“The most important thing: Get to know and care about the people you are leading/managing. Who are they, what they like and don’t like, what they are most proud of, what their strengths and weaknesses are, how they see themselves contributing to the overall success of the organization, etc. Leaders make more leaders and realize that results are achieved through people, not task lists. If you don’t know your people, they won’t do their best for you. Read Leadership and Self-Deception for more food for thought on seeing people as people.
Author: Mary Ila Ward
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How To Replace The Lies In Your Head
Every day we hear little lies within our minds. We often tell ourselves that we’re not good enough, we don’t have the money, or that no one cares about us.
You may not realize this. But those words are lies!
These lies are what hold us back as we progress in our leadership. We tell ourselves these things so we’ll have excuses as to why we’re not getting things done or leading better.
There’s some bad news and then there’s some good news. Let’s go over the bad news first.
The Bad News
I like to start with bad news because it shows us what the problem is. The bad news is that we talk down to ourselves. A LOT! More than we deserve.
We’re able to shame ourselves or sell ourselves short. Our mind plays the game either due to confidence issues or because we fear the success and responsibility that will come as we take bigger and bolder steps.
When we use negative self-talk, our effectiveness begins to decrease. We second guess our decisions, find reasons that our newest venture won’t work, or why people won’t follow us.
That’s the bad news. Sounds pretty bleak, huh?
Don’t worry faithful reader! There’s also good news. Great news, in fact.
The Good (Great) News
Whew, we got the bad news out of the way. But that’s good. Now we’re able to get to the good, or great, news.
The good news is that we can change the way we talk to ourselves and rid our minds of the lies we’re telling ourselves.
We can replace lies with truth that will help us succeed and thrive. Now that’s good news, right?
Keep track of your successes: An easy lie that gets inside of our heads is that we don’t have any success in what we’re doing. Whether or not that’s true depends on how long you’ve been doing what you’re attempting.
However, that doesn’t really matter. You can look back on past success and see that you’ve accomplished tasks you had never attempted before. So why should this be any different?
Allow yourself to reflect on the past and see how far you’ve come. You’ll see you’re successful in more ways than you realize.
Get rid of negative friends: This may seem harsh but it’s true. Negative friends have a way to bring us down and their negative words can create strongholds in our minds that help create the lies we believe.
Instead, find friends who will uplift you and encourage your giftings. Before you know it, you can have a new mindset and the lies will come at you less and less.
Stop reading your own reviews: You might not have a book or an open forum where people criticize what you’ve done. But you may walk into places and hear people talking negatively about something you’ve done.
Stop going to those places. Stop visiting the review page. Stop letting other people dictate your self-worth.
One of the craziest things about our minds is that we can see 1000 positive reviews/thank yous/letters and they won’t mean a thing when we hear one negative word spoken against us.
Find a way to block out the negativity coming at you. You’ll be better off for it.
As you begin to shift your mindset and environment, you’ll discover that the lies will begin to dissipate. I can’t guarantee you that they’ll be gone. As a matter of fact, they’ll still try to peak their head in time and again.
Instead, you’ll have realized that you can control your way of thinking and listen to the lies less and less.
Question: What do you do to combat the lies in your head? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
This is a guest post by Joseph Lalonde. He is a youth leader at Oak Crest Church of God and leadership blogger at JMLalonde.com. Joseph shares leadership tools and encourages you to become a better leader. Connect with him on Twitter or at his blog.
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3 Steps to an Internship Game Plan
Internships are a must these days.
Internships are becoming the best way to strengthen your job prospects. With statistics showing high rates ofunemployment and underemployment (in other words, you have a degree and you’re working in a job that doesn’t require one) for recent college grads, a key way to distinguish yourself in the job market, beyond pursuing an in-demand field is to get relevant experience. Interning is a great way to do this.
3 Steps to an Internship Game Plan
I highly recommend the book, All Work, No Pay, to help you get an internship game plan, but here are some brief steps you need to take:
1. Search- You need to start your search about 6 months before you want to start interning, if not more. So, for example, if you want to intern in the spring semester, you need to begin your search at the beginning of the fall semester. If you are in college, start first with your college career center. They more than likely have employers that frequently source interns through them. I found my internship in college through the on-campus career center.
- Search for internships in your field. Some great sites that allow you to search by industry areinternqueen.com, and internmatch.com.
- Search by the geographic area you are interested in. Both of the above sites have ways to search by city and state. You can also do a Google search for internships in that area. For example, we recently worked with a student who was interested in the music industry and realized Nashville was a good place to consider job opportunities in this field. We referred her to the Chamber of Commerce site in Nashville to search for internship opportunities. The Chamber of Commerce site in the area is usually a good place to start a geographic-based internship search.
- Search by your dream company. Want to get a job at ESPN in sports broadcasting? One of our recent students did. We recommended she try to get her foot in the door by interning with the sports broadcasting giant. Go directly to your dream company’s website to search for internship opportunities.
2. Apply- You will need a great resume and cover letter do this and you may be asked to submit work samples depending on the field you are pursuing. Again, your campus career center should be able to help you with your resume and can usually provide assistance in reading through or organizing work samples. Make sure you get other people to review and critique anything you are going to submit. Here’s a worksheet you can download to help you make sure your resume is results oriented.
3. Knock their socks off!- You knock their socks off, in an interview and/or through the materials you submit to them, by:
- Expressing true excitement about the opportunity. You are better equipped to do this if you have already researched the company and have truly assessed your talents, passions and values to understand how they align with the company’s mission and values.
- Being willing to do whatever it takes to do a good job and learn as much as you can. Selection for internships spots, unlike full-time openings, is more about the will (or desire) to do the job than the skill (experience) you have.
What advice do you have for people wanting to land an internship?
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4 Tips for an Awesome Job Shadow or Informational Interview
Informational interviews and job shadowing are great ways to be briefly exposed to a career field you are interested in by interacting with someone in the role.
In the student career coaching we do, our package offers arrangement of at least one job shadowing opportunity. This is how valuable we feel this component to career exploration really is.
The difference between the two is that an informational interview is just a conversation with the person in the job. It allows you to ask the person questions about how they got where they are, what the like (and don’t like) about their job, and get advice from them about how to pursue a career in the field.
A job shadow actually allows you to observe the person doing their job, and it usually takes place over the course of at least for one work day. During the time the job shadow takes place, you can ask questions of the person about the job, just as you would in an informational interview.
Regardless of what which set-up you are engaging in, here are some tips for arranging and conducting a great job shadow or informational interview:
- Connect with the right person: After you’ve narrowed a list of jobs you want to explore, consider whom you know in the field. You may be able to connect with someone you already know through a civic, sports or church group. If you are a student, your teachers, parents or relatives may know of someone in the field. If you don’t know of someone directly in the field, you may be able to explore LinkedIn or other social media outlets to locate and connect with someone in a role you wish to learn more about. It is always better to try to locate someone you know directly or indirectly (through a mutual connection) than to try to ask someone you don’t know at all.
- Ask to observe or meet in the right way: If you know the person, call them directly and say, “Hi persons name. This is your name. (If you know the person indirectly, or through someone else, add, “Insert contact name here is a friend/relative/co-worker of mine and he /she said you would be an excellent person to talk to about insert career field here.). I’ve been doing some career exploration, and I am interested in the career field that you are in. Would it be possible for me to meet with you for about 30 minutes to ask you some questions about what you do, and learn how I might gain more knowledge in order to be marketable in the field?” If and when they say yes, say, “Thank you, I really appreciate your time. When would be a convenient time for you to meet?” Be flexible with their schedule and let them dictate a time to meet. Note: If you are a student, you call them, not your parents! This is about you stepping up to the plate to learn more, it’s not mom or dad’s job to do this for you! If you don’t know them, and you’re reaching out via social media say basically the same thing as above, but give a little bit more details about who you are and why you are interested in the field. After you meet with them, you can ask they would be available for you to observe them on the job.
- Practice Good Etiquette. Keep your appointment, arrive on time, and dress as you would if you were in the field they are in. For example, if they work in a bank, put on a suite. If is in the construction industry, wear boots, long pants, etc.
- Ask the right questions. Here are some questions you can use. The Intern Queen also has some good questions to ask in an informational interview here.
If you’ve done an informational interview or job shadow, what was the most important take-away for you?
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What are we teaching our kids about leadership?
“Your daughter really stepped up to be a leader with all the kids today,” says one mother.
“Really?” asks the other, “She wasn’t being bossy was she?”
Why do we think as parents, and especially with girls, when our child steps up to take charge of a situation that they are being bossy?
I heard a similar dialogue with a dear friend of mine, who is one of the best, if not the best mother I know. Her oldest daughter, who is a smart, caring and leaderful girl, stepped up to engage kids of all ages, who all really didn’t know each other well, to play a pool game together. My friend was describing the situation to me, and I could tell she was proud of her for stepping up, but at the same time, felt the need to make sure her daughter wasn’t being bossy by taking charge.
From this example, I have some thoughts on how to spot leadership capabilities in kids:
- Kids who are natural leaders seek to organize activities where all are included and the activity is fun for all.
- Kids who are natural leaders find places where they can help out, not seeking be the center of attention.
- Kids who are natural leaders see the talents and passions in others and emphasize them. They also know where they can best serve.
From this example, I also have some thoughts how I can nurture leadership in my child. I’m struggling with many of these, but maybe my struggles can help us all:
- First and foremost, I don’t need to feel the need to APOLOGIZE for the behaviors my child that exhibit who he is unless the behavior is making other kids feel bad in the process. I’m not talking about making excuses for destructive behaviors (like our little jaws was at one time) but behaviors that are just an expression of his personality. If my son steps up to take charge of the situation, I will not label the behavior as bossy or apologize for it.
- I will let the natural evolution of kids playing take place and I won’t try to organize or monopolize it for them. Hovering is not allowed. I will just allow them to play and let a natural leader emerge and realize the leader that emerges may be different given different activities.
- I will let my son work out (most) of his problems on his own, especially as he gets older. See above rule, “Don’t hover.” Allowing him to solve his own problems without me or my husband hovering (my husband doesn’t fall victim to hovering as much as I do) will help him be better equipped to solve his own (often bigger) problems as he becomes an adult. I hope this will help him to be more capable of aiding others in solving complex problems. A post that has said this lot of this better than I have, can be found here.
- If we all want our kids to be leaders in their own lives and have the opportunity to lead others, then we need to help them identify and move past, as emphasized in this post by Lyz Lenz, “FIRST. WORLD. PROBLEMS.” This starts with letting them solve their own. My favorite quote in Lyz’s post is, “I don’t care if that kid took your toy, get it back yourself, that’s street justice.”
- The above points emphasizes that in order for leadership potential to take place, I have to regularly engage my child in playing with other children. Taking this a step further, I need to engage my son with people who are different than he is in age, in gender, in interests and in socioeconomics.
- I will let him fail. Even as I write this, I know I’m not entirely telling the truth. It’s my instinct to protect and nurture. But as tough as this is, he is going to learn more from failures than he ever possibly could from winning all the time. In an HR meeting I was in last week, the sponsor was from a drug rehabilitation program. Instead of focusing on trying to sell their services, he used his 2-3 minutes of talking time to tell the group that the main reason people end up in their program is because their parents have sheltered them completely from failure and from pain. He went on to say that those that experience recovery in their programs are the ones that can admit and recognize their failure and pain, own it, and learn from it. Maybe telling myself that allowing my child to fail will keep him out of drug rehab will help my efforts.
How do you spot natural leadership in your child and how do you nurture it? How do you spot natural leadership capabilities int he workplace and nurture it?