servant leadership Archives - The Hockey Mom Fit Life

January 20, 2018January 20, 2018

Disappointment

Disappointment is such a heavy word as it coveys all the feelings that come along with it. The pit in your stomach, the sadness, that gnawing feeling that you should have listened to your gut, etc. I don’t like being being disappointed, but it is a part of life. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this feeling. Moreover, nobody likes to be disappointed by their leadership. This is something I take very seriously in my role.

I’ve lead teams at major corporations for the last eleven years. When you talk about leadership, two important tenets are equality and fairness. If you hold your people to different standards, you will falter as a leader. Actually, you will fail as a leader. Nobody will have respect for you and ultimately your results will reflect the inequity and unfair practices. For me policies and procedures are agnostic to performance or tenure. While this is common sense it isn’t always widely practiced.

While these tenets apply to leadership in a corporate environment, they also apply to schools, sports organizations, organizations like the boy scouts. A lack of equity or fairness in leadership is much more insidious when it impacts our kids. While life is certainly unfair, it emboldens bad behavior. Unfortunately, due to poor leadership, some kids or players think that they are above the rules. As a result, they are woefully disrespectful to everyone. This isn’t a recipe for success.

Ultimately, these types of leaders create an environment that lacks accountability and respect. They may enjoy short term success, but ultimately the culture will lead them to failure. This type of leadership creates an unsustainable environment. In addition, people that are treated unfairly learn to be honorable in the face of dishonor. Moreover, they learn resilience. Ultimately, they move on to new organizations.

As I said above, life isn’t fair, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about leading a team or an organization honorably, which creates a high producing environment. I witnessed a lack of leadership this evening that was disappointing. Truly, it was the same story last weekend. However, change is always on the horizon. Don’t be the type of leader that creates misanthropic kids or employees or an atmosphere rife with disrespect.

Tonight’s song performed by Offspring is “The Kids Aren’t Alright.” Offspring’s debut CD was also one of the first CDs I bought. Moreover, this is one of my favorite songs from the late 90’s. It is also one of my kids’ favorite songs. The Mayor had two hockey games at home today. I was able to play the music today, so I chose a 90’s theme in honor of Delores O’Riordan. What’s your favorite song from the 90’s?

November 10, 2017November 10, 2017

Friday Afternoon Bowling

Today I spent my Friday afternoon bowling at a team building event for one of our business partners. On the heels of yesterday’s BBQ for our team, bowling and building relationships with our business partners was awesome. Truly, I spent a good part of my week building relationships and on employee engagement. Is there anything better?

Unequivocally, one of the things I love about my job is the people I work with. Some are on my team, but many work across the organization in the departments we work with daily. Silos are the greatest danger to any organization. Make it your mission to remove silos from our place of employment. Make it your mission to make positive relationships with the people that support your department, but may work outside of it.

That’s all I have for career/work advice tonight. Let’s talk about the bowling. I’m awful. Truly I don’t have enough fingers on my hand to count the gutter balls I threw today. Consequently, during our second game I switched to bowling from my left hand. The first ball I threw left handed resulted in (gulp) a gutter ball. I promptly followed it up with a right handed spare. Thereafter, I alternated between the hands in resulted in a score that was double my second game.

In fact, in game two I even led for a moment. Albeit a brief moment. For that brief moment between the 2nd and 3rd frame of game 2, I was in the lead. Since this never happens, I simply had to take a picture of my amazing accomplishment. Unfortunately, I followed it up with some more gutter balls before netting another spare and two strikes. You can only imagine the awesomeness of my post-strike strut.

My AD and I had joined the white team. There were five teams and we rocked it. As sure as I was that I would torpedo the team, we killed it. We had a blast! It was such a great opportunity to meet new people, connect with those we know and build positive relationships. While I will never become a professional bowler (cue the small violin here,) I look forward to my next bowling trip my colleagues. Special thanks to our friends TE and NM for the invite.

Tonight’s song “Smooth” by Santana ft. Rob Thomas.

November 9, 2017November 9, 2017

Serving Others

Today was all about serving others – literally. As a thank you to our staff and business partners, we threw a BBQ for our entire South Florida team. While this wasn’t our first rodeo, it was our third, our last two BBQs have been for a team of 40-50. Comparatively, today’s BBQ was for a paltry 450 people! For the majority of the team, leadership included, this was their first offsite BBQ.

Our day started early with a trip to Sam’s to pick up the food we had pre-ordered. While MK and I got the food, the rest of our crew headed to the park to start the grills. In order to serve by noon, we started grilling at 10. Our chefs, as always, were fantastic. When I finally got a chance to eat a burger, it was incredible. By the time our teams showed up to eat, we were more than ready to go.

For the next three hours, my team and I served our employees burgers, hot dogs and veggie burgers. It was an amazing opportunity for us to interact with our teams and build new relationships on our expanded team. We spent the entirety of our day preparing for the BBQ, executing and cleaning up the park. Unquestionably, it is hard for us to be away from the laptops for extended periods of time, but it is worth it to serve our teams.

Some leaders fall into the trap of getting caught up in titles and even self -importance. True leadership, however, is about serving those that report to you. I privileged to be part of a team that espouses the servant leadership philosophy. After I left the insurance industry years ago, I never wanted to be in a leadership position again. Surprisingly, here I am in a leadership position again. What drew me back into the leadership role was the commitment to servant leadership.

Today was an exhausting, but rewarding day. The opportunity to meet and celebrate the people that make an organization successful was amazing. I look forward to our next event celebrating the team’s success and our employees. In the interim, I remain grateful for the opportunity to serve my team as a servant leader.

Lastly, I’ve been handling my iPhone X gingerly, so as to not drop it. I’m acclimated slowly to the major changes on the phone. Truly, the facial recognition piece is amazing. Once I’ve gotten accustom to it, I will post my review here.

Tonight’s song: “Mr. Jones” I’m totally on a 90s music kick this week. Can you tell? What’s your favorite 90s tune?

June 8, 2017June 8, 2017

Be Authentic

Who we are, how we lead, how we work, how we parent and decisions we make are all based on a frame work of morals and ethics that were ingrained with us from our youth. Sure over the years, our moral and ethical framework evolves, but the shifts are not crisp, nor are they tectonic in nature. Or are they?

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I believe in servant leadership and have practiced it in my current role and at my previous company. My leadership style isn’t and wasn’t based upon a company or management philosophy in place, but rather based on how my moral and ethical framework interprets the role of a corporate leader. In other words, it is authentic to who I am and how I operate. My leadership style has never been a tool of expediency.

There are times in our lives, where it will be tempting to give into expediency and pivot from our ethical framework and our leadership style. Giving into the expediency may result in short term gains, but as a leader the voracity of your character will be questioned by your subordinates and those above you. Before you pivot to expedience, ask yourself if the short term gains will outweigh the longer term ramifications. How will your organization perform if they no longer have faith in you or your intentions? Is it worth the risk? I would argue all day every day that it is never worth the risk.