Ann Tardy, Author at MentorLead

[Flash] When Competence Exceeds Confidence

I love watching American Idol. I enjoy the discovery of hidden talent, the unabashed passion, and the show’s fast pace.

And I’m constantly inspired by people’s pursuit of dreams in the face of steep competition, enormous vulnerability, and inevitable criticism.

This year, however, I’m struck by how many contestants are openly grappling with feelings of inadequacy.

I was similarly astonished during the recent launch of our Circle of Excellence mentoring program. Each leader courageously confessed their need for greater leadership self-confidence.

And then it hit me… I share their struggle!

Each week, I commit to writing this article. And each week, I worry that it won’t be as insightful, pithy, or entertaining as previous articles. I agonize over my shortage of clever ideas. I procrastinate. I question my skills.

Playing armchair psychologist, we could diagnose these internal battles as “imposter syndrome” – the pervasive feeling of self-doubt, insecurity, and incompetence despite evident skill and success.” (American Psychology Association)

The internalized fears generate thoughts like:

“I’m not good enough.”
“I’ve just been lucky.”
“I don’t have what it takes to accomplish this.”
“When are they going to discover that I am a fraud?” (Tom Hanks)
“Why me? Why not this other person?” (Awkwafina)
“I still feel sometimes like a loser kid in high school.” (Lady Gaga)

Competence exceeds confidence. We’re better than we think we are.

But the antidote is not a shift to confidence over competence – that’s insufferable arrogance!

The solution? A shift to commitment over feelings. Purpose over precision.

When the importance and meaning of a commitment serve as our beacon, we prioritize growth and progress, not perfection. Only then can our self-belief flourish.

We can bear witness to this journey on American Idol. When contestants allow their commitment to their dream to overshadow their feelings of inadequacy, they grow and progress rapidly and demonstrably. Suddenly, this purposeful refocus enables their self-belief to rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

[Flash] Hope Beats Optimism

On my third-grade report card, Mrs. Courtier typed “Enthusiastic” and “Optimistic.” My parents immediately pointed out these words, beamed with pride, and lavished me with praise.

I learned early that these were coveted qualities. Not surprisingly, I’ve been enthusiastic and optimistic my entire life.

As psychologist Charles Carver describes my fellow optimists and me, we expect good things will happen in the future.

But while optimism yields positivity, hope yields power.

According to author Charles R. Snyder (The Psychology of Hope), hope is:

the tendency to see desired goals as possible
the belief that we have the ability to achieve the goals
the focus on creating pathways to achieve those goals

In other words, hope ignites plans and actions to achieve our desires.

Yikes. Suddenly, optimism feels rather passive, like an entitled bystander. And hope feels exceptionally active, like an engaged player!

When I reflect on past goals I’ve accomplished, hope beats optimism every time:

It wasn’t optimism that made me study all night for the CPA and Bar exams. It was hope.
It wasn’t optimism that made me win each of my jobs and career changes. It was hope.
It wasn’t optimism that made me cycle in 20 degrees training for my cross-country bike ride. It was hope.

When we hope, we perceive possibility, even through adversity and uncertainty. And when we perceive possibility, we persist. Persistence demands action, not positivity.

Want to be more resilient? Start with hope.
Want to be a better boss? Start with hope.
Want to be a meaningful mentor and a magnificent mentee? Start with hope.

While positivity is undoubtedly preferred over its opposite, it’s hope that breeds action, progress, and growth.

There’s no need to abandon our optimism and enthusiasm provided we intentionally lean into hope when we want to accomplish anything significant in our life.

Start with hope!

[Flash] Time-Poor but Connection-Eager

One of our healthcare clients just completed the first cohort of their Front-Line Nurse Mentoring Program. As I was compiling their final evaluations, I was struck by the data.

While identifying as time-challenged, the participants valued the program’s time-intensive components the most and requested more of them!

Participants reported favoring:

97% “meeting with my mentoring partner”
63% “participating in the mid-point peer report-out and final presentations”

And when asked about recommendations for improving the program, 48% requested more structured mentor-mentee activities.

But when they got to the question about challenges they faced in completing the program, 100% reported “time.”

Isn’t it ironic? The most significant barrier participants encountered was time, yet they urged us to include more time-intensive activities!

Amazingly, when we helped our client create this program, we had to convince her to include the mid-point and final presentations in the structure. She resisted, desperate to ensure the program wasn’t burdensome on her participants.

And then, those same participants critiqued her program for its lack of more demands on their time!

Sadly, while people are busy, they are also lonely.

A sociological study revealed:

in 1985, Americans claimed to have three close confidants
in 2004, only one confidant
25% (1 in 4 Americans!) admitted to having no one to confide in

Why should we care professionally? Because declines in social connectedness…

manifest loneliness, isolation, and alienation,
which inevitably lead to attrition, disengagement, and possible disruption
and threaten people’s health, even more than obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure

Whereas social connections, connectedness, and confidants:

Strengthen the immune system
Lower anxiety and depression
Inspire self-esteem
Bolster empathy and trust
Increase retention
Improve engagement, cooperation, and innovation

So, we should not be surprised that essential, front-line nurses in a pandemic valued social connections and requested even more of them.

While time is not a fundamental human need, belonging is.

[Flash] Big-Picture Leadership (thanks Thasunda Brown Duckett!)

Leaders often grumble that their people are not making big-picture decisions.

Understandable. Research shows that people make the most efficient decisions when looking at the big picture.

But the brain doesn’t distinguish between big picture and small picture.

It is busy processing the influx of daily data to predict what might happen next and then prepare the body accordingly to keep it alive and well. Safety is a top priority.

Not surprisingly, big-picture decisions are easier when the brain feels safe, ready to wade into unpredictable territory, like contemplating greater impact.

Researchers have noted that safety occurs when people experience psychological distance, for example, exploring a situation from the perspective of a future timeframe or a hypothetical. And in theory, that does sound safe and even amusing.

Practically speaking, however, people often operate in chaos without the luxury of future timeframes and concocted hypotheticals.

But there’s an uplifting alternative: connection.

In an interview with The New York Times, banking executive Thasunda Brown Duckett shared this story.

When Thasunda was named CEO of Chase Auto Finance at JP Morgan, she headed straight to the mailroom.

She said, “Keep doing your job with excellence. If you don’t put that payment in the right chute, and it accidentally goes to mortgage, then the customer doesn’t post on time, they’re upset, and they end up closing their account with us.

“You start this entire process. So, when you hear me talk about our customer experience having improved, brush your shoulders off.” In other words, be proud.

They must have been standing tall when they responded, “You know we got you.”

Thasunda connected the actions of the mailroom employees with Chase’s commitment to customer experience. She didn’t just implore this team to “think big picture!” She figuratively drew a line for them between their job of sorting mail and the satisfaction of Chase customers.

She not only created safety; she created importance. She emboldened the mailroom employees to feel the significance of their seemingly small actions.

That’s big-picture leadership.

[Flash] Get Stronger by Getting Stronger (thanks Tunde!)

Not surprisingly, “resilience” has been a hot webinar topic this past year.

Naturally, people clamor for strategies to survive their hardships and alleviate their frustrations. And the adversity of the pandemic merely exacerbated the conversation.

But resilience is not about survival. Resilience happens when we transform through a situation, not when we endure or avoid it.

Resilience is indifferent to circumstances and distress: it cares only about your next move.

One of my favorite Peloton instructors, Tunde Oyeneyin, announced during a workout yesterday, “The pain you feel right now will show up as strength tomorrow.”

And Buddha taught, “Life is suffering.”

Although they sound despondent, these pronouncements teem with potential! For it’s impossible to stretch, strengthen, and sprout when life is effortless. (How much growth have you experienced on vacation basking in the sun, reading a trashy novel, drinking a margarita by the pool?)

Understandably, great bosses and meaningful mentors are careful not to save their people from suffering. Instead, they intentionally challenge people to explore and progress. Because that’s how muscles grow; that’s how confidence blossoms; that’s how leaders emerge.

Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote, “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.” (and that was centuries before social media!)

Again, potential disguised as despair.

Mean people offer us exceptional moments to improve our discernment, our emotional intelligence, our patience, our empathy, our humanity, and our power to be decent in the face of indecency.

Nasty people like nasty circumstances are inevitable.

Instead of trying to temper the dreadful, eagerly embrace the opportunity to augment your skills and grow forward!

You’re going to be a bigger, better, bolder version of yourself… because you evolved through it instead of escaped from it.

Tunde also likes to tease, “You get stronger by getting stronger.”

That’s resilience.

[Flash] Don’t Just Be Happy. Be Useful.

I drafted a midpoint survey for a mentoring program and included this question: “Have you accomplished your goal?”

While reviewing the survey, the program leader asked, “What if they don’t have a goal?”

I replied, “Then, they wouldn’t be in the mentoring program.”

People don’t join mentoring programs because they’re bored or need new friends. They join because they have a goal, an intention, something to accomplish:

strengthening skills
improving leadership
up-leveling impact
closing knowledge gaps
preparing for a transition
expanding connections
contributing wisdom

Goals give direction and meaning to a mentoring partnership, without which many pairs flounder and even fizzle.

But articulating any of these intentions in a specific, measurable, actionable goal is a visible struggle.

Participants become challenged not by time but by clarity in purpose. They question why they are working together and how they can make a difference.

Essentially, they grapple with putting their ambition on a mission.

As a last resort, some Mentees lean on a project their boss assigned; others lean into an aspiration, like “I want to be happier.” Both courses are tenable, but they often lack the passion and mettle that mentoring deserves.

In the end, I’ve observed that people just want to be useful.

Mentors want to contribute wisdom and influence success
Mentees want to become more effective and valuable
Leaders want to make an impact with their people and in their organization
Employees want their work to matter

Let’s curtail the paralyzing pressure of capturing intention in a perfectly articulated, beautifully written goal. And instead, let’s simply explore how we can be more useful to each other in these mentoring programs, at work, and in the world.

The purpose of life is not to be happy but to be useful. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

[Flash] Do You Have an Evolution Problem?

Intrepid leaders like you habitually confess to me their frustrations about the people on their team. Not surprisingly, I now have a massive (and growing) list of these aggravations. To highlight a few:

And yet, I am confident that your people do not start each day eager to be mediocre or maddening.

Nonetheless, many are.

Why? Because people are always seeking:

Safety (from judgment, criticism, blame)
Significance (importance)
Self-Rule (autonomy)

And while appeasing this ego trifecta, they get stonewalled by Chaos, Change, and Crisis.

Feeling unsafe, insignificant, and other-ruled, they resort to aggravating antics in a desperate attempt to return to Safety, Significance, and Self-rule. It becomes a soul-sucking experience for everyone on the team!

Sadly, many people who were once enthusiastic about making a difference become stuck in the valley of despair, counting days until weekends, months until vacations, and years until retirement.

(The plot twist… while you’re managing around their frustrating behaviors, you are fighting for your own Safety, Significance, and Self-Rule. And so is your boss!)

Eventually, when people quit their job to look for Safety, Significance, and Self-Rule in greener pastures, you might feel a sense of relief, distress, or even failure.

But you don’t have a behavioral problem or an attrition problem. You have an evolution problem!

These people are not evolving. They aren’t growing, improving, preparing for, or thriving through change.

If these people were evolving, they wouldn’t:

frantically protect their ego
recklessly prove their importance
childishly demand freedom without taking any responsibility for it

If you want to disrupt the disruption of people’s behaviors, stop focusing on their aggravating antics, and start focusing on their essential evolution.

Build Better Bosses Intensive
This is why I developed the Build Better Bosses Intensive: to help managers evolve and achieve a level of performance that completely transforms the results they are creating because of it.

What that means is that, with managers who want to flourish, they will experience more success, more often, more easily.

When you’re ready to uplevel yourself or your team, find a time on my calendar. Let’s have a conversation and start an evolution: http://www.scheduleyou.in/5WmLJby5B

[Flash] Decency Counts (just ask Jared Leto)

In an interview this week, Academy-Award winning actor Jared Leto shared the following about his approach to working on movie sets:

“I like to stay as focused and committed as possible. My job is to do whatever I can to show up and contribute something meaningful to the actors, the studio, and the crew. Also, it’s my job to be a pleasure to work with. To not be a pain in the [butt]. To be generous and kind to all involved. That to me is as important as the other stuff.”

In other words, he strives to be a decent human being who plays well with others.

When I helped a Chief People Officer identify her company’s key leadership attributes recently, our final list was strikingly similar to Jared Leto’s approach!

The CPO and her team interviewed executives, directors, and employees to curate an inventory of ideal characteristics, actions, behaviors, and expectations for anyone who endeavors to call themselves a leader in the organization.

The list was extensive, but a few essential themes surfaced:

commitment to solving problems
communication that contributes
growth-mindset
big-picture decision making
decency

No one submitted the word “decency” specifically. They proposed qualities like honesty, integrity, goodness, dignity, grace, empathy, compassion, kindness, patience, civility, and positivity.

But we ultimately chose “decency” because of its all-encompassing reminder of our humanity.

Some executives lobbied for the word “collaboration,” but I pushed back on that overused business buzzword. It’s impossible to collaborate if we’re not first committed to solving problems, communicating to contribute, growing and learning, being decisive, and demonstrating decency.

Does “decency” feel too soft? Let’s strengthen it with a few statistics:

50% of people quit their jobs because of their less-than-decent boss
67% of people would take a new boss over a pay raise
82% of people who quit leave for a more empathetic organization

Decency counts…at work, at home, and in the world.

Build Better Bosses and the Circle of Excellence
Need to build better, more decent bosses on your team? Join me for a complimentary mini-workshop on Wed Feb 17, entitled “Build Better Bosses,” where I’ll share more about this approach. I’ll also introduce you to the Circle of Excellence – a mastermind and mentoring program designed to evolve your good managers into great leaders. www.mentorlead.com/webinar/build-bosses