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.