Episode 49: What Can Everyday Life Teach Us About Leadership?

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Everyday Leader podcast. Conrad here with Shannon, off our summer break. Glad to be back together and back with you in conversations about leadership and what it looks like in our world today. We're starting a little miniseries, which will be three episodes. Shannon, I don't know if we have a title. Let's create this together. Something about leadership being everywhere, or leadership lessons abounding. What would be the name of this series?

I think it's about leadership learning: where, how, and when we learn as leaders, putting it into our everyday context. Often when people come to us for leadership coaching, they're expecting tools, resources, articles, podcasts, and formal educational training materials for improving leadership. What this podcast stands for is that we are leaders every day in our everyday lives, and we can also learn about our leadership in our everyday lives. Every day.

That has me thinking of leadership as a contact event or an experiential event, something that happens out in the world.

It's like a contact sport.

Exactly. And yes to all the resources out there. There's YouTube and countless sources of great leadership content. In this miniseries, we want to explore other places, beyond the formal ones, where leadership lessons and learning are present in the world.

Conrad, where have you been finding learning for your leadership over the last couple of weeks?

I've been traveling. I think about the human interactions: leadership lessons at the airport, at places where I was staying, and out in nature. Those are three that come to mind based on the trips I've taken. At the airport, my lessons this time were around surrendering control of the circumstances while creating how I wanted to look at them. I was flying through Minneapolis, and there was an air traffic control event, a shutdown that paused my flight. I missed a connection and had to stay over in Minneapolis for an unexpected night. The leadership lesson was that I'm not in control of air traffic control. How do I look at this as a leader with my fellow travelers and make the most of it? I got into conversations with some folks and made great connections while waiting for the flight. I also got caught up on some work during the delay and overnight stay. That's one place leadership showed up for me in air travel.

It informed you in that moment. Is there a lesson that has stuck with you from that?

A lesson that continues to circle around me is the question: what am I in relationship with? Am I in relationship with what happened and how it's impacting me, maybe negatively, or with having a plan that's been disrupted? Or do I shift and get into relationship with what this is about for others? How do I create community with these folks who are on this journey together? How do I get in relationship with myself and see what this brings up within me? It may sound simple, but in the moment when things around us seem disruptive, catastrophic, or undesirable, my learning is about awareness and choice. What am I aware of, and what choice do I want to make in my relationship?

The leadership aspect is taking responsibility for that choice, right? We can let things happen to us. We can respond by trying to control, fix, or manage. Or we can create from what's in front of us. What does it mean to be aware that you have those choices and take responsibility for whichever one you choose? What do you access to step into it? Creating is what we're talking about when we talk about being in our leadership for the sake of ourselves, others, and our world.

I'm glad you're bringing in our three key contexts: relationship with self, with others or community, and with the world or a greater cause. What about you, Shannon? Any leadership lessons from the last two weeks out in the world?

One exciting thing that happened this summer is that, finally, after three years of trying to get monarch butterflies to land in my yard, lay eggs, and have caterpillars to create more monarch butterflies, I was successful. I'd never had this experience before. Now there were caterpillars in my yard, and they turned into chrysalises. I felt a little like a caterpillar shepherd at some point. What's interesting is that there was nothing for me to do. I'd planted the plants that needed to be there and created the conditions for monarchs. Once they arrived, there wasn't really anything for me to do, although I felt compelled to do things. I felt compelled to stand guard so nothing would eat the caterpillars, or move them to a safer place. I worried about whether they were getting enough sun or water, or whether it was too hot. I reflected on a lot while spending many minutes staring at this one patch of my garden over the last couple of weeks. The lesson I keep being taught is that sometimes there's nothing for you to do. Sometimes your leadership is to create the conditions and then witness. That's what I'm sitting with: where in my life am I best positioned to lead by creating conditions and then letting it be?

Create the conditions, witness, allow, support, and let something, in this case butterflies, emerge or transform from caterpillars. That's pretty cool. Those are a couple of lessons to share with you. Our main offering is to be curious when you show up in the world. However ordinary, exciting, mundane, or typical your day is, there are opportunities for leadership lessons. We'll share more over the next couple of weeks. Anything else, Shannon, before we close?

That's it. Be well. Be present to what's around you during this very transitional, noisy time of year. More soon.