Tag: relationship building

October 13, 2022

Building Trust

How are you building trust in your community as a leader?

Photo by Rob Wicks on Unsplash

Building trust is an intentional practice. Building trust is an essential practice of an effective leader. You need to create a plan to accomplish this ongoing task of building, earning, and gaining trust with individuals and with groups in your community. It’s never too late to start!

Consider some of these actionable items:

  • Meet one on one with all your direct reports. This can be an annual goal meeting or it can be a non-agenda meetup that is time for your direct report to share who they are. Everyone should get the same opportunity in your team. 
  • Follow through when you say you will. If you say you will do something, do it. This is a huge trust builder. Alternatively, if you say you will do something and you don’t, it is a huge trust breaker. 
September 15, 2022

Stress: Why Do You Care?

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

Are you experiencing stress? Why should you care? It may mean that something or someone you care about is involved. According to Dan Harris in the Ten Percent Happier Stress Better Meditation Challenge Series, stress can be a signal that something matters to you. Professor Modupe Akinola of Columbia University suggests that when you realize you are stressed try to find out why you care. She calls this a ‘reappraisal’ of the stress and states that one way to NOT feel as much stress is to figure out the underlying reason why you care. Rather than focusing on the cause of the stress, focus on why you care about what’s causing the stress.

Here are some steps they suggest from the Ten Percent Happier Stress Better Challenge:

  • Tune in to your feeling of stress: Know when your body feels stressed, be aware of when it is happening, and notice. 
November 30, 2021

Your Words Matter: Think Before You Talk

As a young child, my father had a phrase, I might even say it was a mantra, that he often communicated to my sisters and to me, ‘Think before you talk.” Even as I type it out now, I feel the eye roll of an adolescent child begin to take over. As a young female in a South Asian immigrant family, I interpreted this phrase as ‘be quiet’ or ‘speak when spoken to’ and I did just that. I was an introverted, quiet child who spoke rarely in the school setting. I often kept a long and winding inner narrative alive in my head but rarely shared my thoughts with others. I did not think my words mattered to others. Now as many years have passed, I actually find myself thinking of this phrase with new meaning.

As an adult, a leader, an educator, and a parent I have learned through many small and big moments that this was not the full interpretation of the phrase.

November 3, 2021

What’s Behind the Behavior?

When I was teaching, each child in the classroom acted differently. Their behaviors were a way of communicating: of sharing thoughts, feelings, and needs that were maybe not being met. As leaders, we can look at our teams similarly to how children act in classrooms. Look closely at your team and think of their behaviors. A close exploration of their actions can help you understand their beliefs and so much more. Elena Aguilar talks about transformational coaching and the 3B’s, behaviors, beliefs, and being. She talks about behaviors (instructional practices and skills) leading to effective practice, exploring the beliefs (about teaching, learning, children, and families) that you operate from, and ways of being, “the ways in which our sense of self and identity impact our experience”. What is your team telling you, both as individuals and as a group through their behaviors? 

Questions to ask as you observe your team:

  • What is the need behind their behavior?
September 8, 2021

What’s in a Name?

What’s in a name? When I was growing up, I can’t tell you the number of times people either mispronounced my name or just didn’t say it at all. In ninth grade, I switched schools and somehow a classmate assigned me a shortened version of my name. It stuck. This made life infinitely easier. As time went by, I felt a loss for my full given name. Who was I making it easier for? Me or others? I realized I was just trying to avoid microaggressions and awkward, challenging moments that others created because they couldn’t be bothered to take the time and effort to attempt an unfamiliar name.

Names are a big part of a person’s identity and probably one of the first things that you learn about a person. It’s natural to sometimes mispronounce an unfamiliar name. Most of the time, there are no bad intentions involved. Still, the impact of mispronouncing a name, not taking the time to learn the correct pronunciation, or using ‘nicknames’ can be harmful.

August 2, 2021

Develop a Sense of Belonging

How can you develop a sense of belonging this year? As you prepare for students, families, faculty, and staff to return to campus, there is much to think about: maintaining health and safety, preparing facilities, gathering supplies, and so much more. When you welcome your community back to campus, remember an important part of your preparation: How will you develop a sense of belonging? 

Belonging, One of Our Basic Needs:

According to psychiatrist William Glasser, Belonging is one of our basic needs. He defines love and belonging as one of our essential psychological needs for seeking relationships, making connections, giving and receiving affection and feeling part of a group. Sebene Selassie, mindfulness expert and author of You Belong, describes belonging as coming from within a person and states that difference does not mean ‘not belonging.’ Selassie writes, “Difference” does not equal “not belonging,” but as many of us live farther away from our families and as we connect to multiple communities and cultures, our sense of belonging feels tenuous.”

May 14, 2021

Finishing the Year with Gratitude

As the school year comes to an end, a gratitude practice can intentionally direct hearts and minds to name and offer thanks for little things. It can focus our thoughts on positive aspects of our life and our work. It can help turn a deficit mindset of feeling, that nothing is ever enough, into a plentiful mindset of feeling fulfilled. Our capacity to feel generous is increased when we feel we have enough. When we practice gratitude, we focus less on wanting/grasping and resisting/pushing away. Practicing gratitude as a team is an opportunity to see our interdependence and feel a connection. 

Gratitude practices, over time, can have an impact on physical and mental health and the brain. “… simply expressing gratitude may have lasting effects on the brain,” noted Joshua Brown and Joel Wong in their research on gratitude. Research has shown connections between gratitude practices and physical and mental health.

March 3, 2021

Are You Listening?

An essential part of leadership and managing your direct reports is intentional listening. When you listen carefully to your people, you…

  • Learn about the person
  • Build trust with the person
  • Understand more about the content/issue/circumstance
  • Position yourself to collaborate and problem solve
  • Ask better questions that lead to uncovering the real problem
  • Respond instead of react 
  • Realize you might be wrong

These are just some of the advantages of intentional listening. 

Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, speaks about various types of approaches to communication in his conversation with Dan Harris on The Ten Percent Happier Podcast. Grant describes the preacher, the politician, the prosecutor, and the scientist. He defines the preacher mode as wanting to persuade because we have already found the truth, the politician is campaigning for approval, the prosecutor mode is about proving the other person wrong and the scientist has a curious approach and wants to learn. 

February 18, 2021

Finding Joy

Are you finding joy in your work? Does it matter? I answer with a resounding ‘YES!’

A few years back, I was chatting with my nephew who was teaching middle school students. He was at a crossroad wondering whether to keep launching his career in education or pivot towards a career in law. There were many things to consider. Both his parents and grandfather pursued the law as a career. He considered the financial sustainability of a career in education in the U.S.A. There was the matter of time to think about as well. How much time did he want to spend in graduate school and working his way through a profession? There was definitely a lot to consider in both these choices.

As the conversation went on, I asked him one question: What brings you joy about working with middle school kids? His eyes lit up as he talked about how each child’s personality and story was different which brought something dynamic to the classroom each day.

February 3, 2021

Leaders: Inclusivity Matters

Inclusivity matters.

Do you have an inclusive workplace? 

Do your employees feel welcome each day? 

Do they have a sense of belonging in the community?

Inclusivity matters. When people don’t feel a sense of belonging, they feel excluded, their performance goes down, and it impacts their health and well-being. According to Professor Binna Kandola in his book, Free To Soar, Race and Well Being in Organisations, “A sense of belonging and inclusion in the workplace is vital for all employees’ well-being, yet the default state that minorities find themselves in is exclusion.”

The leader is the catalyst. They play a key role in creating an inclusive workplace. This intentional work can create more positive work environments for all employees and help typically marginalized employees feel included which can lead to better performance and increased health and well being. Think of your workplace as a classroom with you as the teacher.