The World’s To-Do-List
I just spent three days with change makers from Canada’s north at the She/Ze Leads the World Summit. There, we were encouraged to rethink how to create the world we want. Rethinking mindsets, business and finance models, networks, and radical generosity to tackle, what SheEO Vicky Saunders calls, “the World’s-To-Do-List”.
This idea of doing things differently to address our Big List of complex problems resonated.
She made it seem almost fun- this sobering list of global warming, rising seas, unsustainable cities, waste, inequality, and violence.
For the last twenty five years I’ve been an academic, non-profit activist, public servant executive, and entrepreneur with a focus on social impact. No matter which sector, our status quo models of business, governance, and finance give us what we don’t want: social inequities, too much plastic, tight gender boxes, and concentrated power.
To tackle these problems, I’d lean on a familiar leadership strategy that propagates self-criticism, comparison, and shame. And that is: eliminating my weaknesses, with repeated doses of abrasive learning and tough feedback.
While I recognize that its critical to honestly face and accept our weaknesses, and work on them when necessary, this strategy can undermine our ability to move our cause forward.
Forget your weaknesses
I’ve spent too much time through my developmental years embarrassed or ashamed of my weaknesses.
At 26, I was leading a small gender equality department and working directly for a Premier. Everything was new and unfamiliar and I had few references for mapping the territory.
Many times I covered up and hid my weaknesses like understanding government financial documents or my lack of follow through of projects, when we neared the end.
In part, this was because of my need to prove myself and achieve accolades, like a good university student. It was also in part, because I believed as the ‘leader-boss’, to know it all.
But I knew my weaknesses- just hadn’t fully accepted them yet- nor created the environment in which others could be honest and accept their own.
Covering up my weaknesses, only served to reinforce another habit. Comparison. (I can still hear my first-year university roommate quoting me the famous line from Desiderata). This habit, where I’d poke my head around and look at people “better than me”, inevitably left me feeling inadequate.
Instead of claiming my weaknesses, and my unique set of gifts in this world, I bitterly emphasized my weaknesses instead.
By the time I hit my mid-30s, I recognized that using my weaknesses to strengthen my leadership development was a waste of time.
Why?
Because life is short and the world’s-to-do list is urgent.
Lead from Your Strengths
Instead of trying to ‘do it all’ and focus on your weaknesses, there’s a different way to grow and develop. And it’s simple.
Focus on your unique gifts and where you feel ‘lit up’ (psst. if you are looking for an amazing resource to do this, Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Mapping process is an inspiring place to start).
As I shared at the She/Ze Leadership Summit last week, when we focus on our strengths everything comes more easily. There’s less a quality of pushing and more a quality of receiving.
From this place, we experience a state of ‘flow’. Excitement and contentment arise, and suddenly, we become magnets for others.
Vicky Saunders, the Canadian pioneer of SheEO and author of Think Like a SheEO: Succeeding in the Age of Creators, Makers and Entrepreneurs also talked about the kinds of shifts we must make, from all sectors, if we’re going to help the collective.
With a quiet and full-bodied voice she said: “We’re shifting from a winner-takes-all to a collective economy, from a “go-big-go-home” to “going-on-our-own terms”, from control to trust, from scarcity to abundance, from transaction to relationship, from fear to radical generosity, from winning to transforming.”
At its heart, your strengths and gifts are at the center of this shift. In fact, being in tune and connected to your strengths is what accelerates these shifts in the first place.
Leverage your networked-networks
I don’t know about you, but if you feel small or insignificant because you’re not in the center of a decision-making room- its ok.
Small is good. Small is nimble. And small is connected.
And it’s because there’s a ‘new normal’. Time-space compression, globalization and evolving human consciousness have disrupted hierarchical and centralized ways of gaining power and influence.
Instead, there are emerging “networks upon networks” of unique communities, ‘tribes’, and teams using smart circles of interconnection. Here we can have people of different cultures, professions, political bents, and identities coming together to solve the world’s toughest problems.
And each of us can find one of these networked-networks to contribute our unique set of gifts and strengths.
Freeing isn’t it?
Placing our energy into leveraging our strengths, and new networks, creates a generative place of creation, community, and imagination for our development.
Practice for You – An Askompetition
After many hours of genuinely exploring and connecting with my own gifts, I remember the moment Vicky asked me at dinner “what do you need”?
The question surprised me. I don’t recall anyone asking that clear and direct question related to my dreams before.
Vicky also offered this question to a room full of 175 movers and shakers, framing it as a practice of generative leadership. While admitting how hard it is for any of us (especially women and gender non-conforming people) to ask for help, there was a recognition that if we were asked to support someone, we’d of course say yes!
So to encourage this powerful leadership practice- here’s something you can both offer and receive. This is a practice asking for what you need, even when it feels uncomfortable, shaky, or uncertain.
Part 1: Ask for you
- Lean into your strengths, and find your sweet spot of energy, flow, illuminated mind, and creativity.
- And then, ask for what you need- succinctly, clearly to someone who you think could help.
Part 2: Create space for others
- Then scale up the “Askompetition” with your family, team, or organization. Ask people what they need, without any judgment or assumptions.
- Give everyone an opportunity to respond. If no one has the answer or can help, they likely know who can- and can make an introduction.
None of us are good at everything; and the world’s problems are complex.
Leaning on our strengths, connecting into networked-networks and asking others what they need are conscious leadership practices. This is a fundamental shift into radical generosity, support, and commitment. And if we do it over and over, I believe the right doors will open.
Xo,
Jennifer
