Leader Cards Summer Series Intro
Have you ever heard of a secret weapon that can infuse some magic into your leadership style daily?
Allow me to reintroduce - the Leader Cards (shoutout to my early podcast episodes for more info)!
They're not your usual flashcards but daily nuggets of wisdom for self-reflection, helping you ditch that run-of-the-mill annual review. Now, hold on tight for our electrifying Summer Series! These bite-sized episodes serve up leadership intentions and wisdom straight from real-world, trailblazing women leaders. Get comfy with your favorite headphones and gear up to dive deep into this and many more concepts. Remember, leadership isn't just a role; it's a lifestyle. Let's embrace it together.
On this episode, you’ll hear…
The power of daily affirmations in leadership development
How Leader Cards can create instant feedback loops and foster a growth mindset
The importance of setting intentions and manifesting them daily
Resources
Ready for more?
Listen in:
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** This is a raw, unedited transcript
Chaili Trentham 00:00
All right summer series, I told you, I want to quick episodes where we're focused on learning and developing and thinking about the ways that we lead in a season when things are fluid and flexible. And we also need a quick dose of daily leadership development. And so we've been talking about audits that we can do ways that we can check in with ourselves ways that we can reflect as leaders. But this week, I want to bring up setting leadership intentions. And some of you may be familiar with affirmations, which those are tools that we bring into our lives to really affirm behaviors and values that we want to integrate in our day. And we start off the day with those like I am enough, I am strong, I am brave. And they might be even more elaborate than that. But they're really we know that those repeating affirmations daily contribute to
01:01
more aligned behaviors throughout the rest of our day. And so, ultimately, I actually was in a yoga class, and the teacher was talking about the daily affirmations that she was setting for that class. And there was an effort in Meishan, that day that really resonated with me in a leadership scenario I was facing, and I was sitting there, then through the rest of the class, probably not focused on the yoga moves I was supposed to be doing but very much focused on Oh, my goodness, this is so meaningful to me right now, as a leader and as an individual. And I'm so grateful for that affirmation that was put in front of me today.
01:43
Why don't we have that level of leadership affirmations that we put in front of people. And so the idea of leadership intention cards came into my head, which led to my leader card project, which some of you are familiar with. And essentially, leader cards are 30 Plus ish prompts of leadership intentions, that are meant to help leaders think about a daily dose of development, essentially, that it's an artifact, it's a card that you put in front of you on your desk, set that as your leadership intention for the day. And that then can guide your conversations, your behaviors. And so there's some pre and post reflection components of those carts. Because it really was an opportunity to create a daily rhythm of development, and a daily practice for leaders to think about development as something more fluid and something more conversational. And so I wanted a way to integrate daily practice, just like you do with a workout, or some sort of fitness regimen, into your daily leadership. And so you pick that card leader card, you read the descriptor and the intention statement, you take 10 minutes to reflect on the following questions.
How am I embracing this intention in my leadership, or with my team right now? How will I strive to make this intention, impact my day, based on my plans, what's in my schedule, work conversations ahead of me. And as a leader, and this is where I want people to be visionary is as a leader, what would change if I truly embodied this word or this intention for the rest of my day?
Not rocket science, right? So then you have this intention, that set that's sitting on your desk that's guiding you you've you've cast some vision for yourself as an individual. And at the end of the day, there's a reflection practice, where you take 10 minutes for a developmental check in you create space to journal or reflect or whatever way that you you best reflect as a leader and you think about how will this leader card? How did this leader card impact or influence the way I lead myself and my team today, and there may be days that a leader gets down to it and is like, Yep, totally forgot about it, set it on my desk, walked away, never thought about again. But there are days that it can be significant, right? You could have pulled the I am strong leader card and then walked into a really tough meeting, where you really had to stand up for yourself or for a teammate where you really had to convey ideas while you had to be strong, right? So then you think through how did it change the way you approached a specific situation as a leader? Or could you have done something differently?
04:23
And then finally, how will I continue to integrate this intention more authentically into my daily leadership in the future? Here's what leader cards are meant to do. It's a cognitive behavioral practice that's meant to bring a growth mindset or a growth framework to the forefront of your leadership day. Right. And in doing so, we also are creating a daily ritual, which rituals are significant because that rhythm of a daily ritual makes something more ingrained in our behavior, right, and it becomes a part of us and so by having daily intentions or affirmations,
05:00
Really, that practice is not just to get better in the moment, but it's to create a string of moments that lead to long term change in yourself and for your development. And finally, having that daily practice of a morning reflection evening reflection, is creating a feedback loop for yourself. A lot of times when I go in with teams, I'll ask about feedback loops, where they get feedback on their work, how they communicate about that, what channels are they using to communicate that? How are they feeling either supported or encouraged or just even led by their leader?
05:36
And often, it's a piece that's lacking, right? Typically, teams will say, Well, we do annual performance reviews. And the reality is if somebody is finding out
05:47
constructive criticism, style feedback in an annual performance review, it's already too late. Right? The damage has been done with they've probably been doing things wrong. For a while, I worked with a team in retail. And one of my favorite things about a store manager that I worked with is she was so direct, and how she gave feedback. And that was actually a company policy to give feedback in the moment to call it out immediately with team members. So that feedback loops are constant. And the reality is, when feedback was happening, so often, it made the harder feedback easier to receive for team members. Because they received it so regularly, it was just like, yeah, she called that out, I could be better, I'll change that behavior, it was like no big deal. Because tiny adjustments are easier to make, right. Rather than letting things simmer and stew for a long time, you likely have had that in your leadership where there is something that has been bubbling for a long time. And eventually you get into that one on one conversation with an employee and things kind of blow up. And you're providing some big feedback, some hard feedback.
06:58
And ultimately, that a lot of times just looks like conflict in that moment. Because if the person sitting across the table didn't see it coming in, it feels heavy and hard. And out of the blue, if it's the compilation of a lot of simmering pieces of feedback, it seems big, and like an entire waterfall of feedback all happening at once, when ultimately, probably it was just a lot of little drops in the bucket along the way. So when we think about daily practice, that's important.
So this is my setup to part of this summer series where I want to be putting some daily leader card intentions in front of you so that you can think about them for your leadership. And there'll be short and sweet snapshots of different leadership goals. Leader cards, the intentions that we pulled there, obviously many that are so valuable to pull, and instead of just doing the intentions that I thought were most valuable, I surveyed, and this is actually an early podcast episode. But I surveyed a bunch of women in leadership who I was connected with in my work, and asked for them to send me the top words that they associate with leadership, hey, I really gained a lot of insight into the things that people valued about good leaders, or the things that were missing from relationships with bad leaders that they identified as key values or intentions that were significant to them and how they would describe a leader. And so those words were helped inspire all of the words on leader cards. So my leader card for today, or this week, actually, I sometimes pull for a full week for myself and focus on something for the full week, which is what my leader card is, is focus. This week, I had a very, like I said in a couple episodes ago, it's been a full season. And as I'm now batch recording a bunch of these episodes, which is how I do this surprise, there's a sneak peek behind the scenes for you.
09:04
i For this week, have really spent time on what does it mean to focus and be a focused leader because I've felt a little bit all over the place in the summer season. So this is the card a leader is focused, I organize my thoughts and narrow in on what is directly in front of me what is most important and valuable in my work today.
09:31
I organize my thoughts and narrow in on what is directly in front of me what is most important and valuable in my work today.
09:41
And I'll tell you I don't always get it right. I consistently already in this week have spent time thinking
09:50
oh my goodness, if I could just not get so distracted or be jumping all over or be responding to urgent needs and
10:00
Set time to step back and think that would be really significant. And that's essentially why I picked this card for my week is because I have felt so unfocused in the recent seasons, that I felt that I've drifted a little bit from the ways that I work best, which I work best when I have space to step back and think strategically about how all of the puzzle pieces fit together. And then reverse engineer that to actually work on putting each puzzle piece on the table. And
10:31
by stepping back and realizing that I'm in a season where I have to focus on each puzzle piece and have to sit there at the table a little bit longer, because I'm not reverse engineering I'm building as I go. That for me is is something to really hone in on as a leader in my development.
So think about how you could be more focused this week. And I will have short and sweet episodes coming your way with leader card intention set so that you can listen to them quickly at the top of your morning and do the activity and I will walk you through those activities on each episode coming up. So stay tuned for the leader cards summer series. So we're kind of shifting gears. We've got the summer series going and we'll do some segments specifically focused on leader cards coming your way. So thanks for listening to this little intro of that and I hope you are having a wonderful week in your leadership and in your work and in your life. Cheers