Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Category: Audio Downloads

  • Listen In -> Avoiding Success. Four Fears That Hold Us Back #5: Fear of Not Being Liked

    More painful for the new leader than probably anything else is being unpopular.

    Accepting a promotion would involve choosing to put myself in this awkward place vis-a-vis my team where my decisions might evoke negative reactions.

    The promotion is attractive because I anticipate being successful, making good decisions, and being enthusiastically appreciated for doing so.

    And yet, deep within, we know reality is not so simple. Reality is that we cannot please everyone.

    A wise question to ask oneself is how will one respond to the negative reactions, both those with substance and those without.

    More germane to this week’s discussion, though, is asking whether you are avoiding the responsibility of leadership in order to avoid the unpopularity that often goes along with it?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Avoiding Success. Four Fears That Hold Us Back #4: Fear of Harm

    “They’re looking for a fall guy. I’m going to be given the responsibility of turning around the division without the necessary resources and support and then blamed for not fixing what they prefer would stay broken.”

    The third ordinary fear that we try to mask when avoiding success is the fear that we are being used or taken advantage of.

    Exploitation is a management reality. It happens. We use our executives. We take the credit when they perform and point the finger when they fail. I’m not excusing the practice. But it takes place. To deny it is both foolish and dangerous.

    We can choose to step into that reality and treat it as one of many challenges to be faced, or we can avoid that reality and protect ourselves from being harmed.

    The problem with going through our careers protecting ourselves from harm, is that we also protect ourselves from opportunities. In this week’s show, Claudia and I look at how fear of being harmed becomes an excuse for some to avoid new professional challenges. What about for you?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Avoiding Success. Four Fears That Hold Us Back #3: Fear of Blame

    Politics is a management reality that will give us as much challenge as it does headaches.

    Learning to face reality is a different process than becoming adept at avoiding it. The reality of office politics too often degrades into a no-win blame game. When something goes awry it seems the leaders focus first on whom to blame and then on what happened or what needs to happen next.

    Again, it is normal to experience some fear when such craziness affects your job. We are not interested in helping you not feel something which is perfectly normal to feel when the powerful act like children.

    What Claudia and I discuss in this week’s show is how we actually step away from our own leadership opportunities in order to avoid experiencing this ordinary fear.

    Don’t let the fear of being unfairly blamed hold you back from the very opportunity you’ve been waiting and working for!

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Avoiding Success. Four Fears That Hold Us Back #2: Fear of Failure

    Even if the promotion is long overdue. No matter how qualified we believed we were before receiving the promotion, after we get the promotion the first ordinary fear that we have trouble owning is the possibility that we may not be able to perform.

    I identify the fear as “ordinary” precisely because it is so difficult to name in our culture of pseudo-alpha confidence. We feel we shouldn’t experience fear of failure if we’re ready for the professional challenge of advancement.

    The problem is not experiencing the fear of failure. The real problem is not being able to be honest with oneself about the fact that one is, in fact, feeling fear.

    As a result we sabotage our own success by putting on a false bravado and confidence. We use this superior knowledge of ours to talk ourselves out of accepting the promotion for other reasons. Not enough pay. Not enough budget. A booby trap. A bad boss.

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I look at this ordinary fear and find that we destroy its power by acknowledging its presence. Instead of making up excuses for refusing a challenging promotion, you can step into the challenge and succeed even if a bit nervous.

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Avoiding Success. Four Fears that Hold Us Back #1: The Excuses We Didn’t Expect

    We’ve been wanting a promotion for some time now. We feel ready. We know we could do better than our boss.

    But when the time comes, and the promotion is offered, we decline the opportunity. We wisely discern it is too much work given the pay, not enough budget given the responsibilities, and a trap to avoid.

    What’s going on here?

    Are we really declining the very opportunity we’ve been working and waiting for?

    Join Claudia and I as we discuss four fears that can undermine our career ambitions.

    Perfectly normal human fears that might get triggered in perfectly normal management situations can work against us unless we arm ourselves ahead of time.

    Don’t inadvertently decline the opportunity that you are perfectly ready to take on!

    Avoiding Success. Four Fears That Hold Us Back
    The Fear of Failure
    The Fear of Blame
    The Fear of Harm
    The Fear of Not Being Liked

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Visionary Leadership with Marion Skeete #5: Cultivating a Language for Change

    How does a leader speak boldly without robbing others of their voices?

    Who gets a voice in the conversation of work, leadership, collaboration and the goals of the organization?

    We conclude our series with Marion Skeete of LegacyMakers International with a discussion about how difficult it is for most leaders to surrender their excitement about their own personal ideas in order to pay attention to and incorporate the ideas of the rest of the team.

    How does the leader stand with integrity in the tension between owning their responsibility to show up, engage and lead on the one hand, and showing deep respect for the participation, contribution, and dreams of the wider community on the other?

    Could the leader’s empowerment to lead be woven into how well they empower the community to embrace the stewardship of their own lives?

    How do you view the role of the leader?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Visionary Leadership with Marion Skeete #4: Respecting and Involving People

    Is the leader so ordained because she is better, smarter, more knowledgeable, better in any way than everyone else on the team or in the community?

    Does following a leader involve turning off our brains and compliantly doing what we are told?

    Is the leader the author of a vision that emerges from his or her own imagination? Or is the leader the servant of a vision that emerges from the unfolding story of the community?

    In week 4 of our series on Visionary Leadership with Marion Skeete our discussion turns to the voices that are and are not included in the conversation about where we are going and how we do things.

    Could it be arrogant and inappropriate for the leader to assume that anyone who cannot get on board with the leader’s vision is better off not being in the community or organization at all?

    If you feel like you’re on the outside of your organization looking in, then this show is for you.

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Visionary Leadership with Marion Skeete #3: Inspiring and Catalyzing Change

    Are you as tired as I am of hearing leaders complain about resistance to change?!

    The leader is always right and the people are always wrong. It’s the leader’s job to effect change by bringing the people running gratefully out of their “wrong” and into the leader’s “right.”

    Anyone who voices any practical or conceptual problem with the leader’s vision is labeled, “resistant to change.” It’s as if the story was about the leader!

    Enter Marion Skeete of LegacyMakers International for week three of our discussion on Visionary Leadership.

    What if the story, in fact, belonged to the community?

    What if the unfolding future was comprised of the real life unfolding stories of the individuals, families, teams and organizations that leaders serve?

    What if the only conversations about the future that might really result in change were those conversations that included the people who were themselves maturing into those changes?

    Vision would not be something dreamed up by the leader in isolation and announced one day, but something already transpiring that the leader observes and articulates in such a way that helps the community interact, engage, and embrace.

    What if catalyzing change involved nurturing an already existing ember, rather than pouring fuel on a damp wood and striking a match?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • The Visionary Leader: Captain or Mid-Wife?

    I find myself rethinking vision and leadership.

    Who do you know who seems to see what no one else sees? Not because no one else has eyes, but because no one else is looking.

    Visionary leadership is not about seeing something entirely new as much as it is about seeing what is already there unfolding in a way no one else yet expects. Just as our brains filter out most of the visual data in our field of vision so that we can pay attention to what is most important, so in our busy and complex lives many of us may not be able to see what is unfolding right in front of us.

    The visionary leader is more rarely the source of brand new ideas. She or he is rather the highly aware and deeply reflective one for whom all persons, events, stories, dynamics, and trends are precious and meaning-laden data.

    What distinguishes the visionary is the capacity to interpret this flood of information from a variety of vantage points. It is as if he or she is rearranging the tiles in a mosaic so that entirely different pictures emerge than the otherwise obvious one that everyone up until that point had been convinced was the only one.

    What we encounter in many hierarchical organizations are positional leaders who aspire to be perceived as visionaries. (A common cultural bias.) They consequently “do vision” out of their hierarchical frame of reference, which is to act as the primary idea generator, strategy definer, and program creator.

    The significance of distinguishing the personal skill from the organizational position lies in the very real possibility that the visionary leaders in your organization may not be the positional leaders. They may not even be on your radar screen. But they are there. Observant, reflective and influential.

    Think about it. Think through the people on your team. Think through people in other departments. What if someone in the accounting department could see in the numbers new possibilities for how you went about your work which you couldn’t see from your vantage point in operations? What if your receptionist understood your clients’ needs better from his or her perspective of helping than your marketing team could from their perspective of selling?

    And who has eyes and ears integrated enough with their heart and mind to watch these dynamics on a number of fronts and across a spectrum of personalities, roles, functions and processes? What kind of person does it take to see what ideas, directions and connections might be unfolding in enough time to participate in their emergence?

    Maybe “mid-wife” would serve as a better metaphor for visionary leader than “captain.” I wonder.

    What do you think?

    I think the emerging mosaic deepens and sharpens a bit more.

    This article flows out of recent conversations with Marion Skeete of LegacyMakers International. (These recordings are available on our web site and on iTunes.)
    As conversation always enriches and challenges, I find myself here needing to pause, reflect and adjust my conceptions of visionary leadership in light of my discussions with Marion.

    On your side

    – Karl Edwards

  • Listen In -> Visionary Leadership with Marion Skeete #2: Thinking Outside the Box

    How does a visionary leader communicate the “new thing” she or he sees when no one else sees it yet?

    And what if this new thing is something this leader is merely observing emerge from within the community she or he leads?

    In other words, how does one think outside of the box when much of the thinking is being done by others?

    In this week’s show, Marion Skeete of LegacyMakers International and I discuss how visionary leaders help “the story” of the community unfold and emerge.

    The story does not merely start over every time a power and control-based leader gets a new idea and starts shouting orders.

    Hence the importance of the empowering, listening visionary leader who can articulate where the story of the community needs to go next in terms of where the story of the community has been so far.

    Newness out of the old. A future integrated with the past. A maturing, developing, unfolding process of change.

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.