58. Can I Make a Difference?

Hi everyone. I’m Saralyn Hodgkin, and this is the podcast to practice your leadership.

Can I make a difference here at the place that I work? That seems to be a pretty good deep question, a reflective question that takes on and can be taken on from a lot of different voices, and your voice is the most important in getting curious with, can you, are you, will you make a difference? At the place where you dedicate a lot of your time, energy, and talent.

Of saying, okay, hold on. What am I doing? Why am I doing it, and where am I going? And that quickly comes into a place of who am I at my best? What do I require in my workspaces, and how am I gonna figure that out here? Or do I need to leave the here, wherever that is. And so, I mean, part of where this also has come from is, I’m reading this book called Culture Shock, uh, from Gallup, uh, an unstoppable force is changing how we work and live well, that unstoppable force, um, that they refer to is this space where there’s a whole North American workforce, uh, at least North American, thinking deeply about their work and saying, hold on.

What’s the role of work for me? What does that play into my life and into my wellbeing? And it almost comes out for me, like, am I living to work or working to live? Like, where is that now? You know, there’s, there’s, there’s no likelihood of going back to what was, we’re in a new place.

I mean, that’s, that’s what change does, right? And so it seems to me that it is a brutiful, as Glennon Doyle says, brutal and beautiful space to just reflect on, you know, the whole who am I kind of thing, right? Like what’s my path? Am I taking a moment to reflect and rest and, and, and receive in some way the clarity of who I am at my best now, what I want, what I require?

Own it, be it, advocate for it. And one of the prompts that came up that I thought was excellent is a prompt around standing in your role and your work and your team and looking around and go, can I make a difference here? And part of that is within me, like, can I make a difference here? Meaning, not just structurally, but like, is my leadership path aligned with what’s going on here?

Not only can I make a difference, am I engaged enough? Is there a work experience where I can make a difference and do I want to? And therefore making a conscious choice of will I? And if you come to a place where you say, I will. Wow, how empowering that is. And that empowerment is within you, not within the organization.

It’s within you, right? I will make a difference here. Now, this goes with b around can I make a difference here? Looking at it from the, the space of structurally. Is there a space created here of belonging? Do I see myself here? Are there conditions here for me to see myself, apply myself, apply my talents, obviously, you know, get the pay I deserve and I’m worth, have the flexibility in being able to navigate work and life, being able to do the job I am, you know, I have my talents and I’m at my best in doing, and does it provide me the stability and security I require in my work? And so on.

Of course, all of, all of that. But a big question of, can I make a difference here is, is there a space for engagement of belonging of a work experience that brings out my best, where there is a questioning around or a challenging of cultural relics of systems that don’t serve, of opportunity for failure. Learn, keep going, like an experimentation mindset. Is there an inclusion of possibility here? Of diverse representation and that equitable access to that diverse representation here?

Is there a space here where I’m not poorly managed, right? Where rigidity is not the status quo, where there’s fluidity, flexibility, agility, where there’s coaching employees based on our strengths, of designing work roles that have smart autonomy. Where there are facilitated conversations that have the brilliance and the development of co-responsibility of as, as colleagues, as an actual team aligned towards our purpose, our impact, our goals.

I just wonder here if this prompt of can I make a difference here is useful at this time in creating an engaging work experience that I want to show up in, right. Six things that I feel that are needed in an engaging work experience is one that it meets my basic needs of just having a job, right?

Again, pays me my worth. Um, there’s stability and security to some extent. I can navigate work-life balance. I can grow and learn. I, I have a role that not only leverages my strengths, but you know, leverages my talents, my skills, number one, but number two.

There’s a space here, especially at this time, where we can co-design the right mix of what work looks like, for example, for remote ready work. That we can design something hybrid that is on purpose, that works for us, that is co-designed for us, and then lands in clarity. So there’s not a whole bunch of, uh, rigamarole and wonkiness.

But we can experiment, pilot something, learn from it, and evolve because now is a time of not going back. Now is a time for disrupting, continuing to learn from the disruption of the status quo, and designing what is now on purpose and useful for us, for this team to meet its purpose.

That’s not just a statement delivered on high, but that is designed by those of us, by us and for us, right? That is designed and then lands in some form of clarity, which we may not all like the end decision, but then of course, above and beyond everything else, that there is clarity here, right?

Number three, that I have the role clarity that I require, and that roles are seen from angles of strength and strength-based rules, uh, communication, hiring, feedback, all of this, that it comes from a, a place of strengths.

Right? And lastly, that an engaging work experience means that management, directors that they are learning into, trained up, have a stance of being coach-like, being able to be in, in behaviours of respect and belonging, who have been invested in, in a way where they can understand and operationalize behaviours of trust and that it’s being able to have coach-like approaches to staff and employees, you know, versus rigid command and control, outdated, outdated questions of, oh, can I trust my staff? Versus what are the behaviours of trust on our team? Really different to be able to say, well, can I trust my staff as being productive if I can’t see them?

Versus how do we create smart autonomy here? Where we can treat each other like adults, and that we know that engagement, inclusion, belonging are actually the root issue to some of these questions we’re faced right now. So there’s something that ties all of this together, folks, and for me, it comes to a place of pausing.

Using rest and reflection to say, what are we designing on purpose now? How are we leveraging this time of saying what’s useful now as teams and also as individuals to take the time to be able to design what’s useful now and get out of the, the go, go, go, go, go, go and pause and say, hold on. We’re not going back to some old rules, but instead we’re trying to design for experimentation, fluidity, agility, behaviours of respect and trust, and so what does that look like on how we work?

What does that look like for how we interact, how we communicate, how we make decisions? Now is a time for reflecting on that and being able to also do that within ourselves. What is the self-awareness that I, that I can reflect on and cultivate for myself now in my self leadership?

What does it look like to use this time to reflect on my path and not just be part of the great shuffling and resignations to go around and next. And what is the root issues that I will not tolerate any longer in wherever I go and be able to advocate for those? What does my leadership, what do I look like? What is the clarity I have to look like as my best self and own it and be it, and advocate for it with confidence, with humility, with boundaries.

What is my purpose on my path now and my strengths, and therefore, what does that look like as I tie into potential roles? There’s a time here, folks around, um, not tritely using the word self-awareness, but actually cultivating the leadership practices that serve myself and my path now, because I am part of the systems that I show up in, including the team that I am a part of.

And so if I’m more clear on who I am, how the conditions need to be for me to thrive, if I’m seeking, for example, conditions for belonging and diverse representation, then how am I showing up in, in that for myself in my leadership? What does that look like in the questions that I ask at a team meeting?

Where are you taking a moment, moments to craft the space to reflect on your own self-leadership. There is a moment here for cultivating self-awareness through the inner work of defining who I am, what I need now, which will have ripple effects into systems like teams, like work, work environment, saying this is what we need now cuz your voice and your practice matters now.

So, there’s this time and urgency I feel around the messaging of practicing your leadership, not just out there, not just with this person over here, not there’s something about that self-awareness thread and practicing your leadership sometimes is about skill building around how do I communicate or give feedback. Yes. And. What I see a lot of is those skills, those leadership skills require right beside it, practicing your self-awareness, practicing your behaviors, aligned with your intention of how you want to lead.

Self-awareness, all it’s a hard one. It’s a hard one, but practicing your leadership in terms of skills and self-awareness helps us leverage this time of being able to design together what the new normal is that what people are saying? I don’t really like that term. What term do I like? Just designing what work looks like now, because it’s not just work from the fifties or from the eighties or the nineties, right? This is a time of defining what it means to apply your talents in the world that can make a difference and that has purpose.

And sitting with the prompt, can I make a difference here? Will I make a difference here? And feeling the power of that conscious choice. Practicing your leadership, all. Stay in the practice.

Thanks all. I’m Saralyn. You can find me at holonleadership.org. I walk alongside you as you practice your leadership.