Recently my son, Shawn, received an email from a woman who attended our course on positive leadership. She told of going home and meeting with her people. She writes; “I can honestly say that the reaction I received was totally unexpected. About half the room was crying and the whole group gave me a standing ovation at the end. I was stunned. It was the best day of my professional career – unforgettable.”
What did she do?
After an introductory exercise, she spent 45 minutes presenting the principles of positive leadership. What she presented was unconventional. She writes.
I did have a slide deck since that is second nature here….but I really challenged myself to share my own experiences. So, I hardly referred to the slides – I just told my own personal stories related to what the slides described. For example, I showed the slide that lists the effects of positive relationships and one of the items listed was people recover from surgery quicker. Instead of just reading the slide, I shared my memory of when my dad had a heart-attack and had quadruple by-pass surgery. After the surgery, his doctor met with us and provided a 5 minute update on how the surgery went but then spent literally 45 minutes explaining to us the importance of creating a positive/supportive environment for my dad at home for his recovery…and I shared how my mom, brother, and I consciously did this.
Another story I shared was in regards to high quality connections and the exercise we went through to really think about who we have HQC’s with…..and then who is not on that list. For me, in the class, a huge “aha” moment was that my husband wasn’t on my list. So, I shared the impact that revelation had on me personally. I also shared stories related to “purpose”, “best-self”, and “1%”. I was able to cover a lot of topics in 45 minutes.
I showed the Mo Cheeks video with Natalie Gilbert singing the national anthem and I ended with the Dela video of “Why Wait”.
Reflection
- How did she practice positive leadership?
- Why did she get a standing ovation?
- What conventional fears keep us from behaving in this fashion?
- How could we use this passage to create a more positive organization?
What a wonderful and impacting story of theory-to-practice. Awesome — thanks ever so much for sharing!
Hi Mary. Glad you enjoyed!
This makes me think of Marcus Lemonis and one of my favorite quotes from him. “The way to create connections with people is by being vulnerable.” When this woman shared what she shared with her team that’s what I thought of. People got emotional and celebrated because I believe they were celebrating how open and vulnerable she was being in front of them and I believe it makes those people feel more comfortable to be vulnerable and emotional in turn. What a great response to have!
What a great observation. I think you are exactly right.
This is a great story! Question: Are there slides available somewhere that we can download?