The “Miracle Drug” for Leaders

September 30, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

America has a unique relationship with diet and exercise. The conversation surrounding health and fitness in America typically is skewed to aesthetics. How do I get the washboard abs I’ve always wanted? How do I lose my love handles? How do I get more toned?

We count calories. We count points. We count macros. We count reps. We count sets.

We track our body weight. We track our body fat percentage. We track the inches.

We go run to fit in our jeans again. We diet before beach trips and social events. We exercise just enough to eat or drink whatever we want when we go out.

We embrace intermittent fasting. We research keto. We “go paleo.” We become vegan.

We cut gluten. We cut dairy. We cut carbs. We cut FOOD! (just kidding).

For many of us, it’s “mirror, mirror, on the wall…” day in, and day out.

And, there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to steal a glance at the mirror and see a Greek god or goddess staring back.

But, all of this misses a wonderful and fascinating reality about the benefits of exercise – especially for leaders.

Exercise doesn’t just strengthen our bodies. It’s an elixir for the mind and spirit; unrivaled by any man-made drug in its benefit and lack of negative side-effects. And leaders should pay careful attention to this because the return on investment is virtually immeasurable.

Let’s look at the science.

The brain is a complex organ; not a muscle. But, like a muscle, it can grow. Exercise promotes something called neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to form new neural connections and pathways (i.e., circuitry in the brain). In other words, exercise promotes learning. Even more amazing is the 2007 revelation from a Columbia University study that regular exercise promotes neurogenesis. Where neuroplasticity prompts increased neural connections in the brain, neurogenesis literally is the growth of new neurons.

The 2007 Columbia study was groundbreaking.

Researchers found that regular exercise directly targets a portion of the hippocampus – an area of the brain responsible for consolidating short and long term memory – known as the dentate gyrus, “which underlies normal age-related memory decline that begins around age 30” for the average adult.

How did the Columbia researchers conclude this?

First, they observed that study participants that exercised regularly performed better on memory tests. More intriguing, however, were their findings via MRI imaging, which showed actual growth of neurons within the living brain – specifically within the dentate gyrus area of the hippocampus.

Getting a little more granular, researchers have identified what is underneath all of this brain growth. It’s a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF. In short, when we exercise, our bodies produce BDNF, which floods the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex (more on that in a moment), stimulating the brain’s ability to learn and establish other connections .

Professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of the book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, Dr. John Ratey, has famously called BDNF “miracle grow for the brain.”

What’s more is that the release of BDNF in the brain doesn’t merely promote neurogenesis, it acts as a shield and defense to brain decline. A study published in 2015 found that exercise improves memory and may help prevent Altzheimers disease by acting as a shield against neurodegenerative conditions.

Exercise doesn’t merely trigger better memory through improvements in neuron growth and connectivity, it also directly impacts the prefrontal cortex – the area of the brain responsible for the “executive functions” of the mind. By executive functions, I mean planning, decision making, organization, consequence evaluation, learning from mistakes, maintaining focus, and working memory. For leaders, these functions should ring a bell.

How does exercise do this?

Many studies have suggested that the prefrontal cortex has greater volume in people who exercise versus people who don’t. Findings show that even regular exercise, of a moderate intensity, over the course of just six months, is associated with increases in the volume of the prefrontal cortex.

In fact, a 2012 study found that even a single bout of aerobic exercise influenced neural pathways that directly led to better post-exercise cognitive functioning.

If there ever were a “miracle drug” available to us, it’s exercise.

I’ll share one more study – an older one – that has resonated with me ever since I read about it in Dr. Ratey’s book, Spark. I’m talking about a famous 1999 Duke University study comparing the effects of exercise with the drug Zoloft.

The Duke study took over 100 older patients suffering from depression and divided them into three groups: (1) a group that took the drug Zoloft for 16 weeks; (2) a group that exercised 30 minutes a day, four times per week, for 16 weeks; and (3) a group that took Zoloft and did the exercise. Remarkably, at the end of the study, all three groups experienced roughly the same average drops in levels of depression.

Commenting on the study, one lead researcher noted, "One of the conclusions we can draw from this is that exercise may be just as effective as medication and may be a better alternative for certain patients.”

One other quote is worth drawing out simply because of the fun of hindsight. Again, commenting back in 1999, that same lead researcher added, “While we don't know why exercise confers such a benefit, this study shows that exercise should be considered as a credible form of treatment for these patients.”

Fast forward. We actually know why now. And it’s not a mystery or pure speculation. It’s reliable, peer-reviewed science that directly establishes the fact that exercise has a physical impact on our brains.

As leaders – folks whose primary role is communication, strategic thinking, prioritizing, team building, stewarding, vision casting, counseling, writing, decision-making, resolving conflict, etc. – we can’t afford to miss the benefit that’s staring us in the face.

And listen, I’m not urging anyone to eat their proverbial vegetables here.

Looking at the Duke study, the results came with – get this – a brisk walk.

No one is suggesting that you take up crossfit or start competing in sprint triathlons and tough mudders.

The advantages can come from a brisk 30 minute walk, several times a week. What a beautiful way to begin tapping into the deep well of the benefits that flow from routine exercise.

I could go on and on about the benefits of exercise. Since I read Dr. Ratey’s book back in 2013, the internet has proliferated with study upon study confirming and expanding on the basic conclusions I’ve drawn our attention to in this article.

In summary, if you’re a leader or aspiring leader reading this, my hope for you – especially those who are working so hard and feeling the strain of the demands at home and at the office – is that you will reevaluate the possibility of fitting something as basic as a 30-minute walk into your day, three times a week.

As we often reflect on (and sometimes lament), at Intentional Leader, the list of things we can control in this life is fairly short. Happily, exercise is on that list, and its benefits are vast.

Choose to prioritize this activity that will likely have an unimaginable return on investment for you in your life and work, an investment far more significant than your waistline or the size of your biceps.

One last thing…If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

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Shepherding Souls to Safety: 3 Ways to Foster Psychological Safety in the Modern Workplace

September 16, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

By: Ryan Brence

“There are two kinds of people in the world. One walks into a room and says, “There you are!” The other walks into a room and says, “Here I am!”

— Abigail Van Buren

Have you ever dreaded attending a meeting due to the fear or anxiety of how you or your thoughts & opinions would be judged by the leader?

It seems like a rhetorical question because I know most, if not all of us, would respond with a resounding YES.

For me, this took place on a weekly basis over the course of a year during my time as an executive officer in the Army.

The brutal “Maintenance Monday” meeting…

Each week, I would be charged with reporting the status updates of millions of dollars worth of equipment within my respective unit. This included the repair or replacement of parts needed for multiple weapons systems, armored vehicles, and miscellaneous operational equipment.

While the responsibility and importance of my unit’s preparedness was not lost on me, I oftentimes had a hard time fully understanding the faults and breakdowns associated with the equipment.

Let’s just say that I’m not the most mechanically inclined…

However, with that being said, I would show up to “Maintenance Monday” meetings prepared to report on my unit’s equipment after having multiple conversations with my company’s operators and mechanics.

The soldiers I worked with would explain the faults to me in great detail by showing me the specific breakdowns and reviewing each problem with me in the corresponding equipment manuals. Then, I would do my very best to explain the issues to my superior officer in our weekly meetings.

Regardless of how prepared I felt, more often than not I would leave those meetings feeling frustrated, embarrassed, and discouraged. My emotions resulted from the tone set and the responses given by my leader.

Most of the times I reported my unit’s maintenance status, my authority figure would end up either interrogating, interrupting, or chastising me in front of my peers. In the rare occurrences that I made it out without questioning or blame, I was witness to another peer casualty being reprimanded without the opportunity to fully explain the situation or seek the assistance needed.

Over time, my fear and anxiety for these maintenance meetings stifled my curiosity, learning, and overall growth because I simply sought out the critical information that I knew would be most heavily scrutinized. There were also times that I would purposefully not report minor maintenance issues to avoid the retaliation that I knew would come from a longer list of equipment issues.

In the end, both my professional development and my unit’s overall mission readiness were stymied by my superior officer in these meetings. The weekly occurrences drained me of energy, confidence, and the desire to think creatively.

My voice simply did not feel heard. Can you relate?

Psychological Safety

In another Intentional Leader article, Wes Cochrane described how leadership is a profoundly human endeavor. We’re not dealing with robots - We’re dealing with souls. And all of our souls have truly been tested in recent years.

From the pandemic, geopolitical instability, and racial/ethnic tension (just to name a few), future uncertainty and fear of the unknown have catalyzed new collective movements in which individuals are seeking safety in a multitude of different ways.

Specifically, organizations across the globe are experiencing seismic shifts in turnover and productivity through the fallout of the Great Resignation and what is now being referred to as “quiet quitting.” While workplace wellness and employee engagement have been topics of discussion for many years prior to the pandemic, another term is being elevated in light of what’s currently at stake in the workforce - psychological safety.

Originally defined by William Kahn, and more recently developed and expanded upon by Amy Edmondson, psychological safety is “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” For employees, risk taking could mean freely speaking up in meetings, suggesting new ideas or processes, or simply feeling accepted enough to show up to work as their true selves.

This type of security is cultivated through demonstrations of engagement, understanding, and inclusivity. While these types of behaviors are shown in many diverse ways, it is ultimately the leader’s responsibility to not only create, but also maintain, this type of organizational climate.

On the surface, the expression seems to be more of an academic term used by social scientists and psychologists. However, the benefits of high workplace psychological safety speak for themselves through various studies provided by Gallup and Accenture. Workplaces that foster this type of environment in their companies experience many benefits as shown below:

12% increase in productivity
27% reduction in employee turnover
40% decrease in safety incidents
57% rise in workplace collaboration
74% less stress on the job

In a recent study by Google’s People Operations, the human relations team set out to answer the following question: What makes a Google team effective? After over two years and hundreds of Google employee interviews, psychological safety was by far the most dominant finding for overall team dynamics. Other behaviors, such as setting clear goals and reinforcing accountability were important to Googlers, but unless team members felt psychologically safe, the other factors were insufficient.

With all the brilliant minds and incredible resumes found within Google, the most important factor for driving team performance (as told by employees) was the ability to feel safe taking risks and being able to be vulnerable in front of one another.

So, as we all navigate the new work environment and the many stressors placed on employees both personally and professionally, what steps can we take as leaders to promote and develop psychological safety in our organizations?

In Amy Edmondson’s book The Fearless Organization, she discusses three interrelated practices for building psychological safety: setting the stage, inviting participation, and responding productively. Let’s take a look at each of these practices more closely to discover practical ways to apply them in the workplace.

Setting the Stage

Setting the stage is critical for framing the work done both within the company and how it is perceived and valued externally by the team and clients. As leaders, we must emphasize the purpose of the operations being executed and for whom it ultimately impacts. While high returns on investment, profit margins, and annual bonuses can speak to employees’ extrinsic motivations, the intrinsic motivations found within mission, meaning, and purpose can galvanize teammates around a shared cause.

Additionally, setting expectations surrounding core values, standards, communication, and interdependence clarify what is most important internally while operating as a team. If employees know what is expected of them and how they contribute to the larger cause, then they will feel more ownership and buy-in towards fully contributing to the collective group.

The leader must always strive to display these expectations while also communicating grace that is found in the midst of failure. Since many people have natural instincts to avoid failure at all costs, reframing these mishaps as learning opportunities gives workers the freedom to take risks and strive for excellence in their day-to-day tasks and duties.

Leader Action Steps - Setting the Stage

Focus on what’s most at stake for your team through your organization's operations.
What is your team’s why? What big problems does your company help solve?
Set clear expectations around standards, failure, and team collaboration.
Be the Chief Reminding Officer by continuing to reinforce these critical points on a consistent basis.

Inviting Participation

The next step in fostering psychological safety in the workplace is inviting participation. Most employees have passionate and innovative thoughts and ideas that could improve the organization. However, the instinctive nature of self-protection can inhibit these ideas from being presented and discussed in environments that feel unsafe. Once again, it’s contingent upon the leader to not only set the stage for openness but also pull these thoughts and ideas out of team members through the power of questions within the appropriate forums and situations.

Amy Edmondson shares three leader tasks that she considers key for inviting participation: demonstrating situational humility, practicing inquiry, and setting up structures and processes. Situational humility allows the leader to acknowledge gaps in their own knowledge or understanding of how problems can be solved in specific situations. By openly addressing the unknown and soliciting feedback, employees feel empowered to present their own views to help fill in the gaps and help the company move forward.

When it comes to practicing inquiry, the leader’s full presence is key. Complete attention shown through body language, active listening, and validating responses give team members the affirmation needed to continue to provide thoughts and opinions knowing that their voice will be welcomed and encouraged for the overall welfare of the organization.

While situational humility and inquiry may commonly take place casually throughout the day through informal conversations, it is also important for leaders to establish formal structures and processes for ideas to be generated, tasks to be documented, and metrics to be tracked. By having consistent and productive meetings in which employees are aware of the agenda and items covered, team members can continue to show up prepared and confident that they can participate in ways that bring value to the group’s strategic goals and objectives.

Leader Action Steps - Inviting Participation

Admit personal mistakes and acknowledge when you simply don’t have the answers.
Show curiosity by asking open-ended questions to your team and team members. Be present, demonstrate positive body language, and respond with understanding.
Clearly communicate the purpose of set meetings and come prepared with a succinct agenda with known guidelines regarding time, tasks, and communication.
Intentionally allow space for team members to share thoughts and ideas.

Responding Productively

Edmondson's final task for leaders to cultivate psychological safety is responding productively. After inviting participation, the way we respond can express appreciation for our team members’ thoughts, ideas, and opinions. After genuinely thanking others for their feedback, leaders can take it a step further by helping brainstorm next steps that will give way towards impactful action for the organization.

Similar to situational humility, the leader can communicate the need for one or a group of team members to spearhead an initiative that progresses the organization closer to the goals and objectives set. By offering any help needed and responding with trust and permission to take action, the leader accomplishes a collective orientation towards continuous growth and learning for all employees involved in the process.

At this point, it’s important to point out that psychological safety may be construed as an overly soft expression for allowing everyone to be known, heard, and appreciated regardless of their input. I admit to initially feeling like this all sounds too good to be true and seems challenging to sustain in the workplace filled with problems and different personalities. However, Edmondson argues that psychological safety is not an “anything goes” environment where people are not expected to adhere to standards and meet deadlines.

The goal of psychological safety is not comfort. Instead, it is an enabler towards openness and candor that, if fostered correctly, can allow teams to thrive with a sense of shared purpose, mutual respect, and awareness of guiding principles and processes.

The key to cultivating this type of work environment is finding the proper balance of psychological safety and overall accountability.

As seen in the four-quadrant chart below, the top right “Learning Zone” represents the ideal state of team members feeling known and accepted while being held highly accountable for important and purposeful work. When this is accomplished, organizations strive for excellence by working effectively with one another to achieve the mission at hand.

The other quadrants show the imbalances of these two critical factors that can result in either comfort, anxiety, or even apathy. While every team member shares a certain level of responsibility in promoting psychological safety in the workplace, it is the leader that often sets the tone through Edmondson’s three tasks (setting the stage, inviting participation, and responding productively) while maintaining awareness of the organization’s current state in the midst of changing circumstances.

Leader Action Steps - Responding Productively

Genuinely express appreciation to team members for participation.
Give constructive feedback, empower others to take action towards company goals, and open dialogue to drive next steps.
Ensure standards are known and team members are held accountable for clear violations. Stay true and consistent with how you “Set the Stage.”
Maintain awareness of what zone your organization is operating out of and strive for excellence found within the “Learning Zone.”

As I reflect back on my dreadful “Maintenance Monday” meetings, I realize that the Army can be an intimidating place to work considering what is at stake to deploy, fight, and win our nation’s wars. Most organizations do not share this same intense mission.

However, I do know that most, if not all, teams have an innate desire to win. And leaders must bring out the very best of their team members in order to achieve victory. While winning could look very different for organizations, fostering an environment of psychological safety helps bring uniquely distinct and valuable souls together towards a common cause. In today’s day and age, this type of leadership is much desired and needed in our modern workplace. As leaders, we have a duty and responsibility to genuinely care for our team members and shepherd them to safety so they can operate at their highest potential to make a difference in this world.

And to me, that sounds a lot like winning.

Life is short - let’s go make it count!

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The Perils of Perfectionism

September 01, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

The pain of perfectionism knows no boundaries. The other night, I went to tuck my 11-year-old into bed and found him in tears. He had a small presentation the next day at school and was stressed because he didn’t think it would be that good – it wasn’t perfect. According to him, he hadn’t practiced enough, he couldn’t recall all the facts from memory (and refused my suggestion to have a note card to fall back on), and he wasn’t even sure the topic was interesting enough.

After drawing this out of him, I tried to point out these presentations weren’t graded and were meant to be a grace to him and his classmates – opportunities designed to help them improve in public speaking and learn to field questions on their feet. Having watched him practice his presentation earlier in the evening, I also noted that it was legitimately good and he had no reason to be concerned.

I’m not convinced my efforts assuaged his misgivings about it. He went to bed teary. And, while he reported back to me the next evening that his presentation was a success, the memory of this little story remained with me.

Many of us battle perfectionism’s grip on our lives. Contrary to the classic (hopefully apocryphal) anecdote of the humble-brag heard by many hiring committees – that “my biggest weakness is that I care too much…” – there is nothing cute or funny about perfectionism. Perfectionism not only hurts us as individuals, its echoes reverberate throughout the teams we lead, impacting others as well. It’s not something to be admired, it’s something to be mitigated.

The American Psychological Association defines perfectionism as “the tendency to demand of others or of oneself an extremely high or even flawless level of performance, in excess of what is required by the situation,” and notes that “[i]t is associated with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health problems.” More succinctly, perfectionism “is broadly defined as a combination of excessively high personal standards and overly critical self-evaluations.” Leading experts Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill completed a landmark study in 2017 that demonstrated that levels of perfectionism – across all three types: self-oriented, socially prescribed, and other-oriented – increased linearly among young people between 1986 and 2016. Informing their study were 164 different samples comprising nearly 42,000 American, Canadian, and British college students.

While the conclusion that perfectionism is on the rise is troubling, I was more struck by the sobering effects of perfectionism, something that Curran and Hill highlight in their study. Let’s look briefly at each of the three types and their documented effects.

Self-oriented perfectionism is all about striving to obtain perfection and avoid failure. Those afflicted with self-oriented perfectionism can appear impressive. Adaptive and achievement-related on the outside, Curran and Hill write that this type often masks a vulnerability to tying their self-worth to achievement and being unable to derive a lasting sense of satisfaction from their accomplishments. The authors cited research among college students concluding that self-oriented perfectionism is positively associated with ills like clinical depression, anorexia nervosa, elevated blood pressure, and early death.

Socially prescribed perfectionism is, according to Curran and Hill, “the most debilitating of the three dimensions of perfectionism.” This type regularly perceives the expectations of other people as excessive, uncontrollable, and unfair. The result, Curran and Hill write, is that those prone to socially prescribed perfectionism routinely feel a sense of failure and negativity. Socially prescribed perfectionism is positively associated with anxiety, depression, and suicide ideation.

Other-oriented perfectionism may result in the most conflict. For other-oriented perfectionists, other people frequently fall short of their lofty expectations and standards. When this happens, this type blames and criticizes others. According to Curran and Hill, studies of college students have shown correlations between other-oriented perfectionism and “socially antagonistic characteristics such as higher vindictiveness, hostility, and the tendency to blame others, in addition to lower altruism, compliance, and trust.”

Spend a few minutes reading Curran and Hill’s study and you quickly realize perfectionism sucks, no matter how you cut it. Like toxic chemicals leaching through soil into water sources, we shouldn’t imagine, for one second, that the same harmful behaviors correlated with perfectionism in individuals don’t somehow trickle (or flood) into our teams and organizations as well.

Further, if we accept Curran and Hill’s conclusions – that perfectionism increased linearly in college students from 1986 to 2016 – then many of those in leadership positions across all industries, in government and private sectors, are statistically more likely to be perfectionists. According to author and leadership consultant Janet Britcher, this poses a significant problem for such leaders’ teams.

Writing for Forbes, Britcher cautioned that perfectionistic leaders tend to micromanage, set moving targets for goals, and promote cultures where employees hide their mistakes, rather than learn from them. The negative implications are legion. Micromanagement, she notes, suppresses creativity and initiative. As for defining success, continuously shifting goalposts doesn’t merely stress the leader out, it infects the entire team, crushing motivation, tanking workplace satisfaction, and driving burnout. Finally, an organization where members hide their mistakes or failures is an organization that doesn’t learn. Organizations that don’t learn don’t grow – they become dead-ends, cul-de-sacs, that turn away top talent instead of attracting it.

My 11-year-old displayed self-oriented perfectionism. The tears came because he was overcome by the thought that his presentation might not be perfect. He couldn’t appreciate that the event was meant to be just another “rep” at public speaking, an opportunity for him to grow. In his mind, the presentation was something deeper – it was a measure of his self-worth. “As long as I nail this presentation, I am somebody, I have value.” This is a surefire path to disappointment (or worse).

I can identify, though. My guess is many readers can as well. So what do we do, then?

Pursue excellence and growth, not perfection.

Excellence, progress, and growth – these are all noble aims that promote long-term success and satisfaction without the perils of perfectionism’s siren call.

In his new book, The Pursuit of Excellence, author and award-winning podcaster Ryan Hawk sets the stage for his book’s subject matter by highlighting the philosophy of a high school basketball coach from Centreville, Ohio, named Brook Cupps. Cupps is a leader and coach familiar with success. In 2021, he led Centerville High School to its first ever boys basketball state championship. Hawk asked Coach Cupps to describe the difference between success and excellence.

Cupps replied, “Success is based on a comparison with others. Excellence is measured against your own potential.”

In Hawk’s words, “[d]o my habits, routines, rituals, and actions match my intention to be better tomorrow than I am today? These questions are the gateway to excellence because living a life of excellence is about the fanatical pursuit of gradual improvement.”

This is a modern rendition of ancient wisdom. While it’s been overly quoted, Aristotle’s admonition still packs a punch – “We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit.” Riffing on that a little, Marcus Aurelious added, “[s]uch as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind.”

Excellence sounds like a healthier goal than perfection.

As we wrap this up, let’s revisit Curran and Hill’s study above. What was the fruit of a life marked by any of the three dimensions of perfectionism? It was anxiety, depression, turmoil of the mind and spirit, and in some cases self-destructive thoughts.

Contrast this with a life that aims for excellence. If our actions, every day, are geared toward pursuing excellence in our own lives, subject to our own circumstances, we will cultivate a habit of excellence. In cultivating a habit of excellence, we necessarily think about and ponder excellence. As our thoughts habitually drift to the subject of where we might be falling short or where we might improve, a mix of humility, optimism, and resolve builds in our hearts and minds. We remind ourselves of a mantra that we could all embrace – “progress over perfection.” This is the fruit of pursuing excellence; and leading ourselves in this way has profound implications for our leadership of others.

So where are you in all this? Just step back for a moment and be honest with yourself – have you been lured by perfectionism’s promise?

I have at times.

For me, the times I’m most vulnerable to perfectionism is when I’m most insecure; new jobs, new environment, new challenges, or new situations where I feel out of my element – that’s when I’ve often reverted back to it.

Maybe you can relate.

The best way to interrupt the cycle of perfectionism is confession – that is, just telling the truth to yourself or others. Transformation is often unlocked when we are honest with ourselves and others. This week, ask yourself:

Which of the three dimensions of perfectionism do I relate to the most?
What area at home, at work, or elsewhere, do I see evidence of an embrace of perfectionism?
How does my perfectionism impact the lives of others, whether at home or at work?
What am I giving up at home or at work by tolerating perfectionism in myself?
What would it feel like to experience change in this area?

As leaders, we are either growing or stagnating. There’s no staying put. Addressing perfectionism in our lives is a giant vote for growth.

Go make it count!

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Weary Souls Leading Other Weary Souls

August 05, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

Leadership is a profoundly human endeavor – we’re not dealing with robots. We’re dealing with souls.

And the soul demands care.

Another way to express this is that as leaders, we are responsible for “whole people.” Whole people are more than just their physical being and what they can produce. They have hopes. They have fears. They have concerns and anxieties. And all of this impacts their abilities to perform in the workplace.

The problem is we’re living in an age of soul ambush. Author and counselor, John Eldredge, wrote in his recent book, Resilient: Restoring Your Weary Soul in These Turbulent Times, that “[w]e have not yet paid the psychological bill for the pandemic.” Societally, we’re only beginning to uncover the impact the pandemic had on our families and institutions. Moreover, that impact was felt more profoundly than many of us might admit or realize. There was a psychological toll from the pandemic, alone, that was enough to burden any soul. This is to say nothing of the contentious political years that preceded COVID-19 and still rage, the deep and painful conversations surrounding race in our country, the abrupt end of our nation’s longest war and the beginning of a new one, strife over our education systems, the squeeze on our wallets and purses as the economy braced for inflation’s hard blows, the disruption to the supply chains – to the predictable comfort – that we have grown accustomed to. Further, these are all challenges and stressors that are felt universally. They don’t account for the unique difficulties that fill our individual lives day after day.

As we journeyed out of the havoc that COVID-19 wrecked on our world’s bodies, economies, and institutions, it became tempting to assume we were just marching back to “normal.” But that presupposes that “normal” was, at one time or another, a good thing.

The underlying truth is that life has always been and always will be a difficult battle for the soul. “Normal” is no refuge.

We can read about goal setting, vision casting, habit formation, managing commitments, navigating conflict, and self and organizational improvement, all day, but none of that will directly address the soul.

And it is weary souls that we encounter at home and at work.

Writing in September, 2014, in the wake of the brutal ISIS beheadings of American journalists in Syria, author David Brooks attempted to define the soul when he addressed what makes the human body sacred. In the New York Times, Brooks noted:

“Most of us understand, even if we don’t think about it, or have a vocabulary to talk about it…that the human body is not just a piece of meat or a bunch of neurons and cells. The human body has a different moral status than a cow’s body or a piece of broccoli. We’re repulsed by a beheading because the body has a spiritual essence. The human head and body don’t just just live and pass along genes. They paint, make ethical judgments, savor the beauty of a sunset and experience the transcendent. The body is material but surpasses the material. It’s spiritualized matter.”

The same spiritual essence in us that can savor the beauty of a sunset can also nurse the wounds or disappointments that come from trudging through life’s dark valleys.

Like us, the men and women we lead are carrying with them to work the myriad burdens of modern life, with its overwhelm, its overstimulation, and its limited rest and solitude.

If our leadership doesn’t account for this, we will miss major opportunities to influence our people – and by extension our teams – to perform at their highest potential.

And that is what leadership is all about – influencing others to consistently perform at their highest potential.

So how do we combat the ambush on our souls in the professional environment?

First, it’s going to look vastly different depending upon the size and nature of your office or team. Every organization has its own cultural DNA and its own challenges. There is no off-the-shelf approach to caring for the whole person. Since we’re talking about human beings and not robots, this should make absolute sense.

Second, it doesn’t mean coddling your people or insulating them from challenging work or circumstances. It also doesn’t mean invading their private lives.

On the other hand, it does mean engaging your people with an awareness that accounts for the burdens or dreams they carry with them. I’ll out myself right now – I have led teams before where my concern was almost exclusively the proverbial bottom line and getting the results I thought the team needed to succeed. The outcome was that I possessed a surface level of awareness of the men and women on my team. Caught up in the demands of the organization, I didn’t appreciate the complexities and nuance of the folks I worked with.

Awareness is the key principle.

Awareness is what makes people feel known. Are you aware that your employee just had her first baby? Are you aware that your new colleague is trying to buy her first house in a frenzied market? Are you aware that one of your junior team leaders is worried about a pending knee surgery? Are you aware that your officemate is a widower or has a child battling cancer?

When people feel known, they feel cared for. They feel cared for because the intangible part of them has been addressed. They are more than just their job. Maybe nothing was fixed. Maybe no amazing epiphany occurred. You just displayed awareness. You just extended soul care.

This is why anonymity and irrelevance comprise two of the three sides of Patrick Lencioni’s aptly named “job misery triangle.” All human beings need to be known, understood, and appreciated. We also need to know that we matter, that our work is relevant.

How does this look in practice?

Take the knee surgery, for example. You have a colleague who has an upcoming knee surgery. One day, as his supervisor, you stop and ask, “When is your surgery?” You learn it’s the following week. You ask how your colleague feels about it. Does he have post-op support in place? Could you bring him or order him a meal?

The point is not the particular questions you ask – it’s seeing your people. In one sincere exchange, you’ve communicated awareness. You’ve helped to mitigate the crush of the modern world on your colleague’s soul by reminding him that he is more than his job or position.

Do this consistently – across your team – and you will begin to influence the cultural fabric of your organization. You will begin to build a stronger team.

Quick Self-Assessment

Take a moment – in the morning before things get busy or at the end of your work day, before heading home – and jot down the first 3-5 adjectives that come to your mind to describe the way you relate to the people you lead. Don’t overthink it. Don’t stress about filtering it. Just write the words that come. What constellation of adjectives emerged?

What story do those adjectives tell you about your leadership? If that story is negative, don’t condemn yourself. You’ve just led yourself in a powerful way. You’ve prompted yourself to see the truth, which is the beginning of transformation.

Where to go from here?

Keep it simple. Who is one person on your team that you need to be more aware of next week? Who is one person on your team that you will communicate awareness to personally next week?

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Living in the Angst - 3 Key Responses for When You Get Punched in the Mouth

July 15, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Ryan Brence

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

— Mike Tyson

Tony Sirico, the infamous mobster actor who played “Paulie Walnuts” on the hit show The Sopranos, died last week at the age of 79.

I've met a few celebrities in my life, but I will never forget the time I encountered Mr. Sirico and his running buddy, James Gandolfini Jr., the actor who played “Tony Soprano” on the famous TV drama series.

In 2008, I was a senior at West Point and had the opportunity to attend a Wounded Warriors fundraising event in New York City with a couple of my classmates.

We were in our "full dress" uniforms which we only donned for the most formal occasions. Of course, our unique and historical military attire attracted attention from those at the function.

After several brief interactions with civilians and other military members, I caught a glimpse of Sirico and Gandolfini at the bar by themselves.

I had seen a few episodes of The Sopranos, but I knew it was one of my dad's all-time favorite TV shows. With no else around them and feeling some confidence in my full dress uniform, I decided to approach the celebrity actors.

What the heck, right?

As I anxiously greeted them, the celebrities slowly shifted their gaze to me and gave the type of soft smile that one would expect from mafia actors. After exchanging pleasantries, Mr. Sirico and Gandolfini quickly directed the focus of our conversation to West Point and our military training.

Surprised by their curiosity, I went into detail regarding the difficult training regimen that West Point cadets endure throughout their time at the academy. I discussed our intense physical training, weapons training, small unit tactics training...among other areas of instruction.

I guess you could say I was feeling a little "big for my britches."

After rambling on for several minutes, Mr. Sirico nodded his head in approval and then quietly asked me, almost under his breath, "Do they teach you any of that hand-to-hand combat at the academy?"

Excited by his follow-up question, I proudly announced my proficiency in boxing and mixed martial arts combatives through my time at school. As I concluded another long-winded explanation of our training, I was caught off guard by Mr. Sirico's closed fist coming right at my face.

Paulie Walnuts sucker punched me in the mouth!

And let's just say it was not a playful punch.

In his New York accent he quickly asked me, "Where were you on that one, huh?"

Shocked by what just happened at such a formal event, I looked up at the actors to find two big smirks on their faces. All I could do was nervously smile, and then naturally checked my jaw to make sure it wasn’t broken.

I didn't really know what to say or do after that exchange, but I did decide to keep my words to a minimum from that point on. All in all, Mr. Sirico and Gandolfini were great guys and expressed their gratitude for my service. They even took a picture with my classmate and me as seen below.

The Angst

My interaction with Mr. Sirico was just a blip in time, but it packed quite a punch (pun intended) to my ego and spirit in that moment.

One second, I’m riding the waves of confidence from the attention garnered by my uniform and education, and the next second I’m struck by the realization that maybe I’m not that great, or worse, even an imposter…

How do you respond when you get hit in the mouth unexpectedly? And I’m not talking about a mean right hook from Mike Tyson or “Paulie Walnuts” - at least I hope not, for your sake.

I’m talking about the sudden moments of adversity that hit you out of nowhere.

You get into an unforeseen argument with your significant other over a seemingly small exchange.

You receive harsh criticism from your boss regarding a project that you’ve put a lot of time and energy into.

You hear the devastating medical news from a close family member or friend.

Whether they are brief moments of hardship or longer seasons of difficulty, we all inevitably find our backs against the wall over and over again throughout life.

And we must respond.

The question is how do we respond to the angst that consistently rears its ugly head up in our lives, so that we can effectively move forward in life with purpose and meaning?

Here are 3 key responses for when you get punched in the mouth:

1. Know and Recall your Identity

In his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl exclaims that “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and writer - an accomplished man by anyone’s standards.

However, after Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, he was eventually sent away to several concentration camps. As a Holocaust survivor, Frankl shared his astounding perspective on purpose and meaning. Ultimately, he came to the realization that “those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

What is your why?

Many would say that is a loaded question, but here is something to consider: have you taken some intentional time to sit, reflect, and write-out what you are most committed to and value in your life? This exercise can be the beginning of bringing deeper clarity, focus, and vision to your personal identity.

By knowing and recalling our identity, we are more equipped to respond to adversity with a clearer understanding of who we are and which attitude and behavior aligns with our overall sense of self.

It is imperative that we take the necessary time to become more self-aware in our values and commitments, so that when our backs are against the wall, our identity is not only sustaining but also gives us the direction needed to move forward. To learn more about where to begin in developing a personal direction plan, check out another Intentional Leader article here.

In his new book Be Your Future Self Now, Benjamin Hardy discusses the idea of prospection, or the anticipation of your own future. Hardy lays out the importance of visualizing and defining your future self so that you can act in congruence with who you see yourself becoming.

In doing so, “the quality of connection you have with your own future self determines the quality of your life and behaviors now.” Ultimately, he argues that this future self exercise can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy that is much more likely to become reality through intentional focus and mindfulness.

Since we know that hardships will continue to arise in life, let’s proactively and consistently reflect on who we are becoming and how we are known by our attitudes and behaviors.

Picture your closest relationships - the ones in your life that will most often watch and experience how you respond to adverse situations.

What would you want to hear them say about your ability to bounce back from difficult moments?

What would you like them to learn as they view your response to hardship?

As Hardy mentions in his book, “the more connected we are to our longer-term future self, the better and wiser our decisions are today.”

Action Steps:

Know that you always have the freedom to control your attitude and response.
Write out and consistently review your core values and what’s most important to you.
Visualize and define your future self.
Respond to adversity in accordance with your identity in mind.

2. Call upon your People

We all need people in our corner when we get hit in the mouth, like a trainer or coach outside of the boxing ring. Over time, we absorb blow after blow, and if we are not able to communicate our hardships truthfully, then we are more susceptible to a sudden crash (especially when we are left alone). Ultimately, I believe we are designed by God for community and helping one another. There is a fundamental desire for all of us to be known, loved, and accepted.

With that inherent truth found deep within us, who would you say are your people? (aka your “peeps, day 1’s, go-to’s,” etc.)

These are the individuals that you can trust enough to be fully vulnerable with because you know that they genuinely care about you and your overall well-being. They speak life and truth over you through encouragement and consistently bring you energy.

In today’s age, we live in a very private society that typically showcases the “best” parts of our lives through social media. If we’re honest with ourselves though, deep down we all want to be known on a more authentic level.

With a little hope and vulnerability, this can be accomplished. It is simply a matter of taking the first step to reach out to someone that you trust and work towards truly being heard or hearing them. It may take time, but if it is authentic, I promise that you will not regret your decision to go deeper with someone you care about. In doing so, you will most likely be doing them a service as well.

As a personal example, within the Intentional Leader team, I am extremely grateful to communicate with Cal and Wes on a weekly, if not daily, basis through an audio messaging app. At first, we used this platform to discuss thoughts and ideas for future content. However, as life changes and challenges presented themselves, it became an incredible forum for us to reflect, ask one another hard questions, pray and encourage each other in the midst of all the obstacles that life inevitably throws at us. What a blessing!

Whether it is your spouse, family members, close friends, or even new acquaintances, be on the lookout for “your people” so that you can call upon them in moments of adversity. Be willing to put yourself out there in the midst of trials and tribulations so that you are fully known and can gain further perspective from the outside looking in. This practice cultivates further self-awareness, connection, and empathy for you and “your people” that you do life with.

Action Steps:

Know “your people” who you can call upon at any given moment for emotional support.
Be intentional in engaging “your people” more frequently (i.e. coffee, lunch, phone calls, voice messages, etc.).
Practice vulnerability & authenticity when you know that you are in need of support.
Make others feel safe around you - ensure “your people” & others know they can come to you in times of need.

3. Embrace the Journey and Keep Moving

When I was in the Army, there was a saying that I heard and used often - “Embrace the suck.” Everyone gets a kick out of that phrase because it speaks to the angst that we all battle with - the overriding truth that we can’t stop “the suck,” so we might as well embrace it - whatever it is.

But does it always have to suck?

We are all living out unique individual stories, and each time we get hit in the mouth, our perspective leads to our responding behavior. As Carol Dweck mentions in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, a fixed mindset believes that our qualities and circumstances are simply unchangeable.

However, a growth mindset cultivates the belief that our skills and characteristics can be developed, leading to further progress in our lives. One mindset is deterministic (fixed mindset), while the other provides a greater sense of hope and freedom to advance past setbacks and move forward in life (growth mindset).

The ideas of growth and progression are found all around us. The more practice we put in, the more proficient we become. The more weight we use when working out, the larger our muscles grow. The more action we take, the greater opportunities come our way.

In the process, however, it is the failures and setbacks that allow us to learn the most about ourselves, others, and the environments we find ourselves in so that we can continue to evolve in the midst of adversity. We cannot let fear, disappointment, or apathy paralyze us from becoming all that we were created to be.

Resistance builds resilience.

As Helen Keller said, “The struggle of life makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women. It lets us into the soul of things and teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it!”

In other words, the journey is the reward, because it is making us more human, so we can serve our fellow man and community in the process.

With the acknowledgement of continual struggle in this life, it is important to be prepared to keep moving when we are hit in the mouth. As Victor Frankl stated, we always have the freedom to choose our attitude, so why not choose an attitude of action?

After taking the necessary time to process a moment of adversity and call upon our support system, as needed, we need to keep moving forward in other areas that we control which give us energy, confidence, and momentum. Here are some practical examples of things we can control:

Physical exercise or movement (even a simple walk outside)
Eating healthy and nourishing food
Getting enough sleep that restores our minds and bodies
Enjoying hobbies that develop passion, reflection, and creativity
Serving others through words and deeds
Plugging into community (e.g. church, hobby groups, family/friend activities, etc.)

It is shocking and disruptive when we get hit in the mouth, but it can also be the jolt we need to advance to the next stage of growth in our lives. With the help and support of our “people,” if we are able to maintain perspective and respond through life-giving thoughts and actions, we will be able to embrace the beautiful (and often messy) journey of life as we take one small, progressive step at a time.

Tony Sirico aka “Paulie Walnuts” helped me grow through a few invaluable lessons that evening when he punched me in the mouth:

Speak with purpose, but be short and succinct when talking about yourself.
If you talk a big game, you better be able to back it up - "be humble or be humbled," as they say.
Never mess around with the mafia (even if they are actors).

My friends, go embrace the journey today and make it count!

One last thing… If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

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Do You Know How to Engage Your People? 3 Tips and Why They'll Work

June 29, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

The views expressed in this article and page are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or endorsement of the US Army JAG Corps, US Army, DoD, or the US Government.

By: Patrick Sandys

When you hear the word “engagement.” What comes to mind?

For most, a ring and a proposal. However, for those of us interested in leadership, engagement is a unique aspiration. Engagement is the measure of employees’ mental and emotional connection to their place of work. In other words, engagement is “the level of an employee’s psychological investment in their organization.”

If that definition is a bit academic, think about the best job you have ever had. What made the job so great? You’ll probably say that it was some combination of the people, work, and leadership. When I had great jobs, I was excited to go to work, be a part of the team, regardless of the workload and time commitment; I was engaged.

Intuitively, leaders understand that an organization cannot succeed and meet its full potential without maximizing “buy-in” from their employees. But it’s not enough to simply increase engagement if you don’t understand why your team is responding to it. By only focusing on how to increase engagement, the benefits of engagement on employees—the “so what”—becomes overlooked.

I offer three ways to increase employee engagement and explain why it will matter to the employees.

Is the Boss Hearing Me?

People want to be heard. Whether it is the political issue de jour or an opinion on weather, look no further than the proliferation of social media and the myriad of statements posted every day about any particular topic. It is human nature to have something to say and to exercise the means to say it. Your employees are no different.

To receive employees’ feedback and opinions, you first need to create a “psychologically safe” environment where employees feel they have a meaningful and “safe” way to voice their opinions (without fear of reprisal). In this environment, leaders are receptive, non-confrontational, and responsive.

Once leaders set the “psychologically safe” environment, the next step is to ensure that employees feel heard, accepted, and valued. This means a leader must always follow up on the feedback they received. When leaders follow up and acknowledge employees’ feedback and opinions, employees feel empowered, it affirms the workplace’s “psychological safety,” and a higher sense of “procedural justice ” will infuse within the organization.

Leaders don’t have to implement every “good idea,” but they must respond. In fact, studies have repeatedly shown that soliciting feedback, meaningfully acknowledging the information received, and then providing an explanation for why the ultimate decision was made increases engagement among employees regardless of whether the final decision implemented the suggestion.

Though, like most leadership skills, leaders must learn to provide the environment for their employees to meaningfully voice their opinions, without getting inundated or overwhelmed, and be thoughtful in knowing how and when to respond.

And the Credit Goes To…

As a leader, how do you give credit where it’s due?

Admittedly, it is not easy. On one hand, if you set the bar too low, you risk inflating the number of awards or praise you provide, and over time, those recognitions become meaningless. Alternatively, withholding praise could lead to disgruntled employees, who feel underappreciated. There is the additional concern of ensuring you are recognizing the right people, which can be difficult if your employees work in teams.

To find the best balance, I recommend taking a page from the military. The Army has a tiered approach to awards and recognition. By creating these differing strata of awards and recognition, the Army has a meaningful way of ensuring individuals are properly recognized for services rendered or achievements accomplished. To reinforce the meaning and prestige of each award, the Army has developed standards by which each award is to be given, creating a relative value for each award and limiting the authority of who can authorize the giving of the award. Although the Army is not perfect in its practice and implementation of giving awards and recognition, the concept is one to be emulated.

A similarly important consideration is finding a method of identifying who should be recognized. There are times when wrong people are recognized for someone else’s hard work. Sometimes it is a “middle manager,” whose team did the lion share of the work and the manager swooped in and took the credit or possibly some level of nepotism is at play. I also know that the perception that gender and racial differences are often identified (rightly or wrongly) as being a determining factor. If any of these concerns arise within a leader’s team, the results can be catastrophic to motivation and engagement.

To defeat these perceptions before they can germinate, leaders must engage with employees to learn who is really putting in the work. Leaders must create an environment of trust and honesty within the organization, such that they are able to keep the pulse of the organization and understand each team member’s contribution to the organization and its mission.

Lastly, do not make recognition about metrics alone. The people who enable the team to thrive are just as important as the individuals who become the face of the final product. The importance of recognizing the right people and sharing their successes with the greater organization illustrates your commitment to them as their leader. It shows that you care and it shows that you are paying attention. Giving awards or simply recognizing the achievements of those whom you lead is the easiest and least utilized means of building engagement. Leaders must be creative in how they recognize their teammates and utilize the tools available to them. Failing to do so will inevitably lead to disengagement, a drop in morale, and a general frustration that can have significant detrimental effects on the organization.

Would you want to work for you?

How do your employees see you? Try closing your eyes and imagine you’re having an out of body experience. Observe your body language and interactions with people, starting the moment you walk into the office. Now ask, would you want to work for you?

Though hackneyed, the idea of “leading by example” is one that should be internalized, analyzed, and adjusted in real time by every leader. For many, leading by example means that you are putting in the extra time and energy every day, staying late, arriving early, and sacrificing your time for others. Without a doubt, there is a time and a place for this type of example setting, but such an approach is a recipe for burnout, and very often detrimental to the organization. Instead, I would argue that a leader’s focus needs to be on setting an example that emphasizes what is most important for the organization and motivates employees to accomplish those goals. Often, one's body language and interactions with employees must be geared towards employee engagement, rather than simply focusing on the bottom line. Ultimately, the work will get done, and it will get done faster and with higher quality, if employees are motivated and engaged.

So how does one become an example that motivates people to work harder, smarter, and with a positive attitude?

You must model the engagement you wish to see and it starts with how you are seen by those around you. Sixty percent of effective communication is one’s body language and appearance. How you present yourself and the way your team sees you approach the work, goes a long way to engage or disengage your people.

If you are a person whose hair is constantly on fire, or has a short temper, you need to recognize that and take measures to control it (one method is to seek feedback, as advocated in the first section above). Alternatively, if you are aloof, or generally disengaged with both your work and your people, that is equally troublesome. Leaders must constantly assess the effect and perceptions of their presence in the office, especially if they want to keep their people engaged.

The goal is always to be, or at a minimum, appear to be, the leader for whom you want to work for. If you can’t embody that, then how can you expect your people to want to work for you, and thus, be engaged in your organization? Aristotle may have put it best, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Employee engagement is a priority in leadership practice. To ensure success, leaders need to build feedback loops that allow them to assess and understand what drives their employees and what steps are needed to remedy shortfalls. Have a solid understanding of what is important to your people (and why), and all metrics from happiness to productivity will follow.

If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

Patrick Sandys is a compassionate leader, educator, attorney, and mentor. Pat’s primary legal focus has been military justice, having spent years as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and special victim’s counsel. He is now the Command Judge Advocate for the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hick, Hawaii. Before moving to Hawaii, Pat spent a year developing and teaching leadership as the Deputy Director of the Leadership Center at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, VA.

Pat is a graduate of Brown University and the University of San Francisco School of Law. A student of American History, when Pat is not reading the memoirs of President Ulysses S. Grant or the fight for Women’s Suffrage, he is finding his way to the ocean with his two beautiful children and his wife, Pearl.

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Does your Team Suck at Workplace Conflict?

June 15, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership

By: Wes Cochrane

Back in late 2012, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, in the shadows of the Pakistan border, at a remote U.S. combat outpost, a simmering workplace conflict was about to reach a boil – and I was the culprit.

I’ve only written about this story one other time. I penned a 2016 article, anonymously, for Rob Shaul’s website – Mountain Tactical Institute.

I was a handful of months into a new job as the Executive Officer for an Infantry Company. Not unlike a mini Chief Operating Officer, my role was to oversee company operations like: logistical support, vehicle maintenance, and stockpiling of critical supplies. Also, I stood ready to command the company in the absence of the Company Commander (an officer that outranked me).

The problem was that in those first four to five months on the job, I didn’t have a grasp on any of this. I had no idea what I was doing. Four years at West Point, sixteen weeks at the Infantry Officer Basic Course, two months at Ranger School, and a year of leading a rifle platoon had all made me fairly competent at being a Platoon Leader. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to add value as a Company Executive Officer when I stepped into that new role.

None of this would have been problematic if I’d just asked some pretty experienced people around me for help. But, I didn’t.

To my colleagues – especially our company First Sergeant, who was the senior Non-Commissioned Officer in the rifle company and principal advisor to my Company Commander – the cracks showed. Early on, my First Sergeant (a decorated and experienced soldier and keen leader) realized I was struggling.

He started by asking questions of me. Many questions.

Regrettably, I chafed at his questions and interpreted them as “sharpshooting me” or harshly nitpicking. I was a fool, who thought himself the victim of an overbearing colleague. I lacked the humility to see that he was trying to help me. All the while, I grew increasingly stressed and concerned that I was failing my company.

It didn’t take long for this to drive a wedge between us. I’ll never know how much consternation I caused my First Sergeant or how much of a distraction I was to my commander in those early months.

That said, things came to a head in late 2012 inside our company's tactical operations center (TOC; think command and control room). I can’t even tell you what provoked the explosion, but I had pressed one too many buttons, and my First Sergeant finally couldn’t contain his anger.

He took me to task publicly.

I didn’t relent. Instead, I doubled down and responded dismissively or arrogantly, prompting him to storm out of the TOC and leave me to face the embarrassment of a public scuffle.

My commander, to his credit, never [visibly] took sides. He immediately called us into his office and urged us to resolve our conflict. You didn’t need a Ph.D. in psychology to conclude that I was at fault.

Finally humbled, I apologized profusely. It was exactly what the situation needed. We needed a relief valve to open and unleash months of pent-up pressure. This come-to-Jesus meeting with my First Sergeant was the turnaround point in what proved to be a strong personal and professional relationship. Again, you can read more about it here.

It’s easy to forget that military units, despite their unique missions, share many common denominators with civilian organizations. Workplace conflict takes its toll in both worlds.

Workplace conflict is sapping our organizational strength week after week

Workplace conflict is ubiquitous. A 2008 global study that researched data from nine separate countries, from Europe to the Americas, questioned 5,000 full-time employees and found that employees spend 2.1 hours per week, on average, dealing with workplace conflict. For the United States, that number was even higher at 2.8 hours per week.

That’s more than an entire work-day per month…spent managing conflict.

I’d venture that most readers’ anecdotal experiences back these statistics up. If anything, for some, 2.8 hours per week navigating workplace conflict may strike them as an underestimate.

The negative impacts of this reality are self-evident. Players have to take their eyes off the ball as they deal with office tension, drama, and politics. Teams suffer the double whammy of delays in reaching their goals or benchmarks and the drain on their energy and resources as they battle what author Liz Wiseman refers to as the “phantom workload” or “ambient problems.”

In her book, Impact Players, Wiseman describes ambient problems as “the non-glaring, low-grade issues where the status quo is suboptimal but tolerable.” She points out that “[m]ost people learn to live with these problems, but ambient problems erode performance over time. They are particularly damaging because they are easy to ignore.” Wiseman characterizes them as “white noise” in the organization that persists until someone decides to take notice and do something about them.

Lest I contribute to the false notion that conflict, in and of itself, is a bad thing, let’s get something straight – conflict is a necessity; how leaders and organizations handle it makes all the difference.

We need to embrace conflict and leverage the conflict continuum

A leading voice in the organizational health movement, author and leadership consultant Pat Lencioni, writes and teaches on the concept of the conflict continuum.

Lencioni describes two ends of a spectrum. On the one hand is what he refers to as “artificial harmony.” Artificial harmony is a state of no conflict. People seem to be getting along, but they’re not truly being honest with each other. On the other end of the spectrum is negative, mean spirited, harsh conflict – really, a living hell. Lencioni describes this as “destructive conflict.”

According to Lencioni, most teams and organizations dwell on the artificial harmony side of the spectrum, afraid that any step toward the destructive end would be hell.

The result is that the vast majority of organizations have too little conflict.

Predictably, Lencioni teaches teams to search for a sweet spot – move further away from artificial harmony, closer to the other side, right up to the point where another step in that direction would be to tread into destructive conflict.

Great teams, he says, move toward constructive conflict. Inevitably they sometimes stray into destructive conflict, but they courageously recover and return to the sweet spot.

The leaders and players on those teams know how to own their mistakes. They know how to apologize sincerely and quickly. They know how to swallow their pride and ask for help.

This is actually a hallmark of what Lencioni and his team teach – cultivate conflict around ideas, not people, and do so quickly! Better to get to the heart of an issue or disagreement so you can adjust and move in a more efficient or productive direction. When done well, conflict can be a bridge to success. When done poorly, conflict drains your organization and contributes to the depressing stats about the phantom workload and the ambient problems that Liz Wiseman warns of.

We don’t need to be stuck with the status quo

Whether we’re in a formal leadership position or not, all of us can benefit from understanding how to navigate conflict in a productive way. There is no reason that we need to trudge through an average of 2.8 hours of exhausting workplace conflict per week.

My experience contributing to that sort of workplace conflict back in 2012 was a painful one. While it was nearly a decade ago, I’m still embarrassed by that professional failure. However, constructive conflict saved the day and turned things around. My commander had the presence of mind to handle the distracting workplace drama with maturity. My First Sergeant had enough patience to speak truth to me and give me a chance to respond, even though I hadn’t given him much reason to believe I’d handle his feedback like an adult. Those first five months in a challenging new job still remain a powerful cautionary tale to me as I not only lead myself but continue to lead teams.

Questions for You

What conflict is simmering in your organization or team right now? As a leader or player on that team, what will you do about resolving it this week?
What side of the conflict continuum would you locate your team on? What dynamic, if any, needs to change to get to the sweet spot?

Leave a comment below and let us know what has worked for you and your team in cultivating a healthy approach to workplace conflict.

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Let your Home be a Laboratory for Self-Leadership

June 03, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

There is an ancient arena of organizational leadership that predates the modern office environment. It predates the industrial revolution. It predates the printing press. It even predates the agricultural revolution and the beginning of recorded history.

That arena is the family.

While books and articles about parenting proliferate, the center of gravity in the broader conversation about leadership is oriented to the world beyond the home.

I think this misses a key reality about home life — it is a crucible for leadership development for moms and dads (i.e., for anyone who leads outside the home).

Since reading the book, Lead Yourself First by Mike Erwin (founder of Team RWB) and Raymond Kethledge (U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge), I’ve been pondering the role that parenting can play in my own development as a leader and self-leader. One guest that the authors interviewed for the book mentioned, in passing, that “parenting is the oldest form of leadership.”

That simple assertion had a sobering effect on me. Like a cold shower, it woke me up to a reality that I’ve often missed since becoming a parent over eleven years ago: (1) leadership doesn’t stop when you get home from work, and (2) there is a real opportunity to grow as a leader by practicing at home.

We all know how vital leadership in the home is. Much of our current news headlines are filled with the “fruit” of poor leadership at home. Whether it’s another depraved shooting spree by a young man who has nurtured a twisted, warped worldview in his heart, or something as messy and bizarre as the allegations in the Heard/Depp defamation trial, our world doesn’t want for the harvest that comes from poor or nonexistent leadership in the home. In short, we know that leadership can’t stop when we cross the thresholds of our front doors.

What we may not consider as often, however, is the fact that how we lead at home echoes in the workplace. If we aren’t alert to this, we miss a growth opportunity that is staring us in the face. I’m talking about the fact that, on a daily basis, we either embrace or miss the chance to practice–at home–those positive attributes that make us more effective leaders in the workplace.

Quick disclaimer before we jump in: anyone that writes an article like this runs the risk of creating a false impression of achievement in this area. As I revealed in a recent interview on the Intentional Leader podcast, I fail more as a leader at home than at work.

What is going on at home?

At home, we’re just “mom” or “dad.” Our fancy titles or accolades from work mean little — functionally — to our children. And, while our spouse likely recognizes and appreciates our accomplishments, at the end of the day, they mean little in the face of dirty diapers, dirty dishes, or dirty toilets and sinks.

There is no annual performance review for our parenting. There’s no one grading us. Likewise, there’s often no one patting us on the back for our efforts at home—certainly not our children, who are often in the throes of battling self-absorption and youthful entitlement. In short, there is no one to impress.

There is always more work to be done at home, and the “work” — whether physical or emotional — never really ends.

The dishwasher and the washer/dryer are insatiable. Amazingly, everyone needs to be fed every day, multiple times a day. Trash and recycling accumulate. Carpets beg to be vacuumed. Bathrooms cry out for cleaning. This is to say nothing of the emotional toil of parenting.

Sibling conflict is like an active volcano. Several times a week my wife and I just want to escape from Pompeii and flee the tumult. Of course, we can’t. Duty and love call us to hold the line. Teaching kids to recognize, understand, and properly channel their emotions can be exhausting. And, like the management of the physical home, this work never ends.

Sometimes we fail. We lose our tempers. We lose self-control and yell. I don’t have enough fingers to count how many times I’ve attempted to urge my children to have self-control while displaying zero self-control. Often, we find that our shining moments as parents can be swallowed by those bad moments. And, unfortunately, our children don’t assign equal weight to our actions.

Raising children is an endurance sport. They don’t grow up overnight. The fruit of our labor doesn’t appear overnight either. Character development and maturation take years, not days.

This means we have to bear with our children as they continually learn and fail. Undoubtedly, we repeat ourselves, teach the same lessons again, and referee the same conflicts over and over.

How we can leverage the demands of the home to grow as leaders

We can either be frustrated by all of this and resist it, or we can accept this and embrace it. Practicing intentional leadership at home offers the promise to teach us things like humility, patience, and endurance.

Like the running water of a river smooths the rough edges of rocks and stones, the work of parenting and managing our homes can smooth out our rough edges.

I like one of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of “smooth” — “to free from what is harsh or disagreeable.”

The tough reality is that merely going through the challenges of home life does not, by itself, produce fruit. One has to actively cultivate and invite it.

Like anything in life, we improve the more we practice. I always return to a favorite Denzel Washington quote: “Between goals and achievement are discipline and consistency.” Formulaically, Achievement = Discipline + Consistency.

A few things I’ve been practicing this year in my home that I’ve found to be impactful are: (1) apologizing to my children when I am wrong or overly harsh; (2) building in a deliberate break for my spouse, mid-week, regardless of what my day has looked like; and (3) intentionally setting aside time to “hang” with my kids, playing board games, card games, and lingering at the meal table, or playing outside.

How do these activities and decisions relate to my leadership development?

Authentically apologizing to my children when I wrong them or am unkind humbles me and sets an example for them. It helps me practice tightening the gap between offense and apology, something that is highly relevant to workplace friction
Seeking opportunities to give my spouse time to herself is not only beneficial for her and our family, but it reinforces in me the need to elevate the needs of my teammates and practice servant leadership.
Intentionally investing time into my children, doing things they want to do, reminds me to create space to build genuine relationships with those around me. Because, relationships foster trust; and trust is a prelude to influence.

My aim in this article has not been to give you more methods or share parenting tips. That’s not my lane. My aim, however, is to shine light on the principle that the home can be an incubator for our practice of self-leadership. The home offers numerous reps to practice what Christians call the “fruit of the spirit” – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

If we look at the work of the home as an opportunity to grow as a leader, we kill two birds with one stone–we intentionally raise and shape the next generation of leaders, and we further hone the necessary attributes we need to lead ourselves and others at work and in our communities.

Two questions for you:

If someone you deeply admire were to shadow you at home for a week, what would you be proud for them to witness?
Likewise, what might you be embarrassed for this person, whom you respect, to see?

Next Steps: Share with a close friend (or even your spouse or partner) one specific way you hope to improve your leadership at home this week. Make it small and achievable. Perhaps it is being more present by not touching your phone during your first hour home from work. Or, maybe it’s just scheduling one date night with your spouse or partner for the coming week. Regardless, just make it small, specific, and achievable within the next week. Share it with someone you trust for accountability.

One last thing… If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

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The Power of Questions - Cultivate Curiosity to Live an Authentic Life

May 22, 2022 by Cal Walters

By: Ryan Brence

"What are ya thinkin’?"

Ever since I can remember, my dad has asked people this question to initiate conversation.

How do you even respond to that??

It makes you think about what you're actually thinking, so I'd often hear a wide variety of responses to that question - ranging from quick, confused answers ("Uhhh nothin") to long-winded stories that took on lives of their own.

I always thought it was a strange question for my dad to ask, but the more I reflected on it, I realized that it is truly a simple but powerful question.

Instead of "how are you?" or "what's going on?" this question opens up a whole new realm of possibility to discuss anything and everything that may be on one's mind. It requires a certain level of personal reflection and vulnerability to respond.

This got me thinkin' about the power of questions and how to apply them intentionally towards ourselves and others in pursuit of more reflection, growth, and opportunity for impact.

Questions for Ourselves

It's estimated that the average adult makes more than 35,000 decisions per day - that's astounding! With so many daily decisions, my immediate thought is how many of those choices are really questioned? Not to say that every decision needs deep reflection or thought, but what powerful questions could we be more intentional about asking ourselves that could lead to a greater sense of self-awareness, discovery, and potentially even change?

In his book The Personal MBA, Josh Kaufman discusses the "Five-Fold Why" technique to help you understand what you actually want. This process is meant to help uncover the root cause of what is driving your decisions. It is a very straightforward exercise, but that doesn't make it easy.

The technique calls for you to keep asking "why?" until you reach the foundation of simply just wanting "it" - whatever "it" is. The answers should reveal our actual intent and what really means the most to us (i.e. what we value) in a particular circumstance or decision. Let me share a personal example:

Why do I want a new car? Because I've had my car for a long time.
Why have I kept my car for a long time? Because it's done its job but now it's outdated.
Why am I tired of driving an outdated car? Because it doesn't have some of the newer features.
Why do I want newer features? Because I want my car to look cool and have a sweet sound system.
Why do I want my car to look cool and have a sweet sound system? I don't know…I just want it - or do I???

This is a real example that requires me to answer questions that would otherwise go unasked. However, after going through the exercise, it makes me rethink my own reasoning for wanting a new car. Of course it would be nice to have a new ride, but do I really need it…?? I came to the realization from this technique that the reason for wanting a new car requires a more immediate or pressing need for me to make that move. And that time is not now.

What are some of the bigger decisions or stances in your life that may need some reflective unpacking? Other examples may include your relationship status, career trajectory, goals, or even your position in religion, politics, or community service.

Ultimately, our decisions are often rooted in what we value. Inherently, we feel the tug on our hearts to believe or act one way or the other, but with so many factors competing for our focus and attention, it is easy to concede to the path of least resistance.

Let's be honest. The hardest person we will ever have to lead is ourselves. Self-leadership is the most important thing we do as leaders, but it's hard. There are ever-increasing obstacles:

Distraction. Comparison. Confusion. Insecurity. Paralysis - just to name a few.

No one is completely immune to these challenges. This is why it is so vital to ask ourselves what we stand for, or presented another way - what do we really value? Once our values are acknowledged and crystallized (ideally through the "Five-Fold Why" technique), we now have a guiding light by which to make decisions and commit to action.

In an extremely distracting world, living in alignment with values gives us the freedom to cut through the outside noise and be who we want to be. If you are interested in discovering your own core values to live by and developing a Personal Direction Plan, you can learn more here.

Questions for Others

People want to be heard. You want to be heard. Because of this natural tendency, we are all prone to think and talk more about our own situations and endeavors rather than listening to others.

Since most of us are inclined to focus on ourselves, there are many lost opportunities to open up dialogues and ask questions that lead to more growth and genuine connection with those around us.

Questions can be the keys to opening closed doors. And while the doors are not all locked, it can be daunting to take the first step by knocking on the door through questioning.

It often takes intentionality and boldness to initiate these interactions. But with a little more focus and interest in others through questions, we can take the next step forward to experience so much more that can be waiting on the other side.

So, how do we cultivate this skill of asking powerful questions to others?

First, we need to be curious.

With each passing week, I hear my three-year old ask me more and more questions. Instead of the "Five-Fold Why" technique, she gives me the "Hundred-Fold Why" treatment! She is soaking up new information like a sponge, and it's because she asks questions. Similar to our young ones, we must be intentional about approaching every situation with an intense sense of curiosity to learn and grow from others.

But unlike my precious daughter who is often overly eager to ask the next "Why, Daddy?" question, we must know when to stop and listen. It is easy to fool ourselves that we are intently listening when we already have our own response prepared, regardless of how the other person answers our question.

However, by practicing empathetic listening, we can provide the space and psychological safety that others so desperately want and need in order to be heard, understood, and appreciated.

One of the most powerful skills or nuances of listening comes in the form of follow-up questions. By actually hearing someone else's response, sitting on their thoughts, and then digging for more explanation, there is an increased level of depth and richness that is released in our interactions. Here is one of the most simple yet powerful open-ended questions that you can ask someone - can you please tell me more about that?

Along those same lines, we can encourage and empower others through our questions. Every single person on this planet has a unique story and can share information and stories that can teach and inspire us. As we learn from the responses to questions, we also have the opportunity to initiate the nudge needed to allow others to discover what's holding them back from accessing their biggest dreams and aspirations. Our questions can be the catalysts that ignite others to reflect and then subsequently step into what is next for them on their journeys.

Ultimately, questions have the most powerful and profound effect through relationships. We have to earn trust before exploring the inner thoughts of ourselves and others. However, once trust is earned, it is imperative that we ask meaningful questions to open up unlimited possibilities for action and impact. There are opportunities all around and within us to ask powerful questions.

So, my question to you is this - will you be willing to ask them?

Here are a few powerful questions for yourself and those around you:

What in your life has given you the greatest fulfillment?
What in your life brings you rest and restoration?
What would you say you value in your life?
How do you see yourself in 3 years? How about in 10 years?
Do your current habits, goals, and rhythms support that vision?

Let us know your favorite questions by responding in the comments below.

Life is too short not to ask powerful questions. Go make them count!

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Learning (and Re-Learning) a Hard Lesson: It’s Not About Me

May 05, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Cal Walters

I’m a sensitive guy.

As an Army dude that likes to pretend I’m tough, that’s slightly embarrassing to admit. But it’s true.

I feel deeply, and I’ve been known on occasion to tear up while giving a speech and even fight back emotions while giving a closing argument in a criminal trial (not something they teach in law school).

I’m also sensitive to words. When I receive praise, it really boosts my spirits, and when I receive critical feedback, it’s hard for me not to dwell on the negative comments for days.

Can anyone relate? (fist bump for my people out there)

Of course being sensitive can be a good thing, but I often wish critical feedback more easily rolled off my back. My wife is my opposite in this regard. She’s an 8 on the enneagram and feels very comfortable speaking her mind and receiving direct (even negative) feedback. It often blows my mind how even harsh comments don’t bother her.

Why do I bring this up?

Well, one of the biggest leadership lessons I continue to learn – and then relearn – over and over again is this simple truth: it’s not about me. This sounds so simple, and it is a simple concept, but for someone like me it takes constant reminding to keep this principle top of mind.

And here is what I’ve noticed: the more I make life about me the more likely I am to become overly sensitive and less effective as a leader. This is true as I try to lead myself, lead at home, and lead at work.

Here are 4 lessons I’ve learned as I’ve wrestled with this issue. I hope they help you in your own journey to be a leader that is not about you.

1. Build a Strong Leadership Foundation by Getting Your Motives Right

Our motives matter.

Well known author and management consultant Patrick Lencioni (from Episode 49 of the podcast) got the attention of the audience at the 2019 Global Leadership Summit (GLS) when he said, “Fewer people in the world should become leaders.” That was probably not a line people thought they would hear at an event dedicated to growing leaders. His point was this: don’t become a leader if you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.

In his book, The Motive, Lencioni sets out two primary motives for becoming a leader: (1) a reward-centered leader or (2) a responsibility-centered leader. Reward-centered leadership is “the belief that being a leader is the reward for hard work; therefore, the experience of being a leader should be pleasant and enjoyable, free to choose what they work on and avoid anything mundane, unpleasant, or uncomfortable.” On the flip side, responsibility-centered leadership is “the belief that being a leader is a responsibility; therefore, the experience of leading should be difficult and challenging (though certainly not without elements of personal gratification).”

The truth is we’ve probably all been enticed by some of the perks that come with being in a leadership position. Increased pay, a sense of power and authority, maybe a better parking spot. But it’s wise as a leader – or an aspiring leader – to step back and question your own motives. Am I doing this for the people I lead or for the rewards I receive? Is this about the title or the team?

This is especially important as the work and the sacrifices begin to pile up. If your motives are wrong and leadership gets hard – which it inevitably will – leaders with the wrong motives get upset because they feel entitled to the rewards. After all, that’s their motive and their expectations. Responsibility-centered leaders lean in during tough times because they know that’s what leadership is all about.

Question your motives – and re-center yourself – as often as you can to remain focused on the most important role of a leader: inspiring, serving, and equipping your team.

We’d like to think that our motives are hidden from the world, but the reality is that our motives come out in our actions. As humans, we have this ability to perceive whether someone is for us or for themselves. As the Harbinger Institute points out in its book Leadership and Self-Deception, how we receive feedback from a leader is often determined by the motives of the leader.

Is this leader truly for me, or is this ultimately all about them?

Their motive is often the difference between me feeling defensive or feeling inspired to change.

As a recent guest Tim Elmore recommended, leaders that give the best feedback communicate both high expectations and high belief in the team member.

So don’t fake it. Check your motives to ensure you’re leading for the right reasons.

And, as Patrick Lencioni says, if your motives more often than not are all about you and the perks of leadership. Maybe leadership isn’t for you. That may sound harsh, but the stakes are too high.

2. Get Good at Receiving Helpful Feedback Poorly Delivered

In their wonderful book, Thanks for the Feedback, Douglas Sone and Sheila Heen highlight the important relationship between getting and receiving feedback and growth. If we truly want to grow, we have to be open to feedback. The problem is, people are often bad at giving feedback. So what do we do? We have to get really good at receiving bad feedback.

I recently interviewed Gino Wickman on the Intentional Leader podcast about his new book, Entrepreneurial Leap. In the interview, Gino said, “If you went out and read the top 100 business books and applied all of that advice to your business, you’d be out of business in 90 days.” His point, after having served hundreds of thousands of business owners and creating EOS, was that feedback is great, but it must be filtered through your own lens or it will drive you crazy.

Synthesizing these two thoughts, we walk away with two important points: feedback is really important and we shouldn’t ignore it because of poor delivery, BUT after receiving the feedback we need to put it through our own filter to determine whether it works with our vision for the future

I view this as a two step process.

First, the feedback comes in. Maybe it’s your boss being upset about something not meeting expectations. Or perhaps it’s your spouse communicating frustration with something you did or didn’t do. This is a critical moment. Assuming the feedback was not delivered in the best way (maybe they didn’t have the full picture or even delivered it with too much emotion) we always have the choice in how we react. When we get upset or defensive at the way the feedback was delivered, we immediately close off to receiving it, so the key is to choose to receive the feedback. Remind yourself that ultimately this is good for you. Whether the feedback is 100% fair or not doesn’t really matter. If even 1% of it helps you grow, it’s worth receiving the feedback. I’m not saying we should wilt and not engage in a dialogue about the feedback, but the key is to focus less on their imperfect delivery and be willing to at least receive the content of their message.

Second, we filter. At this point, you’ve fought the temptation to get defensive. You’ve allowed yourself to receive the content of their message. Now it’s time to determine whether this feedback is something that you should put into action. Maybe this is feedback about your team’s performance, or maybe this is feedback about you and your personal direction. Although filtering is more art than science, I’m convinced there are two keys to effectively filtering: (1) having a clear vision, and (2) using the truth tellers in your life. If we lack a clear vision, it’s hard to filter advice. This is true for individuals or organizations. With a clear vision, feedback that doesn’t align with the vision can be easily discarded. Graham Cochrane recommended clear steps to creating a vision on this episode. Follow his guide if you don’t know where to start. If your vision alone doesn’t fully filter advice, that’s when we bring it to our truth tellers. These are wise people in our lives who know us, are for us, and understand our vision. They have to be for you and your vision to qualify as a truth teller.

Next, let’s talk about a way to avoid getting defensive.

3. Focus on the Nail and the Picture

I’m a big fan of Dr. Tim Keller. He is the former pastor of Redeemer Church in New York City. If you were to hang out with me in my truck on a typical 5am ride into work, nine times out of ten you’d find me listening to one of his sermons on the Gospel in Life podcast (I highly recommend). And of all the hundreds of sermons of his I’ve consumed over the past two years, there is one image I can’t get out of my head. I think it resonated so deeply because it was something I desperately needed to hear.

The sermon was about pride and selfishness, and he was talking about the person that is constantly aware of himself or herself. I’ll summarize the illustration.

Imagine two people are hanging pictures up in a house. One person has the hammer and the nail trying to make sure it gets put in the exact right spot. The other person is standing back and giving directions to the person with the hammer and nail. The person observing tells the one with the nail to move up or down, all with the goal to ensure the picture gets hung properly. But the person that is self-absorbed is totally focused on themselves. They take every little direction to move left or right as an attack on their nail-moving and picture hanging abilities. In reality, it’s not about them at all. It’s literally just an attempt to hang the picture in the right spot. The self-absorbed person is focused on themselves when it’s really about the nail and the picture.

As a sensitive guy, I needed to hear this analogy. I think about it now whenever someone is being critical of my team or talking about a way we could improve a system, increase communication, or improve something for next time. It’s not about me, I tell myself. They are just talking about the nail and the picture and trying to make it better. That’s the healthy perspective.

4. Self-Leadership is not Self-Help

At Intentional Leader, we are passionate about helping leaders lead themselves. We know that leading the person in the mirror is the hardest leadership assignment you and I will ever receive.

There is an entire industry out there referred to as “self-help.” I’m not against self-help, but books focused in this area often focus on helping people improve some aspect of their life so that they can enjoy life more. Of course I want people to be happy, but I do think it’s important to distinguish self-help from self-leadership. Self-help is an aspect of self-leadership, but self-leadership is so much more. Self-leadership is not ultimately about you at all. It’s about the people that are positively impacted by you when you lead yourself well. That’s what gets us fired up about self-leadership. The more you lead yourself the more your cup runs over into the lives of others. When you get better as a leader, everyone else in your orbit improves. Your family, your community, and your work get the full benefits of you at your best. That’s what self-leadership is all about. It’s about self-regulating for the specific purpose of maximizing your impact. You are a means to an end.

And nothing helps us more than helping others. It’s a beautiful cycle. We lead ourselves well and that allows us to have a larger impact on others, which ultimately makes us happier.

As this beautiful Chinese proverb says, “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.”

As a recovering self-absorbed person, I know that being not about me is a daily struggle. As humans, we’re inherently selfish and self-focused. Some of us more than others. But, as leaders, we can take steps each day to check our motives, be receptive to feedback, and lead ourselves to increase our impact on others.

It’s counterintuitive, but I’m convinced the good life comes when we diminish and allow others to be our focus.

Thanks for reading and being on this journey with us.

Remember that life is short. Let’s go make it count!

Cal is the Founder of Intentional Leader and the Host of the Intentional Leader Podcast . He is also a major in the US Army and currently serves as the Chief of Criminal Law at the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC.

Cal is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Campbell Law School, US Army Ranger School, and the US Army Airborne School. Prior to attending law school, Cal served as an infantry officer in the US Army where he led a rifle platoon, served as the second in command of an infantry company, deployed to Iraq, and served as an aide-de-camp for an Army general.

He is passionate about helping leaders grow and hopes every interaction you have with Intentional Leader helps you grow in your life and leadership.

Cal and his wife, Natalie, have two children.

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The Far Reaching Rivers of Life and Leadership: Imagery for an Intentional Life

April 21, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

I used to read a daily Christian devotional in high school and college called My Utmost for His Highest. It was written by the widow of a Scottish evangelist and Bible teacher – Oswald Chambers – who compiled notes from her husband’s many sermons into a book of daily devotionals (i.e., religious readings for each day of the calendar year), which she published years after his death. My first copy of the book is heavily dogeared and underlined. Notes and impressions fill the margins of the pages in different colored ink, reflecting the years I spent reading and re-reading the daily sections.

One entry, in particular, has long remained with me – and for good reason: It underpins the vast impact that one human life can have on the lives of countless others. And, it fuels my motivation to live an intentional life.

Chambers begins his entry for September 6th with this line: “A river reaches places which its source never knows.” He goes on to teach on Jesus’ words in John 7:38 – “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Chambers writes of the “victoriously persistent” river “overcoming all barriers.” He concludes with this encouragement to his readers: “If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.”

The theme of nourishing water is not uncommon in the Bible.

For example, in the Old Testament, Isaiah 58:10-11 reads, “...[I]f you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”

Also in the Old Testament, Proverbs 11:25 reads, “[w]hoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.”

You certainly do not need to be a Christian to appreciate the imagery that Chambers is drawing on.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) defines the length of a river as “the distance from the mouth to the most distant headwater source.” The “mouth” is the end of the river and that part that runs into a different body of water (e.g., the ocean, a bay, a gulf, etc.). The “headwaters” are the farthest point from the mouth (think the distance between the start of the Nile in Uganda, to the Nile river delta in upper Egypt, pouring into the Mediterranean Sea).

Chambers’ simple opening line forms the heart of his powerful analogy to our lives – we are all river headwaters, and our lives are the rushing rivers that flow from them.

When I consider this idea, I’m filled with a sense of beauty, a sense of humility, and a sense of power.

This idea fills me with a sense of beauty because it gives tremendous meaning and purpose to our lives, especially as intentional leaders. As leaders at home, at work, and in our communities, we know there is no question that our lives impact others. The real issue is whether that impact is positive or negative – whether it is life-giving or life-sapping. As the USGS notes in some of its educational material for students:

“The phrase "river of life" is not just a random set of words. Rivers have been essential not only to humans, but to all life on earth, ever since life began. Plants and animals grow and congregate around rivers simply because water is so essential to all life. It might seem that rivers happen to run through many cities in the world, but it is not that the rivers go through the city, but rather that the city was built and grew up around the river.”

This idea fills me with a sense of humility because I realize that much of what I “achieve” may never be known to me. “A river reaches places which its source never knows.” How utterly humbling. I don’t know about you, but I’m so painfully conditioned to want positive feedback and affirmation that I’m succeeding and making a difference in the world. This is understandable, but it’s incredibly self-centered. The river’s headwaters have no idea how responsible they are for nourishing the millions of lives and communities that live along its banks down river. As the headwater in my own life, am I OK with that? Can I live at peace with that? Can you?

Oswald Chambers did not live a long life; rather, he died at age 43. While ministering to allied soldiers in World War I in Cairo, Egypt, he was stricken with appendicitis on 17 October 1917. When urged to go to the hospital, he initially resisted, citing the fact that the beds would need to be reserved for the coming wounded during the anticipated Third Battle of Gaza. On 29 October, a surgeon operated on him, performing an emergency appendectomy. However, by 15 November 1917, Chambers expired from a pulmonary hemorrhage (acute bleeding from the lungs).

Chambers never published a single book during his life. At his death, he had been working on a manuscript for his first book. However, his widow, Gertrude Hobbs Chambers, spent the rest of her life editing and compiling her late husband’s teaching and writing into dozens of books. Unquestionably, the most famous book she helped publish was My Utmost for His Highest – a humble devotional that has been in print since 1935, has been translated into 39 languages, has sold over 13 million copies worldwide, and is read and shared online everyday.

Oswald Chambers never saw any of this in his lifetime.

This idea fills me with a sense of power because I realize that virtually anything is possible and there is no ceiling on what my life can accomplish if I’m willing to ignore the credit or glory. Every conversation we have, every effort we put into an endeavor, everyday we show up and serve faithfully at work, every interaction with our children, our spouses, or our neighbors can be the start of a new tributary or branch of our river. It can be the chance to refresh and bless others. In short, the idea of the river rouses me. It stirs my heart. It injects meaning into virtually everything I do. It helps me conceptualize what it means to make an impact.

Imagine the far reaches of your life’s river. What far flung places are your efforts, your encouragement, your diligence reaching? Who is nourished by your life?

Likewise, knowing the value and impact of a single headwater, what will you do to guard yours? What will you do to maintain it and keep it from becoming polluted or being reduced to a trickle?

While we don’t have control, necessarily, on where our life’s rivers will flow, we can be the stewards of the headwaters.

May all our rivers nourish far and wide.

Wes is passionate about leadership development and is a gifted speaker, coach, and teacher. Wes recently spent the last two years as a military prosecutor at the 82nd Airborne Division, where he was consistently praised for his advocacy skills by seasoned trial practitioners.

Wes is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the University of Richmond School of Law, and the US Army’s Ranger, Airborne, and Air Assault schools. Prior to attending law school, Wes served as an infantry officer in the US Army where he led a rifle platoon, served as the second in command of an infantry company, and deployed to Afghanistan. He is now a major in the Army and is attending the Graduate Course at the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, VA.

Wes and his wife, Anne, have four children.

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13 Reasons You're Not Reaching Your Goals

April 04, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

One of the most frustrating sensations in life has got to be the disappointment you feel when you have admirable goals and just don’t achieve them. You want to start exercising again, or build the habit of reading, or kill your Pavlovian phone addiction, or play more games with your children, or set aside time to work on your side endeavors, or purposefully invest in your spouse and call that babysitter and book dinner reservations.

Then you don’t.

Or, you start, but the effort fizzles out. You might even realize some modest success in one area, but quickly find that something else suffers (e.g., “I started driving my kids to school, but now I’m not exercising. Great...”).

Then, it’s right back to the status quo ante; nothing’s changed.

If anything, you’re less confident in your ability to ever change your life, or attitude, or fill-in-the-blank. Your dreams of living intentionally and achieving your goal (or goals) go dormant until something or someone down the road inspires you to take action, only to re-experience the cycle above.

What is going on?

In short, you’re not living your life in a vacuum. There are forces, internally and externally, working against you and your goals. There are obstacles. Ditches. Landmines. Detours. If we’re not alert to this reality, then we will blindly suffer the consequences – a life where we never enjoy the harvest that comes from effectively laboring toward our goals.

Here’s the truth – some of the obstacles are indeed out of our control; but, the overwhelming majority are not.

That is what this post is about. If reading that rubs you the wrong way, or if you’re not interested in critically examining your life, your habits, and your thought patterns, then you may want to stop reading. My heart in this post was to confront, head on, the obstacles that keep me, and countless readers, from tasting success. I deliberately didn’t pull any punches.

For those of you willing to risk the growing pains, read on; and know that at Intentional Leader, we’re on this journey with you. No one is perfect.

1. You’re Afraid to Fail.

Our goals are either impossible or they have to be done perfectly. This, it turns out, is nonsense. Author Jon Acuff, in his book Start, notes that our inner fears are schizophrenic – they shout at us to NOT pursue our goal because it can’t be done. Then, in the next breath, our fears whisper that if we do pursue our dream, we need to do it perfectly from the outset. These two mutually exclusive extremes leave us paralyzed. The reality, according to Acuff, is that the only thing we can control is the starting line. We can take that first step toward our goals. We may not know how things will end up, but we control how and when we begin.

2. You’re focused only on the critics [or potential critics].

“What will people think?!” We give way too much power to other people – typically to people that don’t actually care about us. Man, I get it. We absolutely need to be coachable and receive feedback – it’s a huge part of being humble and actually embracing a growth mindset. We don’t want to move through life with sweeping blind spots. On the other hand, some people will just trash you or criticize you, and they simply don’t have your best interests at heart. We don’t go to the gym to exercise because strangers may ridicule us or look down on us for our pitiful effort. We don’t aim for the promotion or assignment at work because people may not think we’re qualified. We don’t start that business because people may think, “She’s no expert! Who is she to teach others?” We don’t pivot in our careers and pursue something exciting and different because, “what will people think?!” There is a 100% death rate on planet Earth, and life is too short to endlessly conform ourselves to the expectations of others (often to people whose opinions just do not carry much weight). Instead, cultivate a group of friends, family, colleagues, or mentors who know you well and are invested in your success, but who are also willing to provide you honest, perhaps difficult feedback. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, calls this a “personal board of directors.”

3. Sheer Overwhelm.

This is an external obstacle for a lot of people. I don’t need to list the amount of difficulties in life (even modern 21st century life). Life is difficult. It always will be. This is especially the case when we’re facing a steep learning curve in a new job, or we’re a new parent battling with sleep deprivation, or we’re recovering from a cross-country move, or we’re facing the challenges of an ailing parent, or we’ve just lost a job, or we’re navigating our children’s teenage years. Sometimes we’re just exhausted – too spent to even focus on our goals. Revisiting Acuff’s book, Start, I love his idea of having a “central park.” Central Park is a massive greenspace in the heart of New York City that is an absolute treasure to its residents. One would think that having an enormous greenspace in the heart of America’s financial capital and one of the most important cities on Earth is a waste of valuable real estate. But, it’s not. The citizens of NYC are healthier and happier (at least the theory goes) due to the benefits that come from enjoying this slice of nature in the heart of their bustling city. We all need our own central park. If life is so busy and your calendar is so packed that you don’t have your own proverbial central park, something has to give. You’re not a robot.

4. You just aren’t willing to put in the work.

That is polite for: “you’re acting lazy.” Look, maybe you don’t actually care about your health. Maybe you don’t want to be in shape. Maybe you don’t want to have a nest egg in retirement that can fund your later years. Maybe you’re content to not advance in your company or organization. Maybe cultivating the habit of reading isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Maybe deepening your friendship and intimacy with your spouse isn’t all that critical. On the other hand, if these things are, in fact, important, why aren’t you doing them? A guest on the Intentional Leader podcast, Brigadier General Pat Work, has a great mantra when people lament a lack of time. He says, “busy doin’ what?” I don’t have the time to work out, I’m too busy… “Busy doin’ what?” I know it’s important, but I’m too busy to read. “Busy doin’ what?” I’m not preaching #hustle… I’m challenging you to actually audit your time. If you are frittering away time doing something pointless, then you are choosing that over your goals. Or, as I read recently in Ryan Holiday’s book, Courage is Calling, “Whatever you aren’t changing, you’re choosing.” Identify what you care about, roll up your sleeves, and be willing to put in the work.

5. You didn’t do your homework.

Sometimes we don’t count the cost of our goals, and our failure to plan bites us in the butt. In describing what it took to be his disciple, Jesus is quoted in the gospel of Luke saying:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?

A lot of times our goals are really made up of subgoals. They have their own constituent parts – parts that we didn’t anticipate. When we realize that one goal is ten goals, that can push us right back to overwhelm and we throw in the towel. Don’t hurt success by not counting the cost and actually doing the homework up front.

6. You killed your motivation by sprinting right into the comparison trap.

Despite their legion of benefits, our smartphones are also poisonous. We walk around with poison in our back pockets and purses. If we’re honest with ourselves for three seconds, we will admit that no amount of time on social media ever really makes us feel better about ourselves. As we toss our finite amount of time in the trash by scrolling social media (including LinkedIn, which is like fancier, less guilt-inducing social media, but still unproductive) we inevitably start thinking how unqualified we are to do ______, or how much better he is than me at ________, or how we see that she accomplished ______ in half the time! The sad thing is that we can achieve some wonderful accomplishments in life, only to discount them in the blink of an eye when we compare them to someone else’s online. What prompted joy and gratitude a moment earlier is now a cause of embarrassment after comparing it to a friend or even a stranger.

7. You’re enslaved to your smartphone.

You’re trading your precious time for frivolity. You’re a dopamine addict, and your smartphone provides you with a steady buzz. Face it, that buzz is more enjoyable to you than accomplishing your goals. Recall the truism above, whatever you’re not changing, you’re choosing. If that’s the case, then a terrifying amount of us are choosing to – literally – play on our phones over putting in the time to realize our goals. I don’t know about you, but that pisses me off to think that I’m exchanging my limited time for some social media scrolling here, a youtube video there, a buzzfeed article there. That stuff adds up, and I’m not sure any of us want to look at the receipt.

8. You’re trying to run someone else’s race.

Ryan Holiday’s book, Ego is the Enemy, is one of my all-time favorites. He writes a sobering chapter called “What’s Important to You?”, in which he contrasts two of the Union Army’s celebrated Civil War heroes – Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman, Holiday writes, went on to retire in New York City after his military service, despite many entreaties for him to run for public office. By all accounts, Holiday remarks, Sherman lived a contented life. He knew what was important to him. General Grant, on the other hand, pursued politics, despite having never displayed an ounce of interest in it. Elected president, he presided over two exhausting terms that were marked by scandal and controversy. This hero of the Civil War later left office and pursued a fortune in an investment scheme with a shady broker named Ferdinand Ward, who mismanaged the money and publicly bankrupted Grant. In his waning years, battling throat cancer, Grant apparently rushed to publish his memoirs in order to leave his family some financial means to live on…

Writing of his friend Grant, Sherman said that he “aimed to rival the millionaires, who would have given their all to have won any of his battles.”

Holiday’s reflections hit hard. “Grant had accomplished so much, but to him, it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t decide what was important – what actually mattered – to him. That’s how it seems to go: we’re never happy with what we have, we want what others have too. We want to have more than everyone else. We start out knowing what is important to us, but once we’ve achieved it, we lose sight of our priorities. Ego sways us, and can ruin us.”

In other words, we stop running our race and focus on running someone else’s.

9. Your “goal” isn’t really your “goal.”

Is what you’re working for really what you seek? You’re chasing more money, when you really want the freedom it buys. Thus, your goal isn’t riches, it’s more time. You chase accolade after accolade, grinding your spirit to dust in pursuit of success. You crave affirmation. You don’t actually care about the “success” – it never satisfies you anyway. In reality, you want to know you’re loved and approved of. You seek to be content. This understandable aim, which is often achieved through introspection, reflection, community with loving friends and family, and a practice of gratitude, matastasizes into an insatiable search for recognition. Stop. You don’t need to take action right now. You need to ponder the motivations of your heart and reflect on what you actually seek. You may need to open up to a friend or counselor and be transparent about how you feel. There is often a goal underneath the goal.

**10. The status quo is comfortable.**

You don’t reach your goals because secretly you are afraid of the cost. So you sabotage yourself or tell yourself you’re a victim of your circumstances. It is just easier to stay where you are – at least you are familiar with that. There is nuance here. This spirit of the status quo is not admirable. It’s not really a spirit of contentment (which is admirable). Despite your yearning for more or different, you don’t even dare to attempt it because it’s safe here, where you are. You’re like a ship in the harbor that never sets sail because the open seas are scary.

11. You don’t have anyone cheering you on.

We all need cheerleaders. Introvert or extravert, we need friends on our journeys. We need community. Is there anyone in your life encouraging you onward? This is different from Peter Klaven in the 2009 movie, “I Love you Man,” who overhears his fiancée lament his lack of friends to her bridesmaids, prompting Peter to privately remark, “I need to get some f**king friends.” Like the wisdom of Proverbs 27:17 notes, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man [or woman] sharpens another.” Who is sharpening you? Who is encouraging you to not give up? Who is reminding you that the challenge or difficulty is worth it?

12. You’ve stopped growing.

You’re not investing in yourself anymore. You haven’t read a book since college or grad school. You aren’t having powerful conversations in your life anymore. You aren’t learning a new skill. You’re coasting, which is to say you’re slowly dying. There is no neutral in life – we either move toward our goals and toward growth and maturity, or we drift away. Unlike your car, you can’t put yourself in park. What we read, watch, and listen to; who we talk with and interact with – these all shape us. These can all be sparks for us that prompt new, useful connections. Books, friends, and mentors can motivate and encourage us. They can pull us along, especially through difficult seasons of life.

13. You elevated intensity over consistency.

Every investing book will highlight the magic of compound interest. Many of these books unpack the scenario where Jennifer starts investing $100 a month in her Roth IRA at age 18. She does this until age 67, unfailingly, without ever increasing her investment. With a 10% rate of return over those 49 years, she’ll have over $1.5 Million. Matt, on the other hand, who spent every dime he earned before waking up to reality at age 35, starts investing. Matt will need to invest roughly $550 per month for the next 32 years to match the value of Jennifer’s investment. The simple lesson is consistency trumps intensity. The same goes with exercising. A little bit – just something – each day goes a long way to building fitness and improving health. That’s way more effective than doing nothing for years and then trying to overhaul your lifestyle at age 40. Often, the sudden surge in activity (i.e., the intensity) only leads to injury or burnout, leaving you further behind than you would have been had you just started small and been faithful. I could go on and on with examples where showing up, day after day, and putting in some honest work, beats uneven and sporadic blitzkrieg for a short period.

What now?

The first step in turning things around is being honest with yourself. Identify the problem. Only then can you begin to fashion a solution. And that is the fun part. It all starts with an accurate, brutally-honest self-assessment. For you journalers out there, write about it. For the outward processors (like me) grab a friend and break it all down. Either way, reflecting on where you want to go and what obstacles obstruct that path is a good use of your time.

Are any of these 13 success-robbing, goal-killing reasons at play in your life? Are there any others that you would add to the list? Leave a comment and let us know. We’re on a mission to study self-leadership and the obstacles that stand in its way. Be part of that conversation with us!

If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

Wes and his wife, Anne, have three children.

Listen to some of our most popular podcast episodes here!

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3 Ways to Leverage The Rule of Three

March 24, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Ryan Brence

Growing up as a coach's kid, there were many sayings that I remember my dad rattling off to his players. As a ball boy always hanging around the fieldhouse, I inevitably heard these mantras over and over again in the background.

“Trust your instincts.”

“Just get started.”

“Deal in truth.”

Some stuck with me more than others, but as you can tell from the mottos shown above, one of his all-time favorites was the following:

“Do things in three’s.”

When it came down to it, the three things that stood out the most to me about my dad's coaching philosophy included having a plan, communicating it clearly, and keeping it simple.

The Rule of Three

The Rule of Three is a powerful technique or principle used for communicating or organizing one’s thoughts to promote clarity and brevity in expression.

This idea dates back to the ancient Romans who valued The Rule of Three. A Latin saying, “Omne trium perfectum,'' literally means “everything that comes in three’s is perfect.” Our American forefathers penned the Declaration of Independence using three specific unalienable rights - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Today, you can find this rule in almost any subject or setting. From children’s songs (ABC's) to real estate (location, location, location) to spirituality (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), we are wired to process things in three’s.

So, how does this concept relate to intentional living and leadership? Well, you guessed it - I got three take-aways for you…

1. Pick your top 3 priorities to complete each day.

We all know life is busy and consists of overflowing tasks and to-do's that continue to pile up with each passing day. Whether you have a spouse and kids, manage multiple clients, or enjoy numerous hobbies (probably all of the above), life can quickly become overwhelming and very difficult to decide what to do next.

A team activity that I’ve come to truly appreciate over the years is the daily stand-up call. Typically, in these settings, you go around the room and everyone gives their top three priorities for the day. I’ve discovered that this is a great forcing mechanism for me to prioritize and focus on what are the most important tasks for the day. In selecting my top three priorities, I have greater clarity on what I need to work towards in order to create momentum and move closer towards accomplishing my goals.

If you’re having trouble deciding on the top three priorities for the day, consider your company or personal goals to help guide your efforts. Generally, I do my best to nest my daily priorities with my goal milestones so that I’m actively, albeit slowly but surely, making progress towards what’s most important to me.

These three priorities could also be three keystone habits that propel us forward day in and day out. For me, those include quiet time with God, working out, and reviewing my Personal Direction Plan. Iterate, iterate, iterate until you find what works to help you intentionally take action on a daily basis.

2. Plan and communicate more clearly and effectively.

From a young age, we use patterns to process information. Whether it's the ABC’s, 1-2-3's, or Ready Set Go, three seems to be the smallest grouping needed to establish a pattern in our minds. It makes ideas stick by utilizing brevity to pack a powerful punch that becomes ingrained in our heads.

So, whenever I begin working on a new project, I apply the Rule of Three by coming up with three main points or ideas to communicate. This could be in the form of an outline, meeting agenda, or presentation, but I've found that having three key focus areas provides a sound and succinct outline (think beginning, middle, and end) to be memorable for myself and the audience.

Another thought to consider is repeating short phrases or sentences that convey the main thesis. While these reminders do not have to just be three words, concise and commanding statements are ones that we all end up paying attention to (thanks mom and dad for the discipline…).

3. Live in alignment with who you want to be - Think, Say, and Do

When I pray, I find myself consistently coming back to requesting God to help me honor Him in all that I think, say, and do. I want to live in alignment with who God has called me to be, and I want my values to show up in each of those three areas, regardless of who I am with or what is going on around me.

It all starts with the battle for our minds, so I do my best to saturate my thoughts with God’s Word and the many blessings I have in my life. From my thoughts, I want to speak life into every person that I encounter and seek opportunities to encourage others. Finally, I want my actions to align with my thoughts and words. This includes doing what I say I’m going to do and owning my faults and transgressions when I fail to act in accordance with who I want to be.

When it comes to identity, The Rule of Three provides a foundation for considering how to show up in all areas, whether it be our thought life, interactions, or actions. For more regarding identity and how to be your own Chief Reminder Officer, read another Intentional Leader blog post here.

While I used to get tired of hearing my dad sound like a broken record with all of his repetitive sayings, I now realize that he was leveraging the influential Rule of Three to get his primary points across. He knew he held an important platform to not only coach, but more importantly, impact generations of players for years to come.

By having a plan (top 3 daily priorities), communicating clearly and effectively, and always remembering our identity (think, say, and do), we can also leverage the powerful compounding effects of The Rule of Three to make an impact in our own unique spheres of influence.

But while The Rule of Three may seem simple, it doesn’t mean it’s always easy to implement or enact. So, as my dad would say…

“Just. Get. Started.”

If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

Ryan Brence is passionate about intentionally growing in his faith, relationships, and personal & professional knowledge. As a coach's son, Ryan grew up playing sports in Texas which eventually led him to play football at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

In the US Army, Ryan graduated from Airborne and Ranger School and served over eight years as an air defense artillery and civil affairs officer both at home and abroad.

After transitioning into the civilian sector, Ryan has worked in several roles spanning from sales and business development to operations and account management. He currently lives in Dallas, TX with his wife and two daughters and enjoys working out, reading, writing, and watching his favorite sports teams - Go Cowboys and Beat Navy!

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5 Keys to Self-Leadership and Why They Matter

March 11, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management, Organizational Leadership

By: Cal Walters

The hardest person you and I will ever lead is the person we see in the mirror each day.

It’s hard to lead yourself. I have a hard time leading myself.

At the same time, how well we lead ourselves determines our capacity to impact the world.

Think about it. Who do you respect the most? It’s the people in your life that lead themselves the best.

If you have a boss that doesn't lead himself or herself well, you likely won't respect them. You may still do what they ask you to do, you may want their title or their car, but you won't be inspired by them and you won’t aspire to be like them.

We often see this first with our parents. Whether you want to be like your mom or dad is ultimately a product of how well they lead themselves. Did they teach you a way of living that they don’t live out themselves? As one wise friend recently asked me, “Does their video match their audio?”

Helping leaders grow and lead themselves better is what gets me excited about the work we do at Intentional Leader. I get excited about the incredible impact you can have on those in your circle of influence when you are at your best.

I know that when you learn to lead yourself better, you become a better father, mother, friend, co-worker, organizational leader . . . the list goes on and on.

I also know that when you lead yourself well you will be able to sustain excellence over time. You are less likely to burn out, have a significant moral failure that implodes your career, or get to the end of your life filled with regrets.

On the Intentional Leader blog and podcast, our goal is to bring you inspirational and actionable material that helps you lead yourself. And we will continue to do that. Today, I just want to outline what I consider 5 foundational keys to leading yourself well. We will explore these in more depth with future content.

1. Commit to learning about yourself.

The best leaders I know create consistent moments in their lives to get quiet, journal, ask themselves questions, explore their values, reflect on experiences, and get to know who they are and who they want to become over a lifetime.

2. Don’t lie to yourself about yourself, even if it hurts.

It’s hard to lead yourself when you’re lying to yourself. As Andy Stanley points out on his leadership podcast, you have participated in every bad decision you’ve ever made. The same is true for him and for me. This means we have the capacity to convince ourselves to do things that are ultimately not good for us. A key to avoiding this is to commit to being honest with ourselves even when it hurts. Often this means taking ownership over those moments in life where we made poor decisions. It’s not someone else’s fault. I decided to do that. I decided to have a bad attitude. For more on this important topic, I encourage you to read the amazing book, Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute.

3. Be in community and under authority.

This may seem weird to say in an article about self-leadership, but we need community and accountability to thrive, learn, and grow. One way that we can lead ourselves is by intentionally allowing people we respect to speak into our lives and hold us accountable to our own highest values. This is where a lot of leaders get in trouble as they progress in their careers. They rise through the ranks and become increasingly isolated from people that will hold them accountable. The leaders that sustain excellence over time create their own “board of advisors” early in life and commit to being honest with them, even when it hurts. There is no shortage of cautionary tales about leaders who fail to submit to authority. One I recently examined was the story of Pastor Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Driscoll led Mars Hill Church through more than a decade of unprecedented growth in Seattle, but Mars Hill’s influence basically evaporated overnight largely due to a loss of trust in Driscoll’s leadership and due to his unwillingness to submit to authority.

4. Commit to being better on the inside than you are on the outside.

Self-leadership is all about being a person of integrity. It's about keeping your commitments to others, but more importantly, it's about keeping your commitments to yourself. Leaders get in trouble when they begin to value the way others perceive them over how well they are keeping their own commitments and living a life of internal alignment. This is a similar trap as #3 for leaders who rise in the ranks. As you become more senior, your rank or position gives you a presumption of competence and character. People are less likely to check your work because they assume you know what you’re doing. It becomes easier to cut corners, and if you’re not careful, you can begin to value your image over the reality of the situation. When this happens, leaders are less likely to admit mistakes and more likely to try to cover things up to keep their images intact. The best leaders–and the leaders that sustain excellence over long periods of time–know that integrity on the inside should always trump outward appearances. When you live this way, you can be at peace with yourself.

5. Choose your highest values over your immediate desires.

We all struggle with this, and we will never be perfect, but we can strive to become people who choose our deepest values in life over our immediate, short term desires that don’t support the person we hope to become. You say you value health and fitness because it makes you feel better about yourself, live longer, and have more energy, yet you keep choosing to cheat on your nutrition plan and you keep skipping your workouts. You’re choosing a short term desire over your highest values. Again, we all do this, but those that lead themselves well get better and better at choosing their deepest values over those short term desires. A key to success in doing this is doing the work to identify your values and your why behind each value. Then, share those values with your board of advisors and create consistent moments to be held accountable to those values. This is not easy and it takes a lifetime to get better at this, but it’s so, so important because it determines your potential impact on others and the world.

As you consider these 5 keys to leading yourself, think about the people you respect the most in life. The people you want to be like. Maybe there isn’t one person that you want to be completely like, but you probably know people that do lead themselves really well in a certain area. For example, is there someone that is fit and healthy that you want to be like? Is there someone in your life that exemplifies the type of parent you’d love to be? Maybe the type of organizational leader you want to be? I bet the reason you want to be like them in that area is because they lead themselves well in that area.

If self-leadership were easy, we wouldn’t need to talk about this. Yet, it’s incredibly important and we are honored to be on this journey with you. Please reach out to us at Intentional Leader if you want help in this journey of self-leadership. Let us know your pain points and areas you find it hard to lead yourself.

At the end of our lives, our impact on others will be proportional to how well we lead ourselves. Let’s go make it count today!

If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice and being inspired to think differently and unlock greater personal potential, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below and tell us where to send you 12 Ideas That Will Make You A Better Leader In 2022.

Listen to some of our most popular podcast episodes here!

Help us grow by leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts

Help us close the gap in leadership instruction by partnering with us financially at Patreon

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You Don’t Have To Wait For Adversity To Overcome It — 4 Ways to Live A More Resilient Life

February 24, 2022 by Cal Walters

By: Wes Cochrane

“If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. ”

— Proverbs 24:10 (King James Version)

Nobody – rich or poor, male or female, young or old – can escape adversity. Life guarantees it. Despite this truism, an alarming number of us live as if we have no control, whatsoever, over our circumstances. Too many of us are drifting toward frailty instead of moving toward strength. We spend little time or energy preparing ourselves to handle adversity when (not if) it comes. We are content, instead, to give in to the powerful pull of frittering away our evenings watching more Netflix, venturing down more YouTube rabbit trails, and aimlessly scrolling through our social media feeds. Instead of fortifying ourselves, we do the opposite: we spend our limited energy harmfully comparing ourselves with others; we nurture inner dialogues that are harsh and self-critical; and we make no effort to take care of ourselves physically.

Operating on this default program will leave us feeling inadequate and unequipped when life’s storms hit.

If we’re not prepared, when adversity does arrive – as the notable English Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, wrote several hundred years ago – “[o]ur spirits sink, and then our hands hang down and our knees grow feeble, and we become unfit for anything.” While we can’t insulate ourselves from adversity, we can prepare our minds and our bodies to weather it. In short, we don’t need to wait for adversity in order to start overcoming it. We can build resiliency now.

Four Ways to Live a More Resilient Life

1. Have a Vision for your Life

Have you ever heard the mantra, time management is self-management? When I read that phrase in Dr. Stephen Adei’s book, Called to Lead, in early 2022, it rattled me. Naively, I had long thought of time management merely as a means to increase productivity. But this raises the question – “increase productivity to do what?” It dawned on me that time management is only as good as one’s end purpose or vision. Without a vision for our lives, our time management is pointless.

When considering how we spend our time, as Dr. Adei notes, “what is at stake is not the clock, but what we apply our lifetime to achieve.”

How does this relate to resilience? I’m glad you asked.

Like any epic adventure story you’ve read or watched, the protagonist often is gripped by a vision for his or her life – a quest or mission. Think of Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. When his “uncle” Bilbo Baggins unexpectedly departs “the Shire” for good, Frodo inherits his home, as well as Bilbo’s mysterious ring. As it turns out, this ring is the one ring of power sought by the Dark Lord Sauron who seeks to find it and use it to conquer the entire land of “Middle Earth.” Frodo’s guide, the wizard Gandolf the Grey, sets Frodo on a long and dangerous path to destroy the ring before Sauron can recover it. On his mission, Frodo is repeatedly discouraged, wounded, and burdened as he ventures further on his quest. He is often beset by adversity and many times his outlook is beyond bleak. He is even tempted early on, after some initial challenges, to give up his mission and simply rest and unburden himself.

But, with his vision anchoring him, he is able to press onward, toward his goal. In the end, with the help of loyal friends and allies, he successfully navigates his way to Mount Doom, in the land of Mordor (where Sauron resides). There, he destroys this ring of power by casting it into the fires from which it was forged (the only substance in Middle Earth that can destroy it), thus defeating Sauron and ushering in peace in Middle Earth.

This is what having a vision does for us. It has a centering effect on us. Even in the face of difficulty, tragedy, or turmoil, we know what to do. We have a destination. We know who we are and what we’re working toward.

Without a vision for our lives, we lose the benefit of its anchoring effects – the hope and direction it provides.

This idea is summed up best by Holocaust survivor and author, Victor Frankl, who wrote, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

2. “ABC” – Always Be Curious

We are too enamored with frivolity. Hear me – I’m not trashing having fun in life or enjoying time with friends or relaxing or unwinding or doing something that is deliberately unproductive. I am a massive fan of watching college football and the NFL. My wife and I have watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) a number of Netflix series. I’m currently enjoying Man in the Arena on Hulu (#TB12) and the series The Chosen (the story of Jesus and His disciples). My kids and I love to crush Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch, and my entire family watched each new episode of the Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett weekly, as they aired on Disney Plus. These are things I intentionally do.

There is a massive difference, however, between deliberately choosing to do something with your time versus passively reacting to the day’s stress by taking solace in Netflix or losing yourself in hours of scrolling social media.

These things just become digital pacifiers for adults. And what do we have to show for it? We can quote all the hilarious lines from Parks and Rec or The Office? Yay.

Another critical way we build resilient lives is by always being curious (ABC). We need to wake up to the massive return on investment (ROI) that comes from reading. Reading is the cheapest and easiest way to gain knowledge, wisdom, and discernment. Just like the beauty of compound interest in the stock market, where the money you invest earns interest, which is then reinvested into the principal, growing it, over and over, reading or listening to books has its own ROI.

Reading expands one’s framework for life. I picture the difference between a pitiful Charlie-Brown-type Christmas tree and the collosal, foyer-filling Christmas trees you see in hotel lobbies during the holidays. Reading is like that. It’s like raising the height of the tree and adding more and more branches. The result is a larger tree that has more room to hang decorations and ornaments.

As I’ve written previously, “[e]ach book you read has a cumulative impact on your knowledge, understanding, ability to communicate, capacity to contextualize, and potential to problem solve.”

It’s no mystery why that would make navigating adversity more doable – you are more equipped! You likely have more space and more context to process what is happening. You’re better able to entertain different perspectives. You have more wisdom about how the world works – wisdom about success and failure; wisdom about suffering and joy; wisdom about grief and disappointment; wisdom about your own frailty and your own potential.

The real benefit from reading doesn’t come from episodic, unpredictable forays into reading (although that is better than nothing). Rather, it comes from a pattern of reading. As Brigadier General Pat Work has said, imagine what life could look like if you were to remember even one big idea from each book you read – that would be life enhancing.

Retired Marine General and former Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, got directly to the point when he wrote, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”

3. Be Physically Fit

Everyone wants to ditch their love handles and look better at the beach. But, the real benefit of physical exercise is the insane physiological and psychological impact to the human body. This is why the military is obsessed with physical fitness. Physical training (PT) in the military is not just about creating more physically capable and lethal combat soldiers. More profoundly, it’s about building resilience (a necessity for service members on lengthy training events and deployments), which has been defined as “the ability to withstand, recover, and grow in the face of stressors and changing demands.” In 2013, doctors from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences specifically found that physical fitness directly confers resilience. These results were echoed by a 2013 Rand Corporation study commissioned by the Air Force which determined that improved physical fitness may help airmen cope with the stresses of military service.

Numerous studies have confirmed clear links between exercise and two key parts of the brain: the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for short and long-term memory consolidation. Not surprisingly, the hippocampus is one of the first areas to deteriorate in Alzheimer’s disease—a disease resulting in increasing memory loss and disorientation. The prefrontal cortex particularly affects our brains’ executive functions such as reasoning, planning, organization, consequence evaluation, learning from mistakes, maintaining focus, and working memory.

When we exercise, we activate these parts of the brain and stimulate our brains’ abilities to learn and perform other cognitive functions. Dr. John J. Ratey, MD, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, says that exercise creates Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), a protein which floods the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, causing new brain cells to grow and “log” new information. Dr. Ratey has called BDNF “Miracle Grow” for the brain. This process of growth is called “neurogenesis.” A 2007 Columbia University study concluded that exercise increased neurogenesis and reversed the effects of memory loss.

Finally, exercise may be as powerful, if not more, than our most effective anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications. In fact, a 1999 Duke University Medical School study took over 100 patients suffering from depression and divided them into three groups: (1) a group that took the drug Zoloft for 16 weeks; (2) a group that exercised 30 minutes a day, four times per week, for 16 weeks; and (3) a group that took Zoloft and did the exercise. Remarkably, at the end of the study, all three groups experienced the same average drops in levels of depression. This means that exercise had virtually the same impact on mood and depression as Zoloft, but with none of the side effects.

All of this adds up to an increased ability to weather and not wither. Exercise fortifies the mind and body for the unknown and unknowable. A stronger mind, body, and spirit aren’t a silver bullet; but, they will make navigating the stresses of adversity more doable.

4. Be Kind to Yourself

Last, but not least, we must learn to be kind to ourselves. I could present this as stress management, but it is bigger than that. I know I don’t speak for everyone, but in America, we are brutal task masters when it comes to loving ourselves.

In the New Testament book of Matthew, chapter 22, Jesus is asked by a lawyer which of the Old Testament commandments is the greatest. Jesus answers interestingly – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

But… the lawyer didn’t ask for the “top two” commandments. He asked for the greatest. Jesus went beyond his question and made a dramatic declaration–love your neighbor as yourself.

To love one’s neighbor, one must first love oneself. In America, we do anything but love ourselves. We criticize ourselves. We compare ourselves to others we deem better or more successful. We guilt ourselves into thinking sleep is for the weak. We don’t take time off. We work absurdly long hours. We embrace a “hustle” mindset. Rise and Grind, we say. We don’t exercise. We skip meals and eat on the run instead. We suffer from relentless FOMO (fear of missing out). We overspend and put ourselves in debt to keep up with the latest trends. We don’t cultivate much time for quiet reflection – it’s always go-go-go. In short, we don’t love ourselves.

It’s no wonder we escape to our digital pacifiers for comfort and refuge from the world we live in.

This fourth means of building resilience is vital because it can be an antidote or a healing salve to the grinding, work-yourself-to-death culture we live in. Loving ourselves can take on myriad different meanings. Some may include:

being disciplined and zealous in pursuing sleep and its restorative benefits;
paying attention to and calling out the lies in our self-talk (inner dialogue);
taking time to do something fun for ourselves (on purpose);
reducing our commitments and saying “no” to seemingly good things;
giving our phones and devices a “bed time” so we aren’t sucked into the comparison trap during the final hours and minutes of our days; and
finding ways to incorporate quiet into our days and weeks.

This list is in no way exhaustive, but cultivating a habit of being kind to ourselves is a means of living a more resilient life – a life more inoculated to the disappointments and setbacks that will inevitably come.

When the storm strikes is not the time to try to begin these habits; rather, that is the time when these habits are most needed.

Vitamins and Marathon Training

I look at these four means of building resilience in one’s life as taking a multivitamin or training to run a marathon – they can’t be sporadic things we dabble in. If you want to fortify your body and maintain a strong immune system, you take a multivitamin every day, not once or twice a month. Likewise, if you’re training to run 26.2 miles straight, you need to hit the pavement 5-6 times a week, steadily increasing your mileage, until you’ve put enough hours on your legs to handle the strain of a full marathon. You don’t just do a few long runs and call it a day. That’s a recipe for a bad day at best, and injury at worst.

Take the concepts in this post and think about your own life. Start small. Maybe you want to start a small, manageable habit of reading. Great – do 10 pages a day of a single book that interests you (fiction or nonfiction; it doesn’t matter). Maybe you want to slow down a bit and reduce your commitments. Great – find one commitment that doesn’t align with your vision and nix it. Just say “no.” Living life on your terms and working toward your vision or calling is way more important than people-pleasing. Don’t be afraid to say “no.”

Start small. Don’t compare yourself to others. Be curious and non-judgmental. See what works and what doesn’t. But don’t give up. Don’t give up on living an intentional life, as opposed to the default reactive one. In this way, you won’t “faint in the day of adversity.”

Leave a comment below and let me know what is the most frustrating obstacle you’ve encountered when it comes to living an intentional life? What would life look like if you took more control of your time and redeemed the hours in your day in a way that aligns with your vision?
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One Idea Leaders Should Take Away from the “Hippocratic Oath”

February 09, 2022 by Cal Walters in Organizational Leadership, Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

As leaders, recognizing that we lead human beings, and not robots, we need a simple ethical foundation that animates our daily practice of leadership. We would all be wise to borrow from the medical profession’s embrace of the ethical principle of primum non nocere; Latin for “first, do no harm.”

For centuries, Western physicians embraced the “Hippocratic Oath” – an ancient, 4th century BC expression of medical ethics – best remembered for the notion that physicians should “first, do no harm.” While most modern medical students no longer recite the Hippocratic Oath specifically, according to a 2011 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, most medical schools in the U.S. had oath ceremonies for their graduates. A 2015 survey of all accredited U.S. medical schools determined that 100% of all the respondents reported having oath ceremonies for their graduates during which they recited a code of ethics. The spirit of “first, do no harm” remains at the heart of these ethical expressions (see, for example, the 2019 Oath for Harvard Medical School graduates).

When you consider the role of a physician or surgeon, doing no harm is more than avoiding a “bad thing” for their patients. It’s more profound than that. A surgeon, for example, will inflict momentary trauma to her patient’s body as she ultimately works to set the conditions for that body to heal. The scalpel inflicts pain en route to promoting healing. The cardiothoracic surgeon, performing open heart surgery, cuts into the cavity that houses the most important muscle in the body. The oncologist administers chemotherapy treatments to her cancer patients; treatments that sap their energy, weaken their bodies, and leave them feeling utterly drained–all in an effort to terminate the threat of cancerous cells.

No doubt, physicians are well acquainted with causing pain. There is a key difference, though, between causing pain and causing harm. The physician acts to ameliorate, to improve. They act with their patients’ best interests in mind.

Leaders need to embrace this simple, but profound idea of first, do no harm. Likely, no one disagrees with the assertion that good leaders get results. However, if our understanding of effective leadership begins and ends with merely getting results, our lives, our families, and our teams will run astray. After all, poor leaders can still get results–even masterful results.

The problem is that such leaders risk leaving collateral damage in their wake. In short, they risk harming the very people they are charged to lead. I know from experience.

I used to be an Army prosecutor. The vast majority of my cases involved allegations of domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, and child abuse. These were often painful fact patterns and difficult cases. Domestic violence, in particular, was challenging because often alleged victims would recant their prior allegations, even in the face of powerful direct and circumstantial evidence. This reflects the sad, but not uncommon, dynamic of intimate partner violence–a scenario where victims often feel stuck living with their abusers. All of the prosecutors in my office took these cases seriously.

That said, pressing forward with recommendations to court-martial (i.e., prosecute at trial) soldiers is no small thing–a prosecutor should be able to say, with a straight face, that there is not merely probable cause that a soldier committed the alleged crimes, but there is a viable pathway to conviction (i.e., that there is sufficient admissible evidence to prove the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt). Recognizing the gravity (for both victim and accused), this led to disagreements within our team. Sometimes, prosecutors saw the evidence or the severity of the offense(s) differently, which led to multiple, reasonable recommendations (e.g., court-martial or something less severe).

On one occasion, as a supervising prosecutor, I found myself in a disagreement with one of my fellow prosecutors over the severity of a domestic violence case and the recommendation our team would make. My colleague felt the allegations and evidence didn’t warrant court-martial charges. I disagreed. The issue was not who was right (because ultimately, we could capture the various recommendations, identify that there was some internal disagreement, and present the options for a decision-maker to weigh in on). The issue was how I handled the disagreement in the first place. It didn’t go well…

Long story short, to my shame, it ended with me stating aloud that if my colleague couldn’t get behind prosecuting this case, I couldn’t see how my colleague could prosecute any domestic violence case… phew… To my colleague, a consummate professional, my comment was an unmitigated slap in the face.

Completely unwarranted. Completely unfair. Completely unkind. Blatantly poor leadership.

We all left the office that Friday afternoon. I drove home in complete silence; my mind replaying, over and over, how stupid and hurtful I was. I felt convicted all evening, the next morning, and later that afternoon. Sometime that Saturday or Sunday, I reached out and directly apologized for my insensitive, foolish comment. Thankfully, my colleague had the maturity to respond to me, affirm the hurtfulness of the comment, and, nonetheless, forgive me. We successfully moved beyond that Friday afternoon, but I had still done harm as a leader. I had demonstrated a lack of self-control and elevated achieving a particular result above caring for a person.

How do Leaders “First, do no Harm?”

Like the physician working on her patient, leaders cannot be afraid to cause pain or minor trauma to their teams as they work through friction and resolve conflict en route to accomplishing their organizational goals and imperatives. That said, leaders should first, do no harm.

However, doing no harm as a leader is not the same as never rocking the boat, never causing pain, and never causing disagreement. Further, doing no harm doesn’t mean avoiding frustrating somebody. Imagine having to counsel a subordinate through a poor performance or hold a teammate accountable for not meeting a necessary standard. These are not easy conversations and can often be uncomfortable. Nevertheless, just because they may be painful does not mean that they are harmful.

On a healthy team, there will be freedom to disagree and freedom to have productive conflict. Leaders should invite this because the momentary pain or discomfort of conflict (even difficult, and perhaps frustrating, debate) is worth the benefit to the organization. The momentary pain promotes longer term health. For example, author Patrick Lencioni writes in his book The Advantage that:

The reason that conflict is so important is that a team cannot achieve commitment without it…The truth is, very few people in the world are incapable of supporting a decision merely because they had a different idea. Most people are generally reasonable and can rally around an idea that wasn’t their own as long as they know they’ve had a chance to weigh in. But when there has been no conflict, when different opinions have not been aired and debated, it becomes virtually impossible for team members to commit to a decision, at least not actively.

Unlike what Lencioni depicts, my example of poor leadership, detailed above, went beyond appropriate conflict and became harmful. My words and conduct were a violation of the principle of first, do no harm, and a clear example of forgetting that the person on the receiving end of my words was a human being, not a robot.

It’s worth quoting the former Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, Dr. Louis Lasagna, who, among other accomplishments, was famous for penning a 1964 update to the original Hippocratic Oath. In Dr. Lasagna’s more modern version of the Oath, he writes, “I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.”

I can’t think of better words to adopt if I were to begin penning a leader’s “Hippocratic Oath.” As leaders at any level, we have the solemn responsibility to remember that we’re not leading or managing robots (i.e., the “fever chart” or “a cancerous growth”). In the Army, a rifle platoon leader (PL) is not merely leading a “squad leader” or a “machine gunner” or a “radio operator.” That PL is leading human beings. In other industries, leaders aren’t responsible merely for warehouse workers or sorters or drivers or tellers or electricians or secretaries or nurses or teachers or salespeople or junior associates or clerks or managers or attendants or directors. The people we lead and interact with on a daily basis are infinitely more than their productivity, their titles, or the functions they play in the organization. They are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, neighbors, volunteers, etc. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, those we lead know if we view them as a person or just another object–another company asset. Accordingly, if we want healthy long term outlooks for our organizations, reminding ourselves of the burden of leading ethically, on a daily basis, is vital.

So, if you take anything away from the medical community’s ethical expressions founded on that ancient Hippocratic Oath – remember, primum non nocere – first, do no harm. Remember that the employees in our charge and the colleagues in our orbits are more than their functions–they’re not robots. The way we treat them will echo in their families, their communities, and their lives.

If you’re interested in growing in your leadership practice, we want to give you a gift. Just click the link below to download a free 12-page PDF full of powerful, actionable ideas and concepts from some of our previous guests on the Intentional Leader Podcast. These pages are bullet points, not lengthy text—perfect for a quick hit of inspiration in your leadership journey.

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A Guide to Creating Your Personal Direction Plan: A Compass for Intentional Living in a Distracted World

January 28, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Ryan Brence

I don’t know about you, but I struggle with directions.

Growing up, I never really paid much attention to the direction I was heading in any mode of transportation. I took it for granted that my parents, bus drivers, or friends’ parents knew where they were going, so why did I need to pay attention to how we traveled to our destination?

This lack of situational awareness did not serve me well once I entered the military. As a young cadet at West Point, I received instruction on land navigation. The tools included a topographic map (which I never even considered using beforehand), an orienteering compass, and a pencil to plot grid coordinates.

Being a city boy from the suburbs, or “burbs” as some call it, I was already lost…

After receiving instruction, we were tasked to individually navigate to different location points within a set perimeter in the hilly wooded terrain found in Upstate New York. The instructors taught us three key steps for finding direction in land navigation:

Take time to plan out your route. Once you receive the exact grid coordinates of your different locations, you must put in concentrated time and detailed effort to find and plot your points and plan your route. If you don’t take the time to properly strategize the sequence of your journey, and the checkpoints along the way, then you may as well be traveling blindfolded through the woods. I took A LOT of time ensuring that I correctly plotted my grid coordinates and then developed a plan of action.
Set your azimuth in the right direction. The azimuth is the directional line shown on your compass that steers you in the right direction towards your destination. After spending the necessary time to correctly plot your points and plan your route, you should be able to point your azimuth with your compass and walk towards your intended location. This was a good starting point for me, but after a few hundred meters, I started to veer off track and quickly became lost. This leads to the third key step.
Find your location through terrain association. By aligning your map with a reference direction (North) and comparing the topographic symbols on the map with your physical surroundings, you should be able to identify your current grid coordinate. This is where I really struggled. I couldn’t seem to pinpoint my exact location based on the terrain by referencing the symbols and marked points on my map. They didn’t match up, and ultimately, I would find myself lost and in need of help.

Why do I mention these tools and steps in basic land navigation?

Well, for two reasons - I want you to actually pay attention to where you’re going in life. And, I want to provide you with a powerful tool and some steps to live in alignment with your intended destination - the person you want to be.

Creating A Personal Direction Plan

In today’s age, we live in a very busy, confusing, and distracted world.

With social media, television, and smartphones that rarely leave the palms of our hands, there is an exorbitant amount of information at our disposal. So, when it comes to living an intentional life, where do we even begin?

For most people, it’s too overwhelming to even get started. Consider these staggering statistics from a Harvard Business Study related to goal-setting:

83% of respondents had no goals.

14% of respondents had plans but had not written them down. The study found that this group was 10 times more likely to succeed than those without any goals.
3% of respondents had written down their goals. They were 3 times more likely to succeed than the group who had some plan in mind.

We spend a great deal of time developing business plans, game plans, vacation plans - just to name a few. However, if we’re honest, many of us don’t actually take the time to develop a plan to become who we want to be.

Going back to the land navigation analogy - many people do not take the time to plot their points and route along the journey to reach their intended destination.

So, back to the question - where do we even begin? A starting point is creating a Personal Direction Plan.

Over the years, I've created goals, taken a hard look at my habits, and carefully considered my systems and methods for living an intentional life.

All of these reflections are useful, but they are generally focused on outcomes or processes. In order to become who we want to be, we must first start with our identity. Like a house under construction, there needs to be a strong foundation for the rest of the home to be built upon.

It is important to understand that a Personal Direction Plan starts with living in alignment with who you want to be. This means that instead of waking up in reactive mode responding to daily to-do’s based on the level of urgency, you leverage your identity (who you want to be) to intentionally direct your path and the decision points along your journey.

To overcome confusion, eliminate distraction, and focus planning that leads to action, a Personal Direction Plan helps leaders determine, align, and integrate their core values, personal mission statement, focus areas, goals, and habits so they can enjoy their journey and live in accordance with who they want to be.

The first and most critical step of crafting a Personal Direction Plan is to come up with a set of core values and a personal mission statement. This is where we will begin.

Personally Defining Your Core Values

If I asked you about your identity and what you value, you could probably list off several roles and various things that you appreciate in your life. Then, I would have 3 questions for you:

1. Do your actions typically line up with what you value?

2. Have you written out or typed up specific values to make them more concrete?

3. Do you review them consistently to ensure your day-to-day plans and actions align with what you value?

You probably see where I'm going with these questions. We can optimize systems and processes to achieve desired results, but if we do things that are not congruent with our values, the chances of reaching true satisfaction and fulfillment are slim.

In Intentional Leader's last blog post, Cal provided clarity on how to create a personal mission statement. He walked us through the "Funeral Exercise" to show the importance of beginning with the end in mind to reflect on how we would like to be remembered in several important areas of our lives.

From that exercise, he shared how those thoughts and ideas regarding how he would like to be remembered helped crystallize what is really important to him (i.e. what he values).

So, your personal mission statement needs to encapsulate what you really care about and ultimately cascade into intentionally leading your life in alignment with your core values.

As an example, here is my personal mission statement:
To pursue God's will for my life and leave a legacy marked by positive impact on my family, community, and those around me.

In order to unpack this personal declaration, we must identify and then personally define our core values. This is a set of characteristics or principles that influences how we live our lives. They are the guiding stars that help us both respond to and intentionally act in accordance with what is important to us and who we want to be. If you haven’t thought about this concept before, here is a list of values to get you started: https://brenebrown.com/resources/dare-to-lead-list-of-values/

Since this core values exercise can be overwhelming if you’re just starting out, here are some ideas to help you narrow them down:

1) Start by making a list of all the values that resonate with you.

2) Think about the values that you most respect and admire in others.

3) Reflect on your past experiences and find themes that highlight your consistent values.

4) Categorize your list of values into specific groups that are similar in nature.

5) Narrow down your list to 3-5 core values that mean the most to you.

Once you have your core values, it's important for you to personally define what each value means to you. You can look up the exact definition of the word(s), but I’d encourage you to put your own spin or unique perspective on the value to represent your own personal meaning. Here is an example of two of my core values and how I define them:

Growth - I value the journey that God has given me and seek to persevere in the midst of adversity. I continually develop my strengths & weaknesses and look for ways to steadily progress in my focus areas to pursue excellence and my God-given potential.

Impact - I value the effect that I can have on those around me. I seek to bring value by understanding situations and realizing how I can use my skillset, network, and/or resources to support worthy causes that help & serve others and glorify God. I live a life that leaves a legacy of identity, mission, and impact.

It’s important to note that your core values may change in different seasons of your life. Do your best to limit the number of values to 5, determining which ones are most resounding to your current state while keeping in mind other values which may very well be highlighted during different seasons of your life journey.

Transitioning into new seasons often comes with different roles, spheres of influence, and areas of focus. That is what we’ll target next.

Determining Prioritized Focus Areas

At this point within a Personal Direction Plan, we begin to analyze the various categories or spaces in our lives and their corresponding priority levels based on our core values. These focus areas can include specific roles that we maintain (e.g. Husband / Father / Friend, etc.) or more general domains in our lives (e.g. Faith / Family / Work, etc.).

While you may spend more time and energy in a particular focus area, such as work, it does not necessarily mean you should place that at the top of your list. At the same time, even if your work or career (as an example) is a lower prioritized focus area on your list, there should still be a pattern, or common thread, of living within that focus area that stems from your identity.

Similar to the core values exercise, we need to creatively define the roles or domains based on our unique perspective. So, as you identify and prioritize these focus areas, it’s critical to give a personal description of how you act, behave, or respond within these spaces.

The key word I continue to come back to is alignment. So, the question is, how do you want to consistently show up within your focus areas so that you align with your core values and personal mission statement? Here are examples of two of my own focus areas that I’ve defined for myself:

1) Faith - I am a man of God and trust in the plans He has for my life.

-I have quiet time with my Lord daily to grow closer to Him.
-I give myself grace when I sin or do not achieve all my strivings.
-I am part of Christian community.
-I invite others to our church and seek opportunities to share the Gospel.

2) Family - I am the spiritual leader of our home. I pursue my wife and daughters.

-I cherish each day and moment with my wife and daughters.
-I speak affirmations & prayers over them.
-I am present when I am with them and actively listen and respond to them.
-I create moments & experiences to show them what special gifts they are to me from God.

Notice how these descriptions are essentially affirmations of who I am and how I want to be known and remembered. This exercise takes a very general area of your life and sharpens the perspective within the specific space to represent what you value most and how you want to represent yourself in that role or domain.

Your description of each focus area can range from broader characteristics you would like to display to more specific habits or actions that you want to take in order to show up in ways that integrate with your core values and personal mission statement. Now that you have a clearer perspective of your identity, and how your core values show up in each of your prioritized focus areas within your life, it is time to set aligned goals & milestones that will lead to intentional action in your life.

Nesting Your Goals

We’ve covered a lot of ground so far, but this is the section where the rubber meets the road. While our personal mission statement, core values, and focus areas are more general in nature, they set the strong foundation and tone for the planning, actions, and decisions that we make on a consistent basis.

As mentioned earlier, instead of waking up to a new day and simply reacting to what comes at us, (and we all know there is a lot that comes at us), we are prepared and equipped to act in alignment with who and what we affirm as our identities and prioritized focus areas.

This gives our day-to-day living more clarity, intentionality, and overall excitement.

By closely examining our core values and focus areas, we can set goals that involve activities, people, and experiences that provide us with a greater overall sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. In a previous Intentional Leader blog post, Tim Janes offered a similar framework for identifying Themes (or goals within focus areas), then planning actions or habits that underpin the manifestation of those Themes. You can view the article here.

Some of these goals may be outcomes-based (such as running a marathon or triathlon), while others may be more identity-based (such as being a more intentional husband or father). Regardless of the type of goal, it is important to consider integrating them with your core values and focus areas. Also, it is imperative to consider the SMART goal-setting framework, as we seek to establish goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Here are two personal goals of mine that include important milestones to consider for each:

Faith (focus area) - Memorize 12 Bible life verses to stamp on my heart and mind in 2022.

Milestones – Choose 1 verse to memorize and deeply reflect on each month. Seek opportunities to use weekly in prayers and conversations.

Family (focus area) - Go on 12 date nights with my wife to connect, reflect, and enjoy time together in 2022.

Milestones – Each month plan a date, coordinate child care, and be thoughtful and present during time together. Have fun.

Personally, I can tell you that I am much more motivated to achieve these set goals because they align with my personal mission statement, core values, and focus areas. I know that working towards these goals will grow me closer to my intended destination. Throughout the process, I will learn what is effective and what may need tweaking for my goals in the future.

Developing Habits - The Ideal Day Exercise

When it comes to habits, the same theme holds true to ensure that we are consistently acting in alignment with our identity. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear explains that what you do is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously). We want to consciously believe who we are and then execute accordingly.

Since you are intrinsically motivated by what you value, an awesome exercise to try out is crafting your ideal day. By using your platform of choice (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.), simply create a new calendar and then intentionally think about specific recurring events or activities that would bring you the most satisfaction and fulfillment on a daily or weekly basis.

A best practice for this exercise would be to have your Personal Direction Plan in view, which includes all the areas we’ve covered so far (your personal mission statement, core values, focus areas, and goals) in order to cross-reference as you fill in the time slots for your ideal day. Here are a few example activities on my ideal day calendar:

7:00 - 7:30am: Full-body weightlifting circuit
12:00 - 12:30pm: Go for a walk outside
5:00 - 5:30pm: Connect with family member or close friend
9:30 - 10:00pm: Read in bed

Of course, you will have other commitments on your personal and workday calendars that change from day-to-day or week-to-week. Be realistic and consider what will typically be required of you, as well as cognizant of the times of day that make the most sense to perform certain actions along with your normal energy levels.

With that being said, if you are able to pull up and view your ideal day on a consistent basis, and cross-reference it with your other calendars, you will be much more likely to actually input activities that are most fulfilling to you into your schedule.

And over time, who knows, you may find that you've picked up a few new habits that are in alignment with your identity in the process.

Putting it All Together

In the arena of personal development, there is so much information to take in that it can be overwhelming. A Personal Direction Plan puts the focus on who you want to be and what you want to do in your life. If you begin with the end in mind, you can reverse engineer the actions you take so they align with your identity instead of responding to the confusing and distracting world that we live in.

In review, your identity encompasses your personal mission statement, core values, and focus areas. In turn, you proactively show up each day with aligned goals and actions that demonstrate who you are and what you stand for. Over time, you will come closer and closer to embodying the person you want to be known and remembered for because you will be living with intention and in accordance with your values.

By writing out or typing up your Personal Direction Plan, and then putting it in a location where you can review it often, you will make it that much more concrete in your mind. Thus, you will be more likely to take action and live in alignment with your identity. This frequent review primes your brain to think, speak, and act more intentionally throughout your days - affirming what is most important to you. This creates a positive feedback loop which gives you more momentum to grow and build upon.

Navigating & Enjoying the Journey

To bring this full circle, let’s return to land navigation. When I was a cadet at West Point, I had to individually navigate from one point to the next in difficult terrain during my training. Many times, I got lost and found myself returning to my tools - that is my map, compass, and pencil to plot my grid coordinates and route. Over time, I eventually learned how to appropriately navigate by leveraging the tools and steps I received from my instruction. Here’s how:

I took the time to ensure I marked my locations correctly and planned my route. This relates to us spending the appropriate amount of time reflecting on and identifying the elements of our Personal Direction Plans.

I used my compass to steer me in the right direction toward my destination. Your Personal Direction Plan will help guide and recenter you towards who you want to be in your life, in the midst of trials, tribulations, and even triumphs.

I associated terrain near me, cross-referenced the map, and changed my route as needed. The beauty of a Personal Direction Plan is that it can and should be a constantly evolving document that can be adjusted based on the seasons and circumstances of your life.

At first, I hated land navigation because I assumed I wasn’t proficient with directions. I was nervous, unclear, and distracted. However, after using my tools correctly and reviewing and practicing the process over and over again, I realized that I was being disoriented by factors that were distracting me. Once I became laser focused on what really mattered and worked for me in my land navigation approach, I slowly but surely started to reach my destination. And if a city boy from the “burbs” can finally begin navigating his way around this confusing and distracted world, believe me, so can you..

Go enjoy your journey, and make it count!!

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Clarity for Life: A Guide to Creating Your Personal Mission Statement

January 13, 2022 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Cal Walters

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey has sold over 25 million copies in 40 languages worldwide. Considering the average book sells about 10,000 copies, that’s a lot of books. Clearly, Dr. Covey’s book struck a chord with readers. It was also transformational in my life.

As the title suggests, the book goes through 7 specific habits found in effective people. Here are the habits:

Be Proactive
Begin with the End in Mind
Put First Things First
Think Win/Win
Seek First to Understand . . . Then to be Understood
Synergize
Sharpen the Saw

Today, I want to briefly touch on Habit #2 (Begin with the End in Mind) and help you put together a personal mission statement.

First, let’s do a brief exercise. If possible, find a place where you can read this next section without a lot of distractions. I want you to be able to free your mind and focus.

If there is something on your mind, try to put it aside for 5 minutes to invest in yourself.

The Funeral Exercise

In your mind, visualize being in a vehicle driving to the funeral of a loved one. You arrive at the funeral location and you see many of your family and friends there. You walk into the building where the funeral is taking place and you see the beautiful flowers and hear the soft organ music playing in the background. You can sense and feel the shared sense of loss in the room, but you can also sense the collective spirit of celebration for a life well lived.

As you sit down to wait for the service to begin, you look down at the program in your hand and come face to face with your own picture on the front. This is your funeral, 10 years from today. All of these friends and family members have come to celebrate your life and reflect on you.

As you read through the program, you notice there will be four speakers.

The first speaker will come from your family. They will talk about the type of person you were as a father or mother, son or daughter, brother or sister, husband or wife.

The second speaker will represent your closest friends. This person will talk about what it meant to be your friend and how you impacted their life.

The third speaker will represent your work colleagues. They will talk about your contributions in the workplace and what it was like to work with you over the years.

Finally, the fourth speaker will be from your community. They will talk about the impact you had on your church or the local area.

Reflection Questions

Now take a moment to think deeply about the following questions and continue to visualize this scenario.

Family Member

When the first speaker (the family member) rises to give your eulogy, what would you want them to say about you as a family member?

What are some words you hope they would use to describe you as a father, mother, husband, or wife?

How do you want your family to describe you as a son or daughter or cousin?

For a close friend of mine doing this exercise, he thought of words like “loving, compassionate, passionate, intentional.” There is no right answer to these questions, just what resonates most deeply for you. This exercise is deeply personal.

Friend

Think about the second speaker (your friend), what would you like them to say about you?

What types of stories would you like them to tell about your friendship and your impact?

Work Colleague

Next, consider the third speaker (your work colleague), how would you like them to describe you in the workplace?

Member of Community

Finally, visualize the fourth and final speaker (a member of your community). This is someone who knew you and is there to describe your character and service to the community. What would you like them to say?

I find these four speakers (adapted from Dr. Covey’s book) to be a helpful way to think through many of the most significant relationships in our life, but feel free to visualize other key relationships and what you hope they would say about you.

Now, take a few minutes to jot down some of your answers to these questions. If you took this exercise seriously, you are tapping into your deepest values in life. Pay attention.

In a world of busyness and easy access to everyone else’s thoughts and activities it can be difficult to discern what is most important to you. That’s why it is so important to develop a personal mission statement.

As Dr. Covey puts it, your personal mission statement becomes “a personal constitution [like the US Constitution], the basis for making major, life-directing decisions, the basis for making daily decisions in the midst of the circumstances and emotions that affect our lives.”

Develop Your Personal Mission Statement

A personal mission statement should include two key components:

Who you want to be – think of the qualities and characteristics you listed during the funeral exercise
What you want to do – this captures the contributions and achievements that are most important to you, likely the contributions that came to mind during the funeral exercise

When doing a personal mission statement, Dr. Covey encourages readers to fully tap into their left brain (the logical/verbal part of the brain) and right brain (feelings and creative side of the brain) thinking.

I recommend listing out (left brain) the most important roles you have in your life. Then, visualize who you want to be and what the key contributions you want to make in that role. This helps you ensure your personal mission statement integrates all of who you are and the key roles you fulfill.

It is also worth considering your “center,” as Dr. Covey puts it. Your center might be your spouse, family, work, money, possessions, faith, or something else that is at the core of who you are and the mark your hope to leave on the world. For me, it’s my faith and desire to follow Jesus. That is my center, but your center might be different. As you can see below, my center is a consistent thread woven throughout my personal mission statement.

Here is an example of a personal mission statement (partly derived from my own statement):

My personal mission is to follow Jesus and to love and serve those around me.

To fulfill this mission:

I abide: I pray, read the Bible, meditate, and pursue a relationship with God first, knowing that my highest contribution will flow from this central relationship.

I serve: Life is not about me. I am here to serve. My life will be measured by how much I serve others and use the gifts, talents, and resources I have been given. To whom much is given, much is required. I serve the least of these because every life has infinite worth.

I inspire: I will relentlessly help others become the type of person and leader that God created them to be. Each person is valuable in God’s eyes, and I am a vessel to help them reach their God-given potential and make their unique contribution to the world.

I have integrity: My yes is my yes and my no is my no. When I make a commitment, I follow through. If I can’t follow through on a commitment, I don’t make it. I am honest and above reproach. I strive to be better on the inside than what is seen on the outside. I put myself under God’s authority and the authority of wise mentors and leaders.

These roles are key in achieving my mission:

Husband: I love my wife in the specific ways I know she feels most loved. I pursue her, sacrifice for her, and steward her heart with all my strength and ability. I help her fulfill God’s desire for her life. I am accountable to God for how well I steward her heart.

Father: I point my children to a loving Heavenly Father who can meet their every need. I lead by example in all that I do, knowing more is caught than taught. I discipline them in love to help them become service-oriented adults. They are a gift from God, and I am responsible for leading them well and being a good steward of their hearts. I am accountable to God for how well I steward their hearts.

Son: I honor my parents by being in relationship with them and giving my full effort to live out the investments they made in me. I honor them by living in an honorable way privately and publicly.

Army Officer: I serve my country because I love my country and know that it is a privilege and gift to be born in the United States. I know that freedom is not free and that good people must sacrifice to maintain our freedom. Service is not about me.

Teacher: I am a lifelong learner and love sharing my experiences and lessons learned with others in hopes that they will benefit and be able to grow in their own journey. This is part of stewardship. I boldly pursue ways to teach in innovative ways through my podcast, writing, speaking, and one-on-one relationships.

Neighbor/Friend: I deeply value community because Jesus valued it and calls us into it. I intentionally surround myself with positive people and pour into others. I create space for conversations and relationship building.

Moving Forward on Purpose

Reflecting on the funeral exercise, set aside some time to write out your personal mission statement. It will bring clarity to your life and save you time and energy by avoiding those pursuits and relationships that are not in line with your mission. With your personal mission statement written out, it will be easier to say yes to the important and no to those items in your life that don’t align with your deepest values. This eliminates many of those life regrets that come from simply following the crowd.

Being a person on mission also makes you more attractive to others. Designer, artist, and consultant Loretta Staples said, “If you are clear with what you want, the world responds with clarity.” I agree.

Once you’ve put together your life mission, share it with some of your closest friends or family members. Go over it with someone you trust and explain your heart behind it. The goal behind sharing it is not so much to get feedback–because this is deeply personal–but to force yourself to articulate your deepest desires to someone you trust.

Feel free to share it with me. I’d be honored to hear about your life mission.

Finally, your personal mission statement may evolve some over time. Feel free to revisit it as you mature and add roles in your life.

It’s an honor to be on this journey with you. Remember that life is short. Let’s go make it count!

Cal is the Founder and Host of the Intentional Leader podcast. He is also a major in the US Army and currently serves as the Chief of Criminal Law at the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC.

He is passionate about helping leaders grow and hopes every interaction you have with Intentional Leader helps you grow in your life and leadership.

Cal and his wife, Natalie, have one daughter.

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How to Become the Best You: A Goal Setting Method for the New Year

December 15, 2021 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Timothy Janes

It’s the end of the year, and you know what that means: Companies and individuals alike will be looking towards 2022 with lofty aspirations, setting SMART goals for themselves that will bring growth and advancement. Once they attain those goals, that’s when fulfillment will be achieved. That is the dream, right? Achievement, attainment, advancement - but to what end?

If you’re like me, you may look at some of the goals and metrics that are set and wonder: what are we actually striving for? Will we truly find fulfillment when we reach our goals?

I’m a goal setter, for sure, and I’ll talk more about how goals fit into my life later. However, I’ve become rather disenchanted with goals lately, at least in the way that they are usually spoken about. Instead, I’m choosing to turn towards a new way of living; one that I have found to lead to more fulfillment, while still allowing for a sense of achievement.

I’ve found that fulfillment doesn’t come from attaining SMART goals. Instead, it comes from living in alignment with my values. It comes from consistent behaviors that leave me healthy, happy, and connected to others. It comes from truly living in the moment - recognizing the ebbs and flows of life and expressing gratitude throughout.

In this post, I’ll start by introducing you to the ideas of seasons and themes. After that, we’ll delve into how systems and habits form the foundation upon which our values can thrive. Next, I will give you a 3-step process that will allow you to reflect on how seasons, themes, systems, and habits have played a role in your life over the past year, how they can help you intentionally create the life you want to live for next year, and how to keep consistency in your habits over time. Finally, I’ll end with a discussion on how goals fit into the picture. The objective is to give you practical frameworks and takeaways that you can use immediately to lead a more fulfilling life.

Seasons & Themes

Wes Cochrane, another member of the Intentional Leader team, discussed the concept of seasons in his last blog post on embracing the ordinary. To liken it to being a farmer - sometimes we’re tilling the soil, sometimes sowing seeds, sometimes tending the crop, and sometimes we get to harvest. We have multiple fields of crops in our lives; we must find a balance to tend to the ones that add value to our life. Sometimes we lose a crop, so we start again from the beginning. The key is to fully recognize the seasons we are in, not taking for granted the process of becoming - the hard work that we put in towards the comparatively few seasons of harvest we get to experience.

This year, I’m opting for a new way of setting intentions for the coming year. I’m choosing to intentionally pursue Themes that I believe will reflect my highest self - the self that utilizes my talents to make a difference in the lives of others, while taking care of my own physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Themes are the patterns that show up in our lives; the interwoven threads running through disparate parts of our experience. Though we constantly move across activities, communities, and situations, each experience leaves its own imprint on a singular canvas that we call our soul. When we turn inward and look at our soul, we can see Themes emerge on the canvas - they are the similar shapes, colors, and textures that make themselves apparent when we actually take the time to pause and examine. Often, they closely reflect the seasons that we’re in when the imprints are made.

Systems & Habits

I will pursue my Themes by putting habits in place that, when practiced consistently, will guarantee growth. Not growth for growth’s sake, but growth toward a better future for myself and for others. Fulfillment will come in the process, not in the outcome, for it’s in the process where I will live according to my values and mission. It’s in the process where I will bend, mold, and shape myself into a better version of “Tim.”

I know that the habits will not take care of themselves. One of the reasons we often fail to maintain a change (sometimes in the form of a new year’s resolution), is because we view changes as outcomes. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear writes: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” We must focus on the systems that lead to the attainment of our goals. The systems we put in place should encourage us to perform our habits consistently, for that will lead to success.

A good place to start for identifying desired habits is to ask yourself: “What kind of person do I want to be?” James Clear offers this idea, as it gives us a picture to paint for ourselves. It’s never an end-goal, but a creation that’s constantly in the making. We start putting brush strokes on the canvas, add to it, make adjustments, and sometimes even start over entirely. Our habits are the brush strokes that add to or detract from our life painting.

As I look toward next year, I’m building systems that will create the space for my Themes to flourish. I’m identifying habits that will make my life painting beautiful, unique, and inspiring.

So, what does this look like? How can you plan for 2022 using the concept of Themes? How can you operationalize your habits?

Step 1: Reflect on where you are and what has come before.

I recently put my friends from my Contemplative Leaders in Action (CLA) cohort through this exercise. I believe that to move forward, we must first establish a foundation of where we are now and where we have come from. So, I asked my friends to reflect on 2021:

What seasons did each person experience? How did those seasons show up in their lives?
What Themes had they noticed in 2021? How did those Themes show up?
As the seasons and Themes unfolded, how did they feel?

I wasn’t just the facilitator, I was a participant, too. For me, I came out of 2020 having tilled a lot of figurative soil - turning it over, seeing if I liked what was beneath, figuring out what soil was most fertile for growth. I began 2021 by sowing lots of seeds in the leadership and development space - taking grad school classes, making new connections, and writing blog posts. As 2021 continued, I was tending my crop - writing more posts, reading books, listening to podcasts, and building relationships. As 2021 winds down, I have been lucky enough to experience the harvest - being elected as a board member for a local non-profit, getting married, and making meaningful contributions at work - while still tending my crop in many ways.

As far as Themes, I uncovered Discovery and Connection showing up throughout the past year. Regarding Discovery, I solidified my values, clarified my mission, found a sense of direction, and uncovered limiting beliefs from my past. For Connection, I overlaid my values into my personal and professional lives, and began to fully appreciate the connection between my past experiences and my current self. For example, and it’s a great one:

The reason I began volunteering with the aforementioned non-profit was as a capstone project for my CLA program. As the pandemic came in 2020, I continued offering different volunteer services to that non-profit, while also getting into leadership podcasts and books. From those, I started my own blog and also began a Masters in Organization Development and Leadership. As 2021 rolled around, I connected with Cal - our gracious podcast host for Intentional Leader - and joined the team in April. My first blog post for Intentional Leader was on Servant Leadership. That post ended up resonating strongly with the current board members of the non-profit, and that, connected with my experience in process management, my masters in organization development, and my contribution to the non-profit organization thus far, was enough for them to feel that I could contribute in a board-level role. So, in August, I was asked if I was interested in being slated for election. That role on the board, as it turns out, is entirely aligned with my values and personal mission. Do you see how I found Connection among all of these?

I truly believe that if you consistently put your energy towards what is right for you, then things will come together. For me, that means putting my energy towards the person that God is calling me to be. For others, it may be aligning oneself to their greatest interests. Still others may find this to be what they “just have to do.”

The last piece of this reflection is important, and it was actually one of the biggest realizations that my cohort-mates and I came across: we often fail to recognize what seasons we’re in while we’re experiencing them. I certainly didn’t fully appreciate my season of sowing seeds - how was I supposed to know that any of them would blossom? And, let me tell you something: tending the crop is HARD and often feels monotonous. Even the harvest, if we get there, can be scary, since we don’t know how long it will last, or when the next time we will experience it again will be. The key is to live in the present moment - recognizing the season for what it is, and practicing gratitude for the experiences as they come.

As we leave 2021 behind, I am still feeling a sense of harvest, however I’m also sowing more seeds and tending some other crops.

Step 2: Identify your desired Themes and habits.

The past is just that: the past. There’s nothing we can do about it now. We can, however, be deliberate about the creation of our present and future.

Looking toward 2022, there are events and experiences that I already have planned. There are also other things that I want to bring into my life. Just like looking backwards into 2021 for connective tissue helped us identify Themes from our prior experience, looking forward into 2022 for interwoven threads between both the already-planned and the not-yet-planned will inform our Themes for next year.

As my CLA cohort moved into the 2022 planning portion of our time, I prompted them with:

What seasons and themes do you anticipate in 2022? How will they show up?
What can they do either now or in 2022 to align with their higher selves and their values?
How will they regularly check in on their themes, values, and habits?

For this, I offered a framework for identifying Themes, then planning habits that underpin the manifestation of the Themes. The framework looks like this:

Theme

How it shows up #1
- Habit #1
- Habit #2
How it shows up #2
- Habit #1
How it shows up #3
- Habit #1

I offer one of my 2022 Themes as an example:

Alignment

Of values to God & spirit
- Attend church 1x/week
- Connect with God 1x/day (even if for a few short moments)
Of actions to values & mission statement
- Weekly values & mission review (calendar reminder)
Of physical body (spine)
- Use kneeling chair at home desk
- Posture exercises each time attending gym
Of mind to body
- Meditate 3x/week for at least 10 mins/occurrence

Don’t feel either overwhelmed or limited by my example. Everyone’s Themes, experiences, and habits will be different. Some may have a single big experience that will constitute its very own Theme for the year. Some will have even more things listed under one Theme than I do! Some will have a single Theme in total, while others may have five Themes. The key is in the framework itself - we start from a high level and work our way to the habits that form our foundation. For me, the Theme of Alignment correlates to my expected season of tending the crop, as I’ve sowed a lot of these seeds over the past few years.

As with our reflection earlier, the third question is a crucial piece of the puzzle. It’s imperative to regularly check in on our Themes, values, and habits. If we don’t, we run the risk of wasting energy on inevitably fruitless ventures. Checking in draws us back to the present to notice where we have come from, where we are, and confirm the direction we want to head in. It’s also the time when we can appreciate progress, sit in discomfort of becoming, and apply lessons we have learned from the journey thus far.

Step 3: Perform habits consistently, practice self-compassion, and practice mindfulness.

Ultimately, the habits that we perform will determine how our life unfolds. Show me your habits, and I’ll tell you what your values are.

Only you can know which habits will lead to fulfillment for you. Also, only you can be responsible for sticking to your own habits. Knowing this is both frightening and freeing. You are responsible for carrying your own load, which can feel heavy at times. On the other hand, you don’t have to rely on others for your happiness or fulfillment - you have the power inside of you to manifest these things for yourself.

We all fall short of our espoused habits and values. Practicing self-compassion can help us move past those moments, rather than getting stuck in a pit of shame. Humor can help, as well - it’s okay to laugh at yourself for doing something out of alignment. When we fall short, a good way to move on is to simply laugh, identify why we fell short, show ourselves some love, and then pick ourselves up and try again.

Remember, consistency is the key. Even if your habits are practiced in small doses, you’re still realizing your values and Themes. If you workout three times a week for 15 minutes each time, you’re still the type of person that doesn’t miss a workout. Focus on establishing consistent rhythms in life, then scale them for impact.

Remaining mindful of our habits helps us identify when we have veered off course. It’s a lot easier to course-correct if we notice it happening sooner rather than later. Practicing mindfulness also helps us fully appreciate each moment we live in, connect with others, and align our actions with our values.

How Goals Fit In

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I’m still a goal setter. I believe that goals can be important targets to aim our energy at. They can galvanize a burst of effort towards a specific cause. Especially in the short-term, they can be powerful in prioritizing our endeavors. Goals can also help us measure specific impacts on business, finances, relationships, and many other arenas of life.

However, the achievement of goals for achievement’s sake is an empty pursuit. Chasing goals that don’t align with our values or mission seems to be a major contributor to burnout. Placing our value as people on the attainment of goals separates us from our center; from our highest selves. Our worth is in more than the goals that we accomplish; it’s intrinsic to our existence as human beings. Aligning with our intrinsic worth is found in living our values, making contributions to others, and expressing gratitude for our life.

Conclusion

I hope that you have found value from this post, and that it gives you a framework for identifying how you or your team can align your actions to your values. The exercise described above can be done individually, or also in a group. Doing it with a group can be a powerful experience, as we get to learn more about what others have experienced, and what their hopes are for the future.

If you go through this exercise, let us know what you find by dropping a comment below, by tagging Intentional Leader on LinkedIn, or by visiting our Intentional Leader Lab on Facebook! We would also love feedback on the exercise via private message or through our contact form. Please let us know if there is any way that we can help you bravely enter into the new year while discovering your own fulfillment!

Tim is a young professional whose life mission is to create supportive communities, so that others may thrive. He is the Process Manager for an HVAC distributor, where he has worked since he graduated from The University of Scranton in 2015.

With a bachelors in Operations Management and a minor in Philosophy, Tim spends his time critically thinking about optimizing people and processes. He strongly believes that each person has the power within them to positively affect the world, and that the role of a leader is to help their people harness that power.

Tim subscribes to the ideals of Servant Leadership, more specifically in connection with Jesuit/Ignatian ideals of care for the whole person, service of others, and striving for the "more." Tim lives in New Jersey with his wife, and he has a passion for soccer, photography, and personal development.

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A Mindset Shift: From Achievement Addiction to Embracing the Ordinary

December 01, 2021 by Cal Walters in Self Management

By: Wes Cochrane

What do we do when life and work feel unremarkable?

Can you relate to any of these feelings?

I feel blah. I feel like I’m going through the motions at home and at work.

Everyone, besides me, seems to be getting ahead.

I just feel ordinary.

Is this all there is?

I’m not the best at anything.

I’m not passionate about anything.

Nobody has praised my work recently.

These are all legitimate feelings, and they might have a host of causes. One that you may relate to – and one that has dogged me lately – is an unrealistic expectation that I should be achieving spectacular, measurable results all the time.

We live in a culture where being “ordinary” is discouraged. Think back to the cartoonish efforts we made in high school or college to compile a list of “extracurriculars” in a drive to impress college admissions offices or potential employers.

Consider the humble brags that proliferate social media (looking at you LinkedIn…) where folks announce how “incredibly humbled” they are to have graduated from fill-in-the-blank, or “accepted” an internship or job with fill-in-the-blank.

We are obsessed with achievement. And we’re terrified of being ordinary. And academic studies are bearing this out.

A study published in 2018 found that a survey between 1989 and 2016 of over 40,000 college students from the U.K., U.S., and Canada revealed that perfectionism is on the rise and may be causing increased rates of anxiety and depression in young people. A 2018 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report listed “excessive pressure to excel” as one factor, among things like poverty, past and current trauma, racism, and sexism that increase anxiety in youth.

This leads to a critical point – there is nothing inherently wrong with achievement. Achievement is a good thing! If you’re anything like me, though, where you might go wrong is in making an idol out of achievement, or passively assuming that you can or should always be achieving.

The reality is that life and achievement are dynamic. Like with anything, there is a natural ebb and flow in life.

Consider farming.

The farmer readies his fields. He prepares them. He sows seed throughout his fields. He waters that seed. He maintains his fields. He waits. The farmer doesn’t curse his seed for growing too slowly. He doesn’t consider digging it up and starting over. He knows it takes time. He knows he can’t rush a harvest. Then, at the proper time, after weeks or months of growth, his fields are ready for harvest..

Compared to the growth, the harvest is short – yet that harvest is what will bring the farmer income. That harvest is how he’ll measure his success.

But no rational farmer would ever expect a perpetual harvest. Yet, that is essentially what many of us do in our lives. At least I have before… It’s easy to forget that much of life is preparing and waiting. And that’s OK. That is ordinary. And there is beauty in the ordinary.

Consider Mirriam-Webster’s definition of “ordinary” – “of a kind to be expected in the normal order of events: routine, usual.”

I’m no stranger to the ordinary. For me, this current season is not a harvest – not even close. Back in the classroom this year, I’m on receive mode. My “work” is to be an engaged student; nothing more. After coming off of what felt like nearly three years of blitzkrieg in my previous work, it all feels rather, well, quiet. And at first blush, that was deeply unsettling. No fires to put out; no one relying on me at work; fewer opportunities to achieve. I had to step back. I had to take note of what season I was in.

When I did that, things made more sense.

So, in this particular season, I’m practicing gratitude. Gratitude for the extra time; gratitude for the extra sleep; gratitude for the uninterrupted moments with my wife and children; gratitude for my dog; gratitude for the chance to practice rest (what Christians call “Sabbath”). I read. I read as many books as I reasonably can (including audiobooks). I’m not reading in a hurry – I’m reading because I can. Because I know it will bear fruit down the road. Because I enjoy it. For the first time in years, I’m gathering regularly with good friends around the digital campfire (thank you Zoom, thank you Google Hangout) – we catch up, we share ideas, we discuss problems to solve. I’m not in a hurry, just enjoying the time. Most of all, during this season, I’m increasingly at peace with how beautifully ordinary life is.

Returning to where we began; if you’re feeling stuck or frustrated or “blah” in this season of life, consider stepping back and adjusting your perspective. Like the farmer, be faithful in the small things. Water, weed, and maintain your lands. The farmer is busy all year. He doesn’t rest on his laurels. He diligently and faithfully tends to his farm as he awaits the harvest.

So what season are you in? Are you sowing? Are you maintaining and tending to the crop? Are you in a harvest?

Leave a comment below and let us know how you embrace the ordinary in your life and work.

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Wes and his wife, Anne, have three children.