Little Things That Matter

Learn From The Past, Live The Present and Have An Open Mind to Face Tomorrow

Leadership And Compassion

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I had met Victoria recently who had hired me as a coach. Victoria is a highly motivated, energetic, determined and passionate woman in that she is driven by her purpose and vision in life. She is a senior executive with a multi-national firm and she has progressed very well in her career. She is one of the youngest managing directors within her firm and somebody whom people within the firm envied and looked up to. Victoria is a caring and compassionate individual but at the same time very goal oriented and at times in that drive may seem to appear as impersonal.

Victoria normally is prompt and punctual. However on this day, she arrived to my office 10 minutes late. She profusely apologized. I observed that she seemed agitated and particularly stressed about something. I accepted her apology, smiled and requested her to take a seat. I allowed her to calm down and I did this by being silent for several minutes. That helped her to calm her nerves and regain her composure. She had a glass of water and she started narrating how her day was, what caused her to be stressed out and the reason for her delay and agitation. She appeared back to normal calm and composed self after I listened to her story.

Her desired outcome from this session was to stay in the PEA during moments when her inner critique seemed to be taking control, especially when she had to present in front of the board or any other senior executive team.

Victoria was coaching with me on aspects of Executive Presence especially given her new role and larger responsibility associated with her recent promotion.

I focused the entire session on Coaching With Compassion. This enables a person to speak about their ideal life, their vision and be positive and powerful.

How does compassion help the work environment and boost the confidence and engagement of employees?

1. Enables people to see their strengths, and get them into a positive emotional state. This allows them to think and be creative.

2. Your Positive Emotional Attractor (PEA) is aroused and that facilitates you to think about possibilities and dreams with optimism and hope.

3. You think about the resonant relationships that support and believe in you.

4. You are confident and you believe in yourself.

5. The more you are in your PEA state, the more you are motivated and driven by your purpose.

Victoria had forgotten about her tough day and some agonizing moments that had led her to an agitated state when she had entered my office. It was almost like a ray of sunlight had entered the room.

The best part was when we had about 5 minutes left to the end of the session, she said my questions had evoked some insights for her on how she could deal with being in the PEA in moments where she feels her inner gremlin takes over. She mentioned that she is going to put some thoughts into the aha moments that these questions had given her and share with me on email and in our next coaching session as to how she had put to use some of these learnings to overcome her executive presence.

I could tell she enjoyed her coaching session and despite being a vivacious person the coaching with compassion had taken to her a different level of achievement in her own mind and how she saw her life.

Within organizations, as a leader if you can set clear goals, and treat everyone as a partner for progress you facilitate growth, fulfillment and development. Good communication, a key to purpose and problem solving should never be underestimated. When you give people in your team or organizations role in defining their values and tying it with the vision of the company, you encourage interaction and cooperation.

Let us not forget that success is built-in valuing the Human potential and providing an environment that allows the positivity to grow and nourish.

Ask questions which raise their awareness of the wider context of their action.

To arouse the PEA, studies are suggesting that we need to: (1) be social; and (2) engage the person in positive, hopeful contemplation of a desired future.

The latter might also be stimulated when discussing core values and the purpose of the organization or project.

Extracted from NEUROSCIENCE AND LEADERSHIP: THE PROMISE OF INSIGHTS by Richard Boyatzis

The power of positive imaging and visioning is that it catches your dreams and engages your passion. You cannot inspire this passion in others without engaging in it yourself.

For Coaching, Speaking or Training please connect with Lalita Raman.

Never Give Up

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The dog’s action in this video speaks volumes

To me it spoke about

→Compassion

→Be A Friend First To Have One

→Empathy

→Love

→Never Give Up

→Believe In Yourself

→Trust

→Congruence of body language and facial expression, an important element of communication.

What does it tell you ? I would love to hear your thoughts.
What does this teach us about life?
What does this teach us about relationships

How To Practice Positive Leadership

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Pauline is sitting at her desk immersed in her own thoughts and going down the memory lane of her past 30 years.

Pauline still remembers the big day when she was 8 years old. She is waiting for her big day, the final competition for being declared “The Best Child Dancer under 10″ in the biggest competitions held by a TV channel in her country.  She is passionate about dancing and spends hours on her practice. The Finale arrives and she gives a mind-blowing performance. She wins the competition. She gets accolades, awards, appreciation of her performance.  She is exhilarated.

A smile returns to her face when she thinks about this moment.

She has won many awards thereafter not only in her country but also internationally. Dance is her passion but Pauline has always kept it as a hobby rather than make a career out of that. She is multi skilled and has never had any issues in trying out diverse things and out shining in each of those.  She is currently a Senior Executive with a top multinational  – she has spent over 10 years with this Company and has grown in her role.  She is one of the top performers and has contributed to the phenomenal growth of the Company. The Company will face a significant loss if she decides to leave the Company.

Pauline, however is not happy and she rarely shares or shows what is going on beneath the surface.  She continues to give her commitment to her role as a leader, manager and as a senior board member of the organization.  She manages to shut her emotions of not being content whilst she is at work.

A shrill telephone ring shakes Pauline out of her reverie….

Can you picture yourself in Pauline’s shoes ? You bring yourself to work and shut off some of your emotions and over time these get pent-up. No one at work asks you nor does your manager have the time for you, to connect or to find out how you are doing?  You feel like a cog in the wheel and over time it probably affects your productivity and your passion with which you do your work.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge – Plato

Strong emotions & feelings if not recognized tend to be a biggest drain and over time creates a vicious circle of Negative Emotions.

Not recognizing or appreciating the contribution of an individual in an organization affects the performance of not only that person but also the service to clients and possibly the competitive space of the organization.  Many times it isn’t only the financial rewards that count but it is necessary to improve the lines of communication, encourage positive energy which means work on building the strengths of an individual.

An organization is about people and each individual is unique. In meeting and surpassing revenue and growth targets, meeting deadlines, many a manager in an organization forget to truly connect with an individual, their interests and most of all create an environment to make them feel safe and wanted.

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