Wellness, Mindfulness and Your Professional Success

Wellness and mindfulness are terms that have moved out of the realm of "woo woo" into the very real world of business. And, well, from my point of view it's about time.

The demands on today's professional to be "always on" and available, to stay on top of whatever is the newest and latest while successfully leading and motivating a diverse and cross-functional team of other professionals is a recipe for stress and burnout. Add a significant other, aging parents and a child or two to this mix and it's no wonder stress is the #1 lifestyle issue impacting the workplace today.

It's not a luxury; our own self-care is a necessity to your being effective and productive at work. Over the past few months I've written a few posts related to wellness at work on LinkedIn, Business2Community and the Grokker blog that I wanted to summarize here.

3 reasons why today's leaders need mindfulness meditation
Meditation changes your brain for the better, allowing you to develop and hone the skills that make you a more effective leader.

Why every leader should make a mindfulness resolution (hint: it's for your team)
What you may not realize is that your stress is contagious - and your team is catching it! They want you to proactively address and manage your stress so you don't add to theirs.

Give your team what they want: wellness
That on-site fitness center is a good start, but doesn't meet the needs of most of your employees. They want to be able to work out when and where it is convenient for them -- and that means you also need an at home workout option.

Stress is the #1 problem in the workplace
While 86% of employers offer EAPs (employee assistance programs) as a solution for stressed employees, just 5% of employees utilize this benefit. Why? Because employees don't want referrals to counselors for their stress, they want help managing it through exercise, yoga and meditation.

Should employers require regular exercise?
The physical and mental benefits of regular exercise are abundantly clear and it has a direct impact on the engagement and productivity of the individuals. You owe it to yourself and your career to exercise regularly, and leaders owe it to their teams to offer access to the exercise options that can fit into their busy lifestyles.

3 Ways Being a Mom Helps Me Be a Better Leader

I am surviving the day-to-day balancing act of both rearing a child and growing my professional career. Some days, I may even describe it as thriving. 

No, I don’t hold the secret to every working woman’s work/life balance (or integration). I just mean that, to date, I am fortunate to have had more good days than bad.

People who know me professionally would agree that I love what I do. I am passionate about the discipline of marketing and analytics and I love applying my skills and experience to hard business challenges. I thoroughly enjoy mentoring and coaching the people on my team (officially or otherwise). Going to work everyday with a great group of people and achieving great results truly fills my bucket. It’s where I find my flow.

When I was expecting my son, people would regularly tell me that I would “change” once my son was born. Their knowing looks implying that the passion I brought to my work would be muted and that I would not longer feel the same satisfaction from it once that I had a baby. This honestly scared me! Would the act of giving birth truly change something so core to me? And would it happen so quickly and dramatically?

Spoiler alert, in the end, motherhood didn’t “change” me. More precisely, it “enhanced” me. Like any life experience, the particular one of motherhood became folded into the me that was already there. It helped shape how I work, manage and lead.

My son is now 8 and I am still regularly asked by expecting moms-to-be about how becoming a mother “changed” me. In their queries, I hear that same unspoken uncertainty and fear that I felt before my son was born. So when asked, I often share 3 ways I “evolved” as a leader once I became a mother.  

1. Remembering every person experiences the world differently

Countless research studies show how difficult it can be for leaders to get out of their own heads. It is far too easy to assume that others think and experience the world like you do and then to feel angry, frustrated or wronged when the meeting you planned goes awry or a key person doesn’t engage. In the heat of a stressful moment it is easy to believe the transparency illusion where we believe we are communicating how we are thinking and feeling far more clearly than we actually are.

When I learned I was having a son, I felt in over my head. I grew up with just one older sister, and didn’t have any frame of reference for little boys. Plus, my husband regularly horrified me with his stories about the roughhousing he and his 3 brothers called “playing”.  How on earth could I effectively mother a little boy when I had no experience with it?

Net net, I couldn’t use my own experience. I could never intuitively know what what going on in his head -- and this isn’t a bad thing! This frame of reference (plus the fact that I love him fiercely) means I actively check in with him about what he’s thinking, feeling and how he’s perceiving the world and to actively assess how well I’m communicating with him.

Because I regularly flex this muscle with my son, it has helped me to keep it top of mind when relating with my team and colleagues. It helps in my work interactions to always assume positive intent and to be curious about reactions or behaviors that are different from mine.

Plus it reminds me to focus on communicating my expectations, needs and thoughts in ways that are most helpful to others versus what works for me.

2) Everyone is someone’s baby

You may have heard Plato’s quote, “Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”. Or the golden rule, “treat others as you want to be treated”. Both are good, solid, compelling reasons to act with kindness and understanding. A spin-off that I like is, treat everyone as you would want your child to be treated.

I’m sure I am not the only mother who occasionally feels some early-worrying pangs over my son’s inevitable first heartbreak or about the terrible, bullying boss who may make his first summer job a miserable experience. Even as I just think about these common life experiences, I can feel my lizard brain, “mamma bear” instincts kick in.

Don’t worry, I don’t act on these instinctual responses. I totally recognize it’s not realistic (or wise) to protect my son from these common pains of life. However, it is the power of my maternal instinct to protect him which reminds me that there is a mother (and a father) who feel just as strongly about every person I come in contact with out there in the world!

I work to build authentic relationships with my team and colleagues in order to see who they are, as a whole person, not simply the finance guy or engineer or whatever role that they hold at work. Helping everyone be feel comfortable being their whole selves, their best selves, at the office encourages the high level of engagement needed to solve the toughest problems facing a business. And it makes for a stronger, happier team environment.

I want my son to find his “flow” in an environment where his manager and colleagues all know and appreciate him -- all of him. Wanting this for him someday, makes it a priority for me, in my work environment, today.

3) My personal wellness is a top priority

We are all familiar with the airplane takeoff protocol that in the unlikely event that oxygen is needed, the masks will fall and you should secure your own mask before helping others. I’ve learned that self-care isn’t selfish. In fact, making my own wellness a priority is necessary in order to be able to balance (or integrate!) the different aspects of my life. I regularly remind myself that both my body and my mind need to be strong so that I will be able give my best toward both my personal and professional goals.

Avoiding burnout and lowering stress is key when you’ve got multiple plates spinning overhead. Luckily, the prescription can be as simple as exercising regularly and taking your vacation. Both these activities help make you a more effective leader at the office and allow you to be present and engaged with your family at home.

I am always flattered when I am asked about my experience as a mother and an professional. And generally, when I share my insights I believe I help allay a few of their unspoken concerns. Please share your thoughts on how being a parent helped you be a better leader.

What are soft skills anyway?

“Soft skills get little respect, but will make or break your career.”  - Peggy Klaus, “The Hard Truth About Soft Skills”

Many, if not most, professionals are smart. Countless people have the education, experience and brainpower to identify and find solutions to today’s pressing business problems. And yet, they don’t all move up the corporate ladder. We all know, at some level, that it’s not solely about being smart or performing well technically that opens up executive office doors. It is the elusive “soft skills” which play a critical part.

Soft skills are hard to name and define; and thus difficult to develop.  You need to have a clear sense of what the skills are, and then you can more easily ask for feedback and measure progress. A Harvard Business Review blog cited the Center for Talent Innovation’s study that says the most important soft skill is executive presence.

3 key elements within executive presence

Executive presence connotes that others, especially existing leaders in the organization, perceive you as “leadership material”. Some young women I have mentored have heard “you lack executive presence” as a key reason why they did not get the desired promotion or growth opportunity, but they don’t get precise feedback. Here are the top 3 elements from the study:

Gravitas

67% of the executives surveyed agreed this was a core characteristic. Gravitas comes from the Roman virtues, and connotes dignity, importance with a certain substance or depth of personality. To me, it’s about confidence and credibility; it answers the question, will people feel “safe” following you.

Communications

Your verbal communications are how you demonstrate your gravitas. It is your ability to “command a room”. It is not only in formal presentations, but even in meetings with your peers. Do you listen actively? Do you ask the right questions? Are you able to relevantly add to discussions in areas outside your sphere of responsibility?

Appearance

While not the top factor, it is clear to see how appearance could negatively impact both communications and gravitas. It’s the reason why the tried and true advice is to “dress for the job you want”. Yes, it’s true that you can’t judge a book by its cover. But it’s also true that, like it or not, your appearance will contribute to others’ perception of your gravitas and to your ability to command a room.

How to develop executive presence in your team

Personally, I never had the “executive presence” discussion with any one of my managers. It was just not talked about or named. Coming up, it seems you either had “it” or you learned “it” through osmosis. And, well, that’s just not scalable.

I’ve found that the most important thing you can do to increase your team’s executive presence is to talk about it with them. Underwhelming advice? Maybe, but truly it is that easy. Just begin talking about executive presence as a factor in how individual performance will be evaluated relative to earning promotions.

I endeavor to talk about it with every person I am fortunate to have on my team. I don’t make it a single discussion or like the awkward “talk” you have with your mom or dad at 13. I just work it into day-to-day work, 1:1’s and quarterly goal setting and performance reviews. Just talking about it increases each person’s self-awareness around how they present themselves and are perceived by others. And it provides a common vocabulary for asking for and providing feedback for improvement in this area. And it requires nothing more innovative than a conversation.

How do you think about executive presence? How are you developing your team?