resource and assignments portal.
Note: There are no 'assignment police'.
Leaders lead themselves.
Use what is useful and leave the rest.
"The wise leader's ability does not rest on techniques or gimmicks or set exercises. The method of awareness-of-process applies to all people and all situations”
- Lao Tzu
1. The Success Spiral (new video above)
2. Review the 'Team Development Strategy' and see what could use some attention. If there are multiple areas, have a chat with your team to determine priorities, and chunk down your focus points so together the team (and where appropriate, you) can decide how you want to proceed. progress in increments adds up. Overwhelm comes from trying to do too much at once.
3. Have a play with Chat GPT or Claude or another LLM (Large Language Model) and ask how it could help you. Describe your role and responsibilities and ask AI for suggestions as to how it can assist. The more you learn the basics now, the easier it will be to keep up.
AI has changed the world - we are still catching up.
4. Please prepare an icebreaker. We will do as many as we can in the sessions we have left to make it easy to pull one out as you need to for a team activity.
Stay mindful of how you show up in team settings. Having the awareness to notice the influence you have on those around you will keep you growing.
Stay on your own team - back yourself!
YOU ARE THE PROJECT! Be very good to your fine self always.
1. Blame or Gain Cultures (separate PDF) - good to have your team discuss their perceptions and experience.
2. Handout pack (PDF from the session)
3. The Helium Pole - Facilitation guidance for team building (PDF)
4. What makes a great team...? Facilitation Guidance (PDF)
5. Blind spots Reflection (PDF)
ONGOING: Check in with what your buddy wants to develop in themselves. You can serve as a coach and empower them, as they can with you. Practising your depth listening skills and asking good questions is the path to self awareness and growth. Bounce ideas around, test out frames and discuss your session take outs.
Remember we are all here to serve each other.
1. The more you are open to and willing to notice, the more you will see. From there we make our choices rather than react from conditioned responses.
2. Ask TWO more questions. Staying fully present and listening deeply (being open to being changed by what you hear) is the go.
3. It's time to introduce my first book "I Can Speak Clearly Now the pain has gone". If you read a few pages nows and then you will romp through the book - all of it is relevant to our mahi in EL. Download your digital copy here
Sometime in the next few days, go through your own notes on all our topics and capture reflections that have had time to cook. What will you remember? How important is purpose and outcome?? How important is being fully present? How important is listening and asking good questions and creating safe spaces ? How important is framing??? You get the drift.
Making a summary of your main take outs each session is a good idea and will help the short to long term memory transfer stick.
Remember - YOU ARE THE PROJECT! Be very good to your fine self.
1. The Essence of Facilitation - PDF
2. Summary of key messages for ongoing exploration - PDF
Is your buddy relationship working for you both? If you can, have a check-in and take the pulse. Tell your truth about it and re-choose it for the duration. If you are unable to do that, let's talk and we will find other ways to support you. The buddy relationship brings up things but is also intended to be a safe enough space that you can be real. It is a space to practise your skills and try out different approaches.
Remember we are all here to serve each other.
1. Remember you are practising observing when you notice. Noticing activates a superpower you have. AWARENESS. As we become more aware, more wisdom can inform our choices and decisions. That leads to better outcomes. Noticing is not about overthinking, it is simply choosing to be aware of your environment and your space in it.
NOTICE everyone does the best they can with the resources they have in any given moment. This helps ease judgements. We do not know what others carry. We will continue to gently and naturally midwife ourselves into next level capacity to be fully present in life - to show up.
2. "Ask one more question". In your day-to day interactions, deliberately ask another question for a whole day (as often as you remember). This practise opens you to enquiry rather than 'telling', listening more than talking.
Notice if you are being true to your own values - as defined by YOU. As we build our leadership practice around those values, you will see results. It's your job to 'read' those results as you go through your days. Make of them what you will and notice where you want to make corrections.
Encouragement: Share your values with your buddy and give each other permission to gently hold up the mirror if you are compromising your values. This coaching could facilitate a revisit and re-choose of what your leadership values (what you believe is MOST important) are.
Keep journaling your noticings/reflections each week around your top five. Remember - YOU ARE THE PROJECT! Be very good to your fine self.
1. The Four Questions - Facilitator Guide (downloadable pdf)
NOTE: The doc references another team activity. We will get to that.
2. Session Two digital handout supplement (PDF)
3. Leader/Manager Reflection: (PDF) Where is your focus? Check out the distinctions presented between Managers and Leaders. Intend to expand your perspective - and you will!
4. A guided sensory check-in (lifted from The Accelerator). This can serve as an introduction to meditation (audio mp3).
5. The motivators for human behaviour chat is in a video above.
This relationship will naturally evolve and settle into how you will both roll through this programme. How you engage is up to you - and - my encouragement is to be open to what you can give to it and what is in it for you too.
Remember we are all here to serve each other and in so doing, help each other grow. The idea is you all get clear about what you want to learn more about/skills you want to build, and then you genuinely set about helping each other gain them when we are together (and any other time you give to the relationship).
NOTICE what you notice - without judgement (curiosity is MUCH more useful). Raising Awareness is simple. We bring our attention into the present moment and observe thoughts and feelings as we breathe quite consciously and deliberately. Even a short connection through your day will grow your capacity to 'stay present' more and more. It is very easy to become distracted if we do not have the mental discipline to focus attention 'on demand'. We will gently and naturally midwife ourselves into next level capacity to be fully present in life - to show up.
If we try to hurry the process, we can 'blow a fuse' so please trust your process deeply. - no digging up your spuds to see how they're going. I promise you, you can afford to lean in to yourself on this.
For now, there is nothing to 'do' but notice. We will condition ourselves to a bigger 'charge' as we grow this capacity.. The present moment is loaded with infinite possibility. It's where the ACTION is (and all the feels that go with that action). As we develop, we grow the capacity to stay present to the emotional content of life but if we opened to it all at once we would combust! Let's take good care around that. Wisdom is in knowing how to pace yourself. Our individuality is a conduit for life energy... it is brilliant!
Reflecting on what you believe is important in a Leader (your leadership values), please reflect on your share in session, and observe your own actions and behaviours day-to-day. By opening yourself to rating how you go with living them for real week by week ('walking your talk'), you will tune in more and more to your own integrity, and you will notice when you stray (the choice is then yours as to what to do with that noticing).
This can be a great topic for a great peer coaching conversation. Choose a rating scale to evaluate 'walking your talk' for yourself
Eg: % or out of 10 etc.
Journal your noticings/reflections each week around your top five. Do you keep your word? Do you say what you mean and mean what you say? Nothing to 'do' but notice with genuine curiosity.
Treat yourself as a topic of study from here on, and begin considering the best coach you could be - for your buddy and for yourself. We will explore this more.
1. Internal Enquiries (downloadable PDF)
2. Time Capsule (downloadable PDF)
3. Juggling back up notes (downloadable PDF)
Practise juggling. Go back regularly and aim for the most beautiful perfect 'ONE' (a metaphor for refining excellence in the basics). Find someone willing to let you teach them to juggle. The effectiveness of your communication will be reflected in their results. Notice how thorough you are (or not). Note: If you got all the instructions and understand the application of chunking, you do not need to be able to juggle to teach someone else.
This is the space to practise your listening and coaching skills, to seek support in challenging moments (you do not need to suffer alone).
Remember we are all here to serve each other and in so doing, help each other grow. The idea is you all get clear about what you want to learn more about/skills you want to build, and then you set about helping each other gain them when we are together (and any other time you give to the relationship).
Your first 'assignment' is to get together and get to know each other a bit. Establish how you want to work together. Listen to each other carefully. Get clear about what your buddy wants to gain from this programme. YOU are there to support them to achieve that. Your buddy can now be your accountability partner!
Consider what sort of leader brings out the best in you (and what doesn’t). Consider leaders you have experienced/been exposed to throughout your life. Notice what stands out for you and jot down your thoughts.
Highlight your top 5-7 things that bring out the best in you and bring them along.
Reflecting on your early life, consider the environment you grew up in and what you learned about leadership from your ‘first leaders’ (parents/primary caregivers). The key is to observe without judgement as much as you can. We can learn from what worked, and what didn’t. Who led? How could you tell? What did you learn was important?
This short video overviews my take on comfort zones and what you can expect as we learn and grow. It is lifted from my online programme called The Accelerator. You will learn about this soon - because you get free-for-life access as part of Enlightened Leadership!
These reflections are intended to be gentle thought experiments to start getting us in the mood for doing the work that no one else can do - to enhance our strengths and grow our skills and capabilities as leaders.
Notice your thoughts and feelings as you reflect. Notice your enthusiasm levels as you engage and observe any reluctance/resistance you have to these 'internal enquiries'. It is all grist for the mill. You may notice thoughts arising/dreams that hang around. There is nothing to 'do' but notice - even if emotions are in the mix. Be very good to yourself and genuinely curious about what shaped you.