Lead Yourself – Leadercast 2018

Leadercast Live focuses on the leadership issues most relevant to today’s leader. It is a pairing of inspiring messages and rich interaction with fellow leaders who are being intentional about raising their standard of leadership, through a creative, energetic and memorable experience. My school division hosts this annually in our Centre for Education Board room.

It is an exciting time bringing together various PSD employees, vendors, students and community members. I enjoy the excitement energy and thoughtfulness that the day brings. I also like coordinating my hosting efforts by setting up an elaborate theme for the day! I have a fantastic and creative Administrative Assistant that is just so phenomenal. We not only want the speakers to be the focus but also the environment.

Our group was joined with more than 100,000 leaders for the largest one­-day leadership event in the world this past Friday, May 4th!

This year, the Leadercast Live stage featured leaders who explained the power and importance of leading yourself first so you can lead others well. I posed three main questions of reflection at the start of the day for participants:

• What does it look like to lead yourself?
• How can you intentionally develop your own leadership skills and style?
• What qualities do you hope to embody as a leader?

We also had fun with the Lead Yourself and the May 4th Be With You theme. Some of us dressed up as Star Wars characters, all of the food and drink items were labeled with Star Wars references. Leadership books were on display. The tables had the itinerary and lightsabers. The food tables had huge Star Wars LEGO models as well as Leadercast Speaker quotes. This year we had a wonderful set of sponsors – Cisco Canada and Compugen Inc.

Check out the visual summaries (sketchnotes) created by @jgough on each of the Leadercast Live 2018 speakers:

I also added to the Speaker lineup a few special guests to make the day a little more personalized. We used our Webex platform to videoconference in the following:

• our own infamous MCHS Choir to sing Oh Canada to start off the day
• Willa Black, VP of Corporate Affairs for Cisco Canada that spoke about the Connected North program during the morning break
• 5 Prescott students on how they are leaders in their environments during the lunch break

Overall, Leadercast Live always sends me away with many gems and takeaways. Definitely, a day that I look forward to in experiencing with colleagues and one that I don’t mind taking all the extra time beforehand in setting up and coordinating.

 

What’s Your Story and Commitment?

I just had the opportunity to view two short video clips on the Leadercast Now site that I subscribe to that spoke to vision and commitment. Like the love locks bridges that I visited this summer in Slovakia and Czech Republic, these two videos will have an everlasting effect on my and my leadership style.

The first video clip was of Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP AG, entitled Changing the Mindset of Your Organization where he shared the “double it” strategy. In order to change the ‘headset’ of an organization, you need to look at what’s possible and then double it. A clear vision, strategy and commitment needs to be laid out and understood by all members of the organization. Everyone working with the same common goal, yet understanding what their part of the growth is in this project, adventure, process, quarter earnings, etc. is. The important work is to take time to listen to groups of people/departments; have brainstorming discussions on a regular basis that asks them what success looks like if personal and business goals were doubled AND is it already occurring or do ‘tweaks’ need to be to achieve this? What kind of support and/or resources are needed? Suggestions for achievement? All this ideas should be put on the table for discussion and then action plans can be developed.

Other businesses that come to mind with the ‘double it’ are ones like Unilever whose purpose is “to make sustainable living commonplace” and a vision “to double the size of the business, whilst reducing (their) environmental footprint and increasing (their) positive social impact”. So too are business looking to Kickstarter Canada, Indiegogo or other Crowdfunding Canadian platforms.

My question is – when have you sat down with your team, group of teachers or even group of students to lead a brainstorming session that asks them to envision the success that would come if they doubled their personal and school/work goals? (Not added more to the plate, but doing things more efficiently, sharing/collaborating on projects, etc.) It certainly would be interesting to hear and write down the ideas. So go ahead, it may surprise you!!

The second video clip “When It Becomes Their Story, Not Yours” via Scott Harrison, founder of Charity: Water. (See his story HERE.) Scott shared his three ideas on reinventing charity: 1) 100% of proceeds to go to the intended people, 2) prove where the money went and 3) create a long lasting brand. He wanted success for this charity by connecting and collaborating with established businesses, celebrities, identifying specific water projects and even having people give up their birthdays. Scott’s ideas and actions show that one can act differently, be socially minded and still have success. Overall, Scott says that we need to get out of the way and let others tell the story. We’ve seen the viral actions of 1000s with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge which has similar successful results. In my current role, I see that I need to support our students in PSD to tell their learning stories on their blogs, on the district 184 Days of Learning blog and throughout their learning projects. No longer does learning need to be an isolated event or one just shared via a triad of teacher – student – parents. As my own birthday is occurring this week, I thought it may be a nice change to start my own Water campaign. If I can help women and children and communities by donating $$ instead of spending it on a lunch, then so be it!

I invite all of you to check out my campaign at Water is Life; its open for another 100 days and your gift will be matched.

 

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Healthy Relationships are Cultivated

Over the past couple of years on this blog, I have had the opportunity to really develop my leadership abilities by delving into several foundational areas of leadership. These experiences have enabled me to draw into a deeper commitment and understanding about who I am/what role do I play? and what kind of an impact I can make/have made with my leadership.

Some key resources that I’d like to point to are the Intentional Leader guide from Leadercast which contains monthly themes, weekly directions and daily activities. Each week I would review the theme, read and answer the questions, reflect individually, do some action-research and discuss my thoughts with colleagues. This resource was a fantastic way for me to focus my energies to increase my confidence, my influence and my ability to make a real and lasting difference as a leader/colleague. (See my first post about this HERE.)

My second key resource was recently acquired. The Leadercast Now is an online subscription website that allows me to watch specific video clips on leadership followed by choosing and/or creating action steps. The video library has 100s of real leadership scenarios (with regular additions) for me to choose to watch. Just as the Intentional Leader was focused on specific themes, Leadercast Now has 7 behaviors of a Leader Worth Following – simplicity, bravery, beyond you, vision, culture, insight and creativity.

So for the 2014-15 school year, I pledge and will actually book a weekly timeslot to watch one video, make/complete an action item and blog about my findings/learnings.

This week I took time to watch Dr. Henry Cloud’s “Great Leaders Cultivate Healthy Relationships” video clip. Not only is it important to have growing and healthy relationships, but also to have trust, encouragement and connection with others. Dr. Cloud notes that there are THREE important things for humans to survive:

OXYGEN       GLUCOSE     RELATIONSHIP

Humans require oxygen to breathe, glucose for food and relationships to grow and develop.

Another piece he mentioned was that it is important to LISTEN to one another. Taking time to ask colleagues questions about a particular situation/topic, “What is it like for you? What is it like for your clients (staff/students/parents)?” Holding a time and a space to share these answers will be key for a department to move on or to develop a new process or to ask for further assistance, etc. The main thing is that people are being listened to…..which in this 24/7 fast-paced global world may not always be considered important. This time allows for encouragement and connection which changes the situation into a more positive light and energy.

Dr. Cloud’s talk reminds me of Kid Presidents Pep Talk for teachers and students:

It also warms my heart to know that I don’t have to do life and work on my own. I am able to collaborate, bounce ideas, disagree, share, learn and give/receive support and encouragement. I’ll take a few moments to either call, email or visit a few key people over the next few days that support and encourage me – hearing/reading these comments are a good thing!

 

Do you have ideas on how you will build your own leadership abilities and experiences? Feel free to share in-person or online.

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