Some define Consciousness as being painfully aware.

Maybe that is why it is also said that ignorance is bliss—less consciousness equating to less pain??

The four stages of development are:

1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence
3. Conscious competence
4. Unconscious competence

And all development starts with awareness—becoming more conscious:

• Awareness that what you know today is less than you will know tomorrow, but more than what you knew yesterday.
• Awareness that if you don’t do something different you will stay where you are.

However…unless and until you do something with your increased awareness the added knowledge is just useless information.

That is what is meant by consciously choosing to operate above the line. Taking ownership of our circumstances. Welcoming accountability for our actions. Accepting responsibility for the outcomes.

Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp wrote a great book on this subject, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. 

Their experience is that:

• Unconscious leadership is not sustainable. It won’t work for you, your team or your organization in the long term. 
• Unconscious leadership can deliver short-term results, but the costs of living and leading unconsciously are great. 
• Fear drives most leaders to make choices that are at odds with healthy relationships, vitality and balance. This fear leaves a toxic residue that won’t be as easily tolerated in an increasingly complex business environment.
• Conscious leadership offers the antidote to fear.

Their book contains a comprehensive road map to guide you to shift from fear-based to trust-based leadership. They claim that once you learn and start practicing conscious leadership you’ll get results in the form of more energy, clarity, focus and healthier relationships. You’ll do more and more of what you are passionate about, and less of what you do out of obligation. You’ll have more fun, be happier, experience less drama and be more on purpose. 

Your team will get results as well. They’ll be more collaborative, creative, energized and engaged. They’ll solve issues faster, and once resolved the issues won’t resurface. Drama and gossip will all but disappear, and the energy and resources that fueled them will be redirected towards innovation and creativity.

Dethmer, Chapman, and Klemp assert that any one of the 15 commitments will change your life, but all of them together are revolutionary. 

Their promise is that leaders who practice the 15 commitments: 

• End blame and criticism
• Speak candidly, openly and honestly, in a way that invites others to do the same
• Find their unique genius
• Let go of taking everything—especially themselves and their problems—so seriously
• Create win for all solutions
• Experience a new relationship to time and money where there is always enough

What do you need to bring to the table? Be curious. Sounds so simple, and yet in their experience it’s a skill few have mastered. Most of us are far more interested in being right and proving it, than we are in learning, growing and shifting out of our old patterns. By default we gravitate towards the familiar. We’re asking you to take a chance and explore the unfamiliar. You’ll get scared and reactive. We all do.

Here is a brief video that introduces the concept of Conscious Leadership:

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

What is struggle, but effort exerted to overcome an obstacle.

What is courage, but action taken in spite of fear.

When faced with an obstacle we must first believe we are able to overcome it—otherwise, why would anybody try. Second, we must face our fears and bravely take the first step.

The greatest leader of all time, Jesus Christ, told his followers that in this world they willface trials of many kinds, but to take heart [and be brave] because He has overcome the world. In other words, it is guaranteed that we will face struggles [trials and obstacles], but we can move forward with courage knowing that the struggle is not insurmountable.

Jesus further encouraged his followers that these momentary struggles are for our good and will eventually result in great gain. This suggests that avoiding the struggle will keep us from a better future.

Athletics is a great teacher about the value and importance of struggle—no pain no gain!

Nature is a tough teacher about the value and importance of struggle—survival of the fittest!

I am reminded of a powerful story of a boy’s good intentions in helping a butterfly overcome its struggle (Original Author unknown):

Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it.

The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat, and a stick to climb on, in the jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat. 

One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.

The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.

At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress!

The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, and then walked back (because he had learned not to run with scissors…). He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!

As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly’s wings would expand.

            But neither happened!

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. 

It never was able to fly…

As the boy tried to figure out what had gone wrong his mother took him to talk to a scientist from a local college. He learned that the butterfly was SUPPOSED to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions hurt the butterfly.

Great Leaders understand that as we go through life struggle is an important part of any growth experience. In fact, it is the struggle that enables you to develop your ability to fly.

That is why great leaders brave the struggle and encourage their teams to do the same.

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

It is intellectually dishonest to say, “I had no choice!” The truth is, we always have a choice.

Great Leaders understand that not only do they have the power to choose, but every choice comes with consequences. 

We have the power to choose what to offer and the power to choose what we are willing to accept. Unfortunately, most people do not want to take responsibility for their choices [when the consequences are negative]. They do not want to humble themselves and admit that they made a poor choice.

The challenge is that until we are able to own our choices and the corresponding consequences we are not ready, or able, to move in a better direction. 

Great Leaders also understand that they are unable to make anybody do anything that that they do not want to do and that people do more of what they ‘want’ to do than what they ‘have’ to do. Hence, it is better to provide people with options and let them choose which direction they prefer to go. 

When people are given options, and the power to choose, they take greater responsibility and ownership over their behaviors and the corresponding consequences.

That is why shared beliefs and philosophies between members of a team are important—so that people’s choices and behaviors are more naturally aligned—to produce better results with any given effort.

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

Typically whenever we think of stress we think of it in negative terms. I have come to learn in recent years, however, that not all stress is bad stress.

The first thing to understand is that stress can either be a reaction [bad] or a response [good] by our bodies to stimuli, which is either triggered by external factors or conjured up from within us. In theory nobody can impose stress on us, although that’s how it usually feels.

Stress is a function of how we react or respond to stimuli. By developing greater mindfulness we can learn to recognize the stimuli and choose a less stressful response before it triggers us in a negative way. 

There is much written about how to cope, manage, and overcome negative stress and to reduce its negative effects. Unfortunately, there is not as much written about positive stress and how to turn negative stress to our advantage.

Regardless of the type of negative stress experienced, one of the main issues with negative stress is how our bodies react to it by producing a hormone called cortisol, often together with adrenalin. 

Cortisol does a number of things including shutting down our creative brains and putting our bodies into fight, flight, or freeze mode. This is a good thing when we face dangers and need our motor functions to dominate our thinking functions and get us away from danger and to safety. But it is not a good thing when we need to access our thinking functions, like when solving complex business issues, and instead our minds “shut down.”

I discovered the concept of challenge stress, a form of positive stress, a number of years ago. It has not only allowed me to achieve more, but to experience less of the negative effects of bad stress. 

Challenge stress is a response style and a choice. Hence, it requires intentionality. In other words, when we encounter stress factors we can choose to accept them as a challenge rather than allowing them to shut us down.

I have also learned that when things are imposed on me [externally] by others it creates negative stress and the release of cortisol—causing me to react. However, when I choose my own path and impose things on myself [internally] it creates positive challenge stress and the release of adrenalin without the release of cortisol, which means that I get the positive boost while my thinking brain remains active. 

For example, I travel extensively and when I am on the road the days can be long, especially when flights are delayed or cancelled. The fact that I set my own schedule and book all of my own travel gives me a tremendous amount of control. I work hard and push myself, but ultimately since the choices are all mine I find that what would otherwise be negative stress is turned into challenge stress. If, on the other hand, others dictated my schedule, telling me where I needed to go and when, the negative stress would become overwhelming and lead to disengagement and burnout—I would not be able to handle as a big a workload.

As detailed in Dr. Kelly McGonigal’s book The Upside of Stresshere are five common ways people respond to stress:

Freeze Response: You may become paralyzed, overwhelmed or feel hyper-vigilant.

Fight Response: You feel a sense of competitiveness, aggression, or self-defense.  Your body is readying itself to “fight” within the context of the situation.

Flight Response: Often reported in connection with “fight,” with this response you seek to escape, avoid, or withdraw.

Challenge Response: How you think about stress matters enormously in terms of how you process it.  Some people view stress as a threat, while others are able to view it as a challenge.  With a challenge response, you get additional energy, your heart rate rises, and your adrenaline goes up, but it differs in a few important ways from fight or flight:  a. you feel focused instead of fearful; b. you release a different ratio of stress hormones; and c. you are more easily able to access your mental and physical resources.  The result is enhanced concentration, peak performance, and more confidence.   In fact, people who are able to think about stress more like a challenge and less like a threat report less depression and anxiety, higher levels of energy, work performance, and life satisfaction.  These questions can help you harness a challenge response:

1. Where do I have control/influence/leverage in the situation?
2. What is a specific action step I can take?
3. What are my strengths?
4. What resources do I have?
5. What allows me to know that I can handle this?

Tend-and-Befriend Response: This type of response increases courage, motivates caregiving, and strengthens social relationships.  It can be tempting to think, “I can handle this all by myself” in a stressful situation, but in reality, your stress response is actually pushing you to seek out help and become more prosocial.  I’ll never forget the interaction I had with a colleague before our respective speaking engagements a few years ago.  She rushed over to me and said, “I’m so nervous.”  I said that I was too, and we had an interesting conversation about the various strategies we use to calm our nerves before any big “performance.”  That little act of vulnerability on her part left us both feeling better and more confident.  I’m a big fan of the tend-and-befriend response style because being able to reach out to close friends, colleagues, and family members is central to resilience, flourishing, well-being, happiness, and just about every other positive metric of human functioning.While the tend-and-befriend stress response style was initially thought to characterize female stress response styles, research has shown that men exhibit this response style as well.  In one such study, the researchers hypothesized that a group of stressed-out men would be more likely to exhibit a fight-or-flight response to stress, but found the opposite to be true.  They discovered that the men who had just gone through a stressful experience were more likely to extend trust to a stranger and were more likely to be perceived as trustworthy generally – stress had made this group of men more prosocial.

Great leaders invite their people take on challenges, rather than imposing tasks.

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

According to Harry Cohen, Psychologist and Author of Be The Sun Not The Salt, The Heliotropic Effect is the tendency for all living systems to move towards light and away from darkness…or rather, towards that which is life-giving and away from that which endangers life. It’s why a plant placed on a windowsill tilts toward the sun. The sun is a positive, heliotropic source of energy that attracts and gives life to all living things.

Much like plants, we as humans gravitate towards energy that lifts us up and shy away from energy that depletes us. If you shine the light of positive practices on those around you, they’re going to follow it, because it is human tendency to follow the light. Some people are very heliotropic, and some, not so much. Those who are, inspire those around them.

That is why great leaders are heliotropic – they inspire others to join their journey and in the process to give their best.

Below are two videos: 

• TED talk by Harry Cohen explaining the heliotropic principle
• The 6 Signs That You’re Dealing With A Toxic Person

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

Don’t wait or hesitate…seize the moment.

Life rarely provides opportunity to achieve something major in a single event. Nor does the window stay open indefinitely. Rather, life provides many opportunities to achieve small things, which have the potential to add up to big results over time. Unfortunately, too many people procrastinate or ignore the small opportunities and wait for the big ones, which often don’t come.

I am reminded of two teams of adventurers who set out to reach the South Pole for the first time in 1911. The team led by Roald Amundsen from Norway adhered to a regimen of consistent progress by travelling 15-20 miles per day regardless of weather conditions.

Robert Falcon Scott of England, who led the other team, would sometimes drive his team to exhaustion on good days and stay in their tents on stormy days.

Amundsen’s team not only arrived at the South Pole 34 days before Scott’s team, but made the return trip without loss of life in treacherous conditions. In contrast, Scott’s team perished on the journey home.

Great leaders seize the moment and optimize the opportunities presented them. They trust their gut and instincts using the power of net-positive momentum to keep moving forward.

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

The ultimate purpose of a mirror is to help you see what you otherwise can’t see. 

Vehicles have mirrors strategically located on each side so that the driver can see what is in their blind spot so as to avoid accidents. Likewise we strategically position mirrors in many places to provide important information so that [accidents can be avoided and] better decisions can be made.

People can also serve as mirrors to give valuable feedback provided you are willing to receive the feedback. That is why the best leaders maintain a healthy level of humility and actively request others to speak truth into their lives, even when it’s hard to hear. 

Unfortunately, human nature tends to avoid conflict and shies away from providing valuable feedback even when the feedback is requested. Further, for fear of retribution most people will not speak unless the environment feels safe. 

Surveys were originally created as a way to provide anonymous and confidential feedback in a conflict-free environment. Unfortunately, in many cases they have lost most of their value due to the amount of survey coaching that often takes place…usually for the purpose of getting higher scores.

Coaching surveys is like bending mirrors—it distorts reality and renders the information useless for improvement purposes. It’s like the reflections we used to laugh at in the house of mirrors as children. The reflections were funny because we knew they did not represent reality.

Coaching surveys also has a negative impact on customer retention. Customers not only see our behavior as disingenuous, but we lose the “mirror” value to help us improve the customer experience. For more insights refer to the article Four Keys to Eliminating BAD Customer Surveys, Forever.

Great leaders recognize the value of accurate feedback. Hence, they humbly actively engage mirrors so they can see what they otherwise cannot see so that they can tweak their situation until the reflection matches the image they are trying to create. 

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

Not all weaknesses need to be addressed.

I recently unpacked the results of an employee engagement survey with a client and was impressed to hear the General Manager tell his team that he wanted them to double-down on strengths.

The process of surveying employees tends to be useless if it does not involve some form of action planning and follow-through. Unfortunately, most action planning takes place around blind spots [weaknesses], in reaction to low scores. This particular General Manager, however, understood what other great leaders understand, that an hour invested in honing strengths will reap a greater reward than an hour invested trying to improve weaknesses.

It seems to be human nature to downplay strengths, or take them for granted, while obsessing over weaknesses. 

Great leaders understand that everybody has strengths and everybody has weaknesses. Often the two are actually linked, making it difficult to lessen a weakness without at the same time lessening a strength. That is why the best teams are those where one person’s strength fills in the gap of another person’s weakness. Together the team is not only more balanced, but stronger.

That is also why great leaders patiently tolerate certain weaknesses—those that do not take way from a strength—while doubling-down on strengths, knowing that the ultimate effect is a net-positive gain.

For additional insights into a strengths-based approach refer to HERBISM #23

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

While the split is avoidable and potentially repairable both efforts require incredible commitment from the team and courage on behalf of the leader.

Rarely do leaders intentionally ignore the vision and sacrifice values. Success, however, is intoxicating and alluring—subtly skewing our thinking and drawing us in. It feeds our egos and has the power to lead us astray if we are not wise to its temptations.

There is nothing wrong with success, but without the necessary boundaries provided by a guiding vision and strong values we can easily allow greed to take over our motivations. And, when that happens the root of our success starts to erode, and left unchecked so will success itself.

Simon Sinek provides insights into the split in a powerful TED Talk:

Vision is about direction—like a beacon that keeps us headed in the right direction. Without vision it is easy to lose our way and chase mirages. Values are guiding principles that define how we behave along the journey. Without values we lose alignment as a team and the very advantage that allowed us to achieve success in the first place.

The only way to avoid the split is for leaders to paint a clear picture of the vision at the outset and continuously refer to it along the journey so that the destination remains in clear sight at all times. At the outset leaders also need to define non-negotiable guiding values and not sacrifice them when it seems convenient or expedient. 

Just like a rocket that constantly refers back to the coordinates of its target a leader needs to constantly remind the team of where it is going and why it matters.

The only way to repair a split is to reestablish foundational vision and values, regardless of the cost, and start to build from there. Unfortunately, few leaders have the conviction and courage to take such drastic measures. Instead, they hope to outrun the approaching freight train and invariably get run over in the process.

Great leaders avoid the split by operating with intentionality around vision and values.

For a refresher on intentionality go to: INTENTIONALITY MODEL

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.

Why is it that some teams achieve more than others?

What makes the difference? Talent? Passion? Attitude? Effort? Intelligence? Strategy? Yes, all of these elements play a role and many more! And we all possess some or all of these elements, but in varying amounts. So, what makes the difference? 

I believe it is the recipe or formula of how all of these elements are brought together that makes the difference. And that is where leaders come in. 

Great leaders celebrate diversity and recognize what each person brings to the table. Some bring more and some bring less, but it is through the assembling of a team and the blending of individual strengths that leadership greatness is first demonstrated. It is then in the harnessing of passion, release of control, and disciplined execution that teams are ultimately differentiated.

Two former Navy Seal Instructors (Jocko Willink and Leif Babin) recall a time during hell week when they observed the impact of good and bad leadership. They recount the story in their book Extreme Ownership. Six teams, chosen at random, were competing. One team consistently finished first or second while another team consistently finished last or second to last.

So the Instructors decided to see what would happen if they swapped the leaders of these two teams. Almost immediately the team that had been losing started to win and the team that had been winning finished more in the middle of the group than first. The Instructors concluded that the difference was leadership and how the leader either brought out or suppressed the will of the team. From this they concluded that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.

Henry Cloud, in Boundaries for Leaders “Why some people get results and others don’t,” states that leaders always get what they create and what they tolerate. In other words, leaders have the power to shape the team, determine the plan, set the pace, motivate and inspire the people, etc. Therefore, if the results fall short the leader can only blame themself. Anything else is futile.

So, when results fall short leaders need to look introspectively…which is also why humility is one of the most important attributes in becoming a great leader.

Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.