Travel Agents / Tour Guides

Are we unable to label ourselves as leaders because we aren’t sure of our own definition of the term? Do pre/miss-conceptions stop us from being everyday leaders because we are so wrapped up in seeing leaders are world changers with tangible outcomes? [Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Nelson Mandela] we see leadership as achieving something through a movement which can be measured as opposed to intrinsic and intangible moments and opportunities to make someone’s life different or better?

Or is that what makes it interesting and intriguing, that leaders and leadership look different to everyone.. so by having these ideologies we create our own unique leader of ourselves? This then makes developing leaders difficult, we have to change attitudes before being able to develop them.

 

Sometimes we seem to forget that leadership isn't a position, or rather a position doesn't make you a leader. John Maxwell would say leadership positions and forced followers is level 1, probably not really leadership at all. Real leadership comes when followers follow because they want to, because the 'leader' puts other people first and in the right seats on the bus. 

 

At times, people feel the need to have a 'leadership position' before they feel they can develop as a leader. But returning to the top, if we can change the thoughts we have of what a leader is, we can completely change the way we look at things ourselves. 

 

There are people in 'leadership positions' who maybe aren't even leaders at all, because leadership is a choice, a conscious decision to look after the person next to you, and the people around you. Leaders are willing to sacrifice themselves for others, whatever that sacrifice looks like. Too often, perhaps, perceived leaders sacrifice others to helps themselves. They've got it wrong. 

 

You cant buy leadership, you cant buy followers. Research seems to suggest that leadership comes from small acts [not always small] of showing the importance of others, making them feel safe. How often do we communicate through methods because it's easy - not because it's right. How safe are our organizations and groups from top to bottom, inside to out? 

 

An analogy which resonates really well, a leader isn't and cant be a travel agent - someone who sits in a plush office telling people where to go, even though they probably haven't been there before. Leaders are tour guides, they take people with them.

Is the leader the travel agent who persuades you to take the safari, or the guide who sits with you along the way?

The one happy to throw you into danger, or the one who knows when and how to let you tamper with danger?

 

A want to grow beyond your role, is that a leader? Or is that part of a culture created by leaders who understand that to support others you have to keep on developing and growing yourself.

 

Is leadership therefore a culture? A culture which differs from perception to perception. It is this wanting to help the person next to you, the want to travel together which supports Football Futures? That's the FF culture, and seems to be present in those who truly understand the programme.

 

Can leadership be a culture? Or can leadership inspire a culture? Or is culture created and lived through a certain type/ way of being a leader?

 

Who we are is who we attract. If we continue to be travel agents, we continue to sacrifice others for our own gain. If we create tour guides, we sacrifice ourselves to support others.

Mindfulness

An aim for the season is to understand and develop mindfulness. A route to making sense of emotions, being able to understand them to move on and away from them. Through uni developing a mindset/ outlook which isn't black and white has taken time, seeing in shades of grey. 

It is 1 things to see in shades of grey, another to act and respond in the same way. 

Mindfulness is being able to focus the mind on the present. Not ruminating on the past, worrying over the future - but enjoying the moment, which is every moment.

A nice analogy of mindfulness and a way to think of it, dealing with emotions as if they are visitors coming to your guest house or just house in general. If you give them a negative response, that's how they will stay. The best way to go is by having a positive outlook, being welcoming throughout and then letting them pass when necessary. 

By acknowledging emotions / thoughts they lose power. We start to create stories to make us feel better, allowing emotions to manifest by leaving them be. 

A great deal of mindfulness comes with the ability to notice.. to notice when thoughts are being hijacked. I guess, noticing when the chimp takes over and being able to rein him/her in. There are many ways in which to developing mindfulness which stem from being present to a sense. 

Science and research shows that we as humans cannot access more than 1 sense at a time, we cant. We cant hear fully whilst tasting, we cannot put our attention 100% into feeling whilst also seeing. Having an sense which also includes breathing as an anchor offers a starting point, when we feel thoughts drifting we come back to this. 

An interesting concept to tame the mind, thoughts and emotions which seem to rule the world upstairs. Challenge is finding methods and exercises to develop mindfulness, just like exercising a muscle, we need to exercise the brain.. make it feel uncomfortable and put in the effort to develop being present. 

What is a leader?

Canadians define the 'leader' as the first boat going out to test the water.. which is great if you're a Canadian stuck in the past.What if leaders and leadership is bigger than that? What if leaders are the ones at the front, middle and back.. the stray boats who join half way through.. the ones lagging behind? What if, leaders are everyday people?

The thing with leaders and people who we admire/ look up to is that we try to imitate and copy them. Take the traits we like and make them our own.. which is fine, but halo-led plagiarism isn't going to help anyone if we don't modify traits and make them fit for purpose.

Returning to previous thoughts around the leader who I most admire and why, I was asked last week to draw the attribute that person has.. so I drew the below.

To much amusement, this is a stick man representing me, bouncing on a trampoline which is my Dad. I've not lost the plot. A trampoline represents support. I would go as far as saying all of my admired leaders have a position around the outside of this.. all holding tight but in their own position. 

A a person jumps, the outcome isn't a result of the trampoline springs alone, but mainly built up of the effort put in by the jumper.. ie: me. This effort is supported by the springs and trampoline. 

You kind of need an even spread for this to work. Springs all on one side help nobody, just a half hearted point of relying too much on the same people. A spread across the circle creates a starting point, but I guess those springs have to be springs.. not like metal pylons or tree branches who will snap under any pressure. But people who trust that your bounce wont hurt them, but test them as much as you.

That trampoline will support you on your way up from a jump, but also support you on your way back down. But the key to jumping high is the effort you put in. 

My Dad has always encouraged me to make my own mistakes and do what I enjoy even if it doesn't make me reach the highest peaks of financial wealth.. it's about enjoyment and that's worth a lot more. So it's up to me as the jumper to try a back flip [not advisable], or to land on my bottom, to find a rhythm and jump as high as I can consistently or whatever I choose. 

If my Dad is the person I admire most and we copy those who we hold close.. is it wrong for me to want to be a trampoline or even just a spring? Does it make sense that after being put in an environment to allow mistakes to happen, I'm happy to offer that support to other people?

Maybe that's where I'm at. By examining who I admire as a leader, I can see similarities and start to link where my traits may have been born or stolen from. 

Is it then irony, that after speaking to my Dad about leadership stuff, he said he has support me and my siblings to be who we want to be.. but I've ended up being a bit like him? This may not be so, but the research is pretty strong. If we pick up behaviours from those who we admire, copy them on an unconscious basis, maybe we can conform to the personality and character of a person as a whole. 

Research also suggests we resist things we don't agree with.. but we cant agree with something until we have an opinion or reason not to. Where does that reason come from? Experience and previous habits. Where do initial habits and opinions come from.. those who we're around a lot as a child and growing up. 

Only when we stop and think, are these my values or those of someone I spend a lot of time with. Are these my opinions, or those of someone who I want to impress.

Leading The Self

'Be a zoo keeper, always open the zoo.'

At the time of writing, this was a thought of who I am when leading others. Who am I when in situation when I am required to work with or deal with others. But, at no point did I consider the person I am when leading myself.

Weird thought, but we lead ourselves 24/7 and we're the person we want to be.. but do we consider how we wish to lead ourselves on a daily basis? Probably not.

May be a straight forward thought and clear common sense, but a leadership philosophy should resist and pull into all 'leadership' scenarios, so possibly all day everyday?

As stolen from a friend, 'coaches are role models whether they want to be or not.' [or words to that effect] I'd go as far as, we're all role models whether we want to be or not. At any moment, people are watching us. Just thinking about the small things we unconsciously copy from others, we're being leaders all of the time.

So, this philosophy, is who we are and what we live on a daily basis.. it just so happens to be based and ignited around what we class as 'leadership' scenarios.. typically leading others.

But leading the self, that's quite a difficult job.

Recent weeks/ events have led to think and know, that I have to be a zoo keeper all the time.. and sometimes the zoo is myself. How do I open and present myself? What does the SN Zoo - which I think describes it rather well - look like to the visitors who I come into contact with on a daily basis. And to me.

This is getting a little too deep, but I guess that's good. How I look after myself, when nobody is looking is just as important as the person I am in-front of anybody in any scenario.

If I don't look after the personal zoo, that's going to restrict the ability to look after a group of people.

I think that, I need to stop thinking of leadership as something which needs to involve somebody else.. because it doesn't.

Just like the phrase, 'how can other people believe in you, if you don't believe in yourself.' I guess you cant lead other people, if you cant lead yourself.

Food for thought. If I was to publically display the way I treat myself - leading the self - would that incur the response I would want if I were to lead others in the same way? A very honest question, and one I don't like the answer to.

This week I have been told, 'expectation is the mother of all frustrations' and know I put the bar well above my head for standards and judge myself and respond to that in a way I would to nobody else. Why? have I become accustomed to it? Am I willfully blind to the effect it has on me? I think so.

If I were to lead others the way I lead the self, nobody would ever want to follow.

Something's not right.

Who you are to who you want to be?

The person we are now, and the person we wish to become aren't two different people. Once we realise it is a choice, and ours at that, we can make those steps forwards. It's time to don our invisible capes and be our own hero. 

After doing my own thinking, I came to the below thoughts. On the left, the leader/person I am now or perceived to be. One the right, the visionary Sarah Nickless as a 'leader'. In the middle, and most importantly, what will that journey look like?

In brief, currently I stand on perpetrated foundations of values and beliefs, my focus isn't always on the right target, thoughts and reflections make up a lot of who I am- and at times those thoughts are not relevant, finally I believe I am heavily other person centred to the point at which that is a sole focus as opposed to putting myself first and being person centred second.

The visionary leader stands on solid foundations, tried and tested experience, solid values and beliefs which expand and shrink in needs of situations. The cape represents the knowledge of the ability to fly from conflict and unwanted situations, but also knowing how/when to fight. The visionary SN will still be person centred, but other people are detached from SN as opposed to internalised. 

That journey in the middle is one of developing and understanding processes. There are a lot of 'how' questions to be answered, what will these processes look like? How do I and will I respond to new and challenging situations? How do I distance myself from defaulting to putting others first all of the time? How and when to use the cape? 

Still being fresh to the real world, this journey is difficult with little previous experiences to fall back on. Confrontation and challenges seem minor compared to anything within working life, but that doesn't mean that aren't valuable learning experiences. 

Intriguing, but exciting challenge heading into 2016.

#Legoooo

Why do we see leaders as they are?

Think about people who you hold to be great leaders, to be inspirational and influential? What skills and attributes gives them that title in your mind? 

Having spoken to fellow National Game Youth Council members it seems that the poll is divided between world leaders, 'celebrities', well known names right down to peers and colleagues. Research suggests Nelson Mandela, Ghandi and Mother Teresa are up there in the top ten people who are most commonly chosen as influential leaders.

It's understanding why these people are seen as leaders which makes this task so interesting. The way they stood up for what they believe in. The way they put the interest of others well above them-self. The way they handled a situation. The way they have influenced a chance. The way they... 
It's not difficult to see why leaders are seen as influential and inspirational, most of which have had a setback in their life and overcome it. Take Walt Disney as a key example, someone who had knock back after knock back.. something you wouldn't know if you didn't look into it. Someone who has created characters which are relatable for near on every person in the world, all with their own personality, character and view points which I think is why we all love Disney in some way. [Before you ask, Goofy is my favourite.]

Although I 100% appreciate and understand the reasons behind having a 'Big Name' as someone in your top 5 influential leaders, I don't. For me, an influential and inspiring leader is someone who I have a personal/emotional connection with. Someone who makes me feel something. They haven''t had to overcome a set back, or change the world to be recognised.. they have just changed 'my world' with their attitude and behaviour.

Now linking a few dots, if we go back to my favourite Disney character, I can see that Goofy links to my chosen 5 because of who he is. The character who puts everyone and their agendas before his own, tries to make the most of all situations, looks for happiness in life and those matter most to him. In a recent book I have been reading, it firmly holds the ground, research supporting, that people are drawn to those similar to them. We are blind to a wider view due to our unconscious bias. I am drawn to Goofy because I can connect with him. My chosen 5 leaders are people who I can connect with on a personal level. 

I do recognise the work of Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama and the like.. however, I struggle to connect with them. Their work, hasn't directly impacted on who I am and what I do. 

As I defined leadership in the previous post, a leader is someone who has influenced me positively through small acts. People who make me 'feel felt' who are fully present in conversations and communications. People who give up their time for me and others. People who allow me to make my own mistakes and support the learning. People who ask the right questions, believe in others, and care about the development of others as much as their own. Just people. 

A nice thought I read on twitter [font of all knowledge] around football coaches, is that if we try to replicate the Pep Guardiolas, Jose Mourinhos, Jurgen Klopps we will always be running behind. We don't have their thoughts, aren't at their point of life. By the time we reach where they are now, they will have moved on. If we focus on who we are, how we can be a better version of ourselves, develop those thoughts we can become a great leader ourselves.

Surround yourself with those who can allow you to do just that. 

Starting Point

For me, leadership isn't something to aim towards. Something out of reach which we might obtain one day. Leadership is shown through small acts which influence another positively. 

For now,  I am happy with the above, but I am sure that notion won't stay the same for long. 

This season is one of a new journey into leadership and my own leadership philosophy. A new level of individual understanding, and I guess, finding myself. That could imply the question, do you have to be lost in the first place to find yourself? No, of course not. For me, this is understanding the starting point and being willing to look backwards to understand the past in order to develop for the future.

A lot of my university papers around coaching, coaching philosophies and environments are helpful and provide a core understanding of the importance of understanding yourself as a coach and what you want to achieve before setting out for the sports field. The common knowledge that a philosophy is built up on values, beliefs and behaviours. The interesting quest is understanding why I have those values and beliefs, who put them there? Why did I, and do I adopt them? Research tells us that we resist, revise and accept the world around us, influential others -family, peers, friends, teachers etc have a real hold on influencing us and most of the time this happens without anyone noticing.. well, not until we stop and think about it. You could then say, that whatever I find across the course of the season, isn't really the 'Sarah Nickless Philosophy' but rather a shared philosophy stolen from others, which I have pulled together to be my own. Is that a bad thing? No. That is an understanding of the person who I want to be, acknowledgement of people and thing around me, and the ability to accept, revise, resist and develop thoughts, behaviours, values and, well, pretty much everything around me. 

This journey and challenge is one I am already relishing. From my other blog [  www.football-futures-effect.blogspot.co.uk ] I think it is relatively clear I enjoy deep thinking, questioning thoughts and trying to make sense of the world around me. 

My starting point has been returning to a uni paper around developing a coaching environment, stripping everything back to individual value and beliefs. 

Initial thoughts:

‘Investing time in understanding people and their agendas to develop best approaches to reaching common goals.’

Underpinned by:

Understand the person first, role second.
Individual agendas, aims and individuals need to be taken into account.
Best approaches to reach an outcome, built around understanding the strengths of a group, collaborating and being in ‘the zone.’ [KL]
If we don’t take the time to understand our team, we have no hope of them investing in the team projects and aims.

Underpinned by values & beliefs:

Other people first
Do what makes you happy
Respect others
Take the time to understand others and situations.
Politeness costs nothing.

Leadership isn’t something to aspire to have. Lollipop moments look different to everyone; we need to know what they look like and how to give them.

What is leadership?

Inspiration, integrity, understanding, footsteps, positive influence, passionate, clear vision.
Taking opportunities to make situations better.
Where to look but not what to see.
Empowering, not over powering.

Through further thinking, pondering and questioning I have come to a different conclusion, or rather and adapted version of the above. It's been difficult to pull together the above plus additional thoughts together into a coherent statement which I think can be my 'Leadership Philosophy.' But for now, I happy with the line, 'Be a zoo keeper, always open the zoo.' Which to me represents many layers of thoughts, which will stay in my philosophy document for now. 

I've already run into a number of challenges, and more so challenging thoughts. Ones I hadn't considered, and honestly struggle to understand. I know that everything I do is built around putting others first, honesty, respect... but I don't know how I live that? What do I do to adapt to situations? Is a good example. And I don't know the answer. I've spent a lot of time learning and reading about how people learn, think, how brains works to try and understand how other people react to the world around them and I think this has enabled me to put others first, because I consciously look to understand them and take pride in that effort. You could then ask, 'Sarah, why would you bother going to that effort?' And again, I'd say I don't know.. I'd like to hope I might be able to find out. 

I'm interested to see where this all takes me, under pressure will I still be the same person? Who knows, until those situations arise I can only guess and prepare. Every opportunity to test this will be interesting and who knows, I might be wrong and end up like Randell from Monsters University and get it all wrong..

That's a risk I'm ready to take. 

Leadership is most definitely the gaps between the notes, the walking in-between mountains, recognising the journey not the outcome. 

I best go and tend to the Zoo. 

OAO.