say that intentional acts of kindness go a long way towards alleviating some of the world’s pain even if by just one person at a time. Finding opportunities to curate encouragement, joy, acknowledgment, and celebration seem to offer a plus-one scenario wherein you make someone else’s day better and yours is improved in the process.
Like A Kid
Finally, in Like A Kid Again, I tell the story of a recent miserable rainy winter’s morning in Georgia. It had rained all night and the roads were wet, puddles abounded, and I had every plausible reason to forgo my morning run. Except, my morning run is important not just to my physical health but to my mood and psychological wellbeing.
Once I made up my mind to run in the rain, unsurprisingly, I was soon splashed by cars, and every footfall caused a splatter. When you are out in a pouring rain, there soon comes a point where you can’t get any wetter. Instead of shaking my fist at the skies, I felt something akin to childhood well up in me, a remembrance of a time when playing in puddles was a joy-filled experience. My mood was elevated, my shoes were drenched, my heart felt happy, and my energy was through the roof.
The #3 Combo
In the exercise of sharing these stories this week, the combination may have answered my own questions – at least somewhat. Maybe it is possible to release the hold my mistakes can have on me and to shake off that feeling of discouragement by simply letting the rain fall on my face wholly invited and appreciated. The problems we face are complex and, while there are no simple cures, it turns out that there are countless opportunities for simple joy.
When was the last time you felt the rain, danced in the puddles and breathed in the moment for all its bliss? Somehow it seems that we have bought into the idea that happiness is found in expensive vacations at rodent-themed parks. Those can be fun – but so can the rain.
Share your joyful stories with us here or on our social media pages.
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All The Lonely People
Look at all the lonely people, where do they all come from? Eleanor Rigby’s sad tale was immortalized in the famous Beatles medley. Eleanor was lonely – but she was far from alone. Loneliness was a problem long before the pandemic. It’s a bigger one now. Leadership is a position of hallowed trust in service of others. As such, it is our responsibility to act mindfully and intentionally to help bridge the literal and metaphorical gap.
Former surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy writes about loneliness as a public health concern in his book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World He writes about the anecdotes shared by the people he encountered in his work across the country. Beneath their stories of addiction, violence, depression, and anxiety lived a common thread of loneliness. Dr. Murthy says that when he spoke to groups, he would touch on the topic of loneliness very briefly but afterward, it was the only thing people wanted to talk about.
Owner Of A Lonely Heart
A brief web search quickly reveals longstanding concerns about the widespread problem of loneliness. The actual number of adults affected by loneliness is hard to quantify but Dr. Murthy estimates it to be at least 20% based on survey responses. Covid has certainly made the number higher. Why does it matter? Loneliness is more than a feeling. When people experience extended loneliness, it has an impact on their health and can even shorten lifespans.
Adolescents, a demographic that often struggled with loneliness pre-pandemic, are affected more profoundly. Coming of age in an era where traditional peer-to-peer experiences are stunted by pandemic-related restrictions increases the feeling of isolation. Prolonged or profound loneliness is having a detrimental effect on emotional and psychological wellbeing.
Only The Lonely
At the root of loneliness is the fraying of social connectivity. When it comes to an organization’s culture, it is our responsibility to design systems where people are connected and empowered to feel active, participatory and heard. Human-to-human interaction is necessary to create and sustain authentic relationships.
The current work from home model can provide many benefits to the individual team members who work remotely. Gaining back hours every week that were previously devoted to commuting often tops the list. But video conference calls with multiple faces on the screen aren’t a replacement for one on one or small group conversations. Since the beginning of the pandemic two years ago, brief chats around the coffee station and similar work-life touchpoints have dissolved, taking with them the casual connectivity with workmates.
People Who Need People
I believe that many companies will evolve back to a hybrid model that combines remote and common space/corporate work in a way that responsibly connects teams around shared work and camaraderie. Periodic in-person sessions build and strengthen relationships and lay the foundation for healthier remote connections.
It can be uncomfortable to admit to feeling lonely. It feels vulnerable to say it but when we normalize talking about feelings, we give permission for others to share, and in those experiences that are common to us all we find support and solidarity.
I encourage you to get intentional about engaging and connecting team members across your organization. Build it into your calendar. We discussed this topic last year along with some tips for getting started.
What things have you incorporated into your practices and systems the improve social connectivity? Share them with us below!
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Superpowers & Disabling Ableism
As I dig into this week’s topic, I first want to encourage you to watch or listen to this week’s episode of Collective Conversations featuring TEDx Motivational Speaker Alycia Anderson. Born to an able-bodied identical twin sister, Alycia has a congenital disability that requires her to use a wheelchair for life. Alycia’s passion for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility makes her a profound advocate and expert. She is an inclusion superwoman and brings her expertise to the uncomfortable topic of ableism.
What is Ableism?
Ableism is defined as discrimination and social prejudice in favor of able-bodied people based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. It is so prevalent that we don’t even realize it exists. Ableism occurs when we look at someone with a disability as needing to be fixed in order to be whole or we define them solely by their disability and miss the person altogether. Saying “You don’t look disabled” as though it is a compliment or “You’re too beautiful to be in a wheelchair.” Those and so many other dehumanizing comments happen regularly throughout the life of a person living with a disability. Some disabilities are easily evident by the use of a wheelchair or other assistance device. According to accessibility.com, an estimated 20% (or more) Americans live with invisible disabilities.
Bold Strokes
Listening to Alycia share her experience, it quickly becomes evident that she brings significant talents to the table, some of which were honed because of her disability. A longtime member of the multifamily community, Alycia tells in her employment story that she never told a potential employer that she would arrive to the job interview in a wheelchair. Some time after she was hired, she asked her boss about the decision to hire her and he said, “I knew you had to be a planner. You had to plan how much earlier to leave, how to navigate the obstacles to arrive here on time for the interview.” He saw the skills she perfected because of her disability in addition to her formal education, experience, and infectious enthusiasm.
Anxieties into Assets
All of us have things we are insecure about and an internal story we tell ourselves about our limitations. Shifting your mindset to turn those anxieties into assets is a skill we can all take away from Alycia’s story. I think that also applies to how we engage with people who live with disabilities. I encourage you to move past any fear of saying or doing the wrong thing and engage human to human, laying aside any preconceived ideas about ability or inconvenience.
I will close with a call to action that we do the work to make accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion the pathway to developing the superpowers of those around us. It is fundamental to our businesses and in our work as providers of housing. Serving people. It’s what we do.
Let’s work together to flip the switch and disable ableism.