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Kathy Stoddard Torrey

~ Leadership Coach and Trainer

Kathy Stoddard Torrey

Monthly Archives: March 2020

60th Birthday Reflections

31 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Uncategorized

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#60thbirthday, #LeadershipRules #LeadYourselfFirst #KathySays, LifeLessons

60 bday 1K

Today is my 60th birthday. Birthdays that end in “0” make us want to reflect on our lives and our accomplishments. I am no exception – and I have more time than usual for some introspection. Here is my list of life lessons learned:

1. Let kindness and honesty be your guides. These two considerations must be taken together. Brutal honesty all the time is not kind, and not necessary. On the flipside, we can believe that leaving someone in the dark is kind, but honesty is usually much better. There is a balance to consider.

I keep way more things to myself than I did in my younger years. No one wants or needs to hear my opinions on every little thing. However, sometimes I feel a need to speak up. The questions I ask myself are: “Will knowing this help the other person in the long run?” and “Am I saying it for them or for my own ego?”

Everyone has to make their own decisions on how much honesty is kind. I tend to lean toward truth and appreciate it when others do the same with me. In my experience, people figure stuff out eventually. When they discover that you’ve known all along, there is a breach of trust that can never be fully repaired. Trust is the commodity of relationships.

2. Exercise self-control. Exercise is the appropriate word here because the more we use our self-control, the stronger it gets. Without self-control, we can’t honor #1 on the list because we are always blurting and giving in to our ego’s needs.

The big regrets that I have in life are when I lost my temper and lashed out at someone. It doesn’t happen often anymore, but I still feel bad about a few times when I lost control and yelled at my children when they were young.

3. Self-care is crucial. We cannot exercise self-control and make intentional choices around kindness and honesty if we don’t take care of ourselves. My biggest losses of self-control happened when several things in life were not going well. Stress puts us on edge and robs us of our ability to see the big picture and choose our words and actions wisely.

The antidote for stress is self-care, which will look different for each of us. For some people, self-care includes running or walking. For others, it means writing or drawing. We all need to have more than one self-care technique in our lives that allows us to center and regroup. Meditation is one great self-care technique that has tons of research proving its benefits.

4. Spend your emotional pennies wisely. I try not to spend emotional pennies on things that I cannot influence or control. If I can control it, I can change it. If I can influence it, I must decide if changing the thing is worth the emotional pennies that it will cost.

The most helpful phrase for me when conserving emotional pennies is “the chair is a chair.” You can read my blog on the quote from Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith. Basically, it means that certain people and situations are not going to change, and it’s best for me if I accept that.

5. Connect with others. I learned this one late in life. We humans crave connection with each other. I have always accepted the value of rugged individualism and was determined in my youth to make it on my own. Sixty years have shown me that it is impossible to make it on your own. Success happens with the support of a community.

Happiness also happens with the support of a community. The micro-moments of positivity we share with others are one type of building block we need to build a positive outlook on life.

6. Prepare for the worst, but expect the best. I am a firm believer in being prepared if everything goes to hell in a handbasket. However, I don’t believe in dwelling on the possibility. It’s important to assess, prepare, and then focus on a positive outcome that we want.

I ordered gloves and masks well before there was a shortage and then went on not thinking about it. I bought an extra six-pack of toilet paper at the grocery store while plenty was on the shelf but didn’t stress about it.

On a grander scale, when I was a stay-at-home mom, I put the utilities in my name to build credit. I went back to school and got my MBA. My goal was to be able to jump to self-sufficiency if anything happened to my then-husband. He would get irritated with me and insist I expected the worst of him. I pointed out that he could be hit by a bus on any given day. The fact that he was in the Army made his demise more likely than many others.

However, I never dwelt on the possibilities of my ex’s death or infidelity. I just prepared for the worst and went on living life and expecting everything to go well. The worst did eventually happen. I am grateful for a life of not expecting it – and for being prepared so I could move to self-sufficiency with relative ease.

7. Work to be vulnerable and loving despite the cruel blows that you will suffer. First, everyone suffers cruel blows in life. Cruel blows are a part of life. I’ve learned that it’s best to expect them and to not take them as personal affronts. Suffering disappointment, humiliation, and failure makes us human and more empathetic to the plight of others. Suffering is also an opportunity for growth.

And if you just scoffed or huffed at me, I totally get it. It sounds like a superficial platitude to me, as well, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I chose the word “work” for a reason. As far as I am concerned, putting my heart out on the line, knowing it will be crushed again, is work. It’s not easy at all and it’s a constant challenge.

Brenė Brown’s research on vulnerability helps me. She talks about the courage required to put yourself out there as a possible target for ridicule and deception. Maintaining that courage is work, but it’s worthwhile work. We cannot live a life full of joy and accomplishment if we live safely protecting our hearts. She talks a lot about this quote from Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

As I look back over the last 60 years, I haven’t been timid very often, but I have become bitter at times. Since I’m reviewing things that greatly influenced how I live, I feel I must include these charts from Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar ordained to the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church.

Men's Journey (Rohr)

Women's Journey (Rohr)

Side note: These graphs depict different paths for men and women. I believe that this is because of how we are socialized, not because of major, inherent differences. I also hope that younger women find that their path is not so different as the one Rohr describes for men. I can’t speak to their experiences, but the graph resonates with me and my experience in many ways.

I discovered these graphs in my oldest son’s coat pocket when I was in my late 40s. (I was about to wash his coat per his request – not snooping!) They changed the trajectory of my life. I could see clearly that if I did not change, I was headed for the Embittering Journey, and I didn’t want to end my life bitter and resentful. I worked to embrace joy and acceptance.

Now at 60, I find myself in danger of becoming the “Witch on Her Broom” who is filled with rage. The last bit – “going nowhere – except to blame others and protect herself” – is a particular danger for me right now. That’s why Brown’s writings about vulnerability resonate with me.

My life lessons list, which is as much a list of goals for living my life as anything else, is a result of wanting to become a Holy Fool. I want to “live with paradox and mystery, with compassion and forgiveness.”

I know all of those things are mine if I make some intentional choices. I love the Magic Wand of Destiny!


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

 

 

The PERSONAL Integrity Test of COVID-19

24 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Uncategorized

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#COVID-19, #LeadershipRules #LeadYourselfFirst #KathySays, #outrage, #responsibility, integrity

COVID-19 2 1K px

Last week I talked about the importance of businesses maintaining customers’ trust during the current pandemic. Now, I want to get a little more personal. Let’s talk about our actions as leaders. So far, many of the examples during this crisis are not good.

The most heinous and trust-busting actions have come from our elected officials. There is a group of senators who knew of the coming pandemic. Did they take actions to prepare the United States of America? Did they consider the health of their own constituents? Nope. They sold stocks. They knew the market would crash, and they took care of themselves and a few wealthy donors.

In case you aren’t clear, this is horrendous leadership behavior. It is actually outrageous. Our response to this sort of action by our leaders should be outrage! Leaders have power, and with great power comes great responsibility. I cannot think of a punishment great enough for people who put personal monetary gain over the health of people depending on them. Seriously. This is an epic leadership fail for the ages.

The examples go down in the seriousness of their consequences, but not the display of bad judgment. Jeff Bezos owns Amazon, which owns Whole Foods, and he makes $8,961,187 an hour. He sent out a memo to Whole Foods employees, urging them to share paid time off with employees who become ill. Hmmm. This is a double-whammy of bad judgment.

First, grocery store employees are part of our frontline. We all need food and depend on grocery stores to provide it. Bezos can easily afford to cover paid sick leave for anyone who falls ill during the pandemic. In this instance, he is not taking care of the people who create his wealth or earning their loyalty or trust.

As a Whole Foods customer, I feel he isn’t doing much for me, either. He is encouraging people to work while they are sick, because no one wants to go without pay if they can avoid it. As a result, he is putting my health at risk by not ensuring that only very healthy people are handling my food. He has lost my trust as a customer, as well. He doesn’t seem to think that I or his employees matter very much.

I get a lot of emails from what I call the “Woowoo Community.” Some of the people in it have made a lot of money helping people feel better about themselves and even feeling better through alternative health options. I’m seeing a lot of “We’re in this together, so I am offering my deal at half off.” Hmmm. How generous. These are people who claim to care about my well-being but are really looking at the pandemic as a marketing opportunity. Shame on you! Offer your deal for free if you really want to help. Otherwise, keep it the same price and stop pretending that you care about my well-being.

I could go on and on with truly outrageous examples of poor leadership during this time of vulnerability. I think that it is high time that we got outraged about a lot of it! Leaders acting without integrity is one of the things that pushes my buttons and invites me to throw a lot of emotional pennies in a very forceful way. I’m working on using my emotional pennies in ways that will move us all forward to a good outcome. Sometimes it’s about using emotional pennies wisely for a good cause, not trying to avoid spending any at all.

However, there are some bright spots out there. One is Brené Brown. A recent Facebook post from her is below. I agree with her assessment and advice 100%.

brene brown FB

Down on the frontlines, there are examples of humans being humane. These are true leaders. All of our healthcare workers and their families are making great sacrifices for the greater good. One of our local mayors is working tirelessly, and with a little ferocity, to make sure people don’t go hungry. Someone in my condo association put up a message offering to deliver food or run errands for anyone unable to go out. Even those who stay home are showing integrity and care for others. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to face ourselves without any distractions.

Here is the bottom line:

  • Leaders with great power have a huge responsibility to use that power for the good of all – not just personal gain. I don’t mind people making money, but it should never be at someone else’s expense. And no one should ever receive personal gain through the abuse of power given to them as an elected official.
  • Those of us without great power can make a difference by holding leaders responsible for their actions. It’s important that we call out outrageous and unacceptable behavior.
  • Lastly, we can help. We are all leaders, and as Brené Brown says: “Our choices affect everyone around us. There is no such thing as ‘individual risk’ or ‘individual wellness.’”

Our best choices are kindness, compassion, and a dogged determination to ensure our leaders – with power and information that we do not have – act appropriately for the good of us all.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

The Integrity Test of COVID-19

17 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Leadership, Uncategorized

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#LeadershipRules #LeadYourselfFirst #KathySays, #trustworthy, #TylenolScandal, integrity

COVID-19 cropped 1K px

Since all of our lives have been turned topsy-turvy in one way or another by COVID-19, I feel compelled to write about it. If nothing else, the newly-declared pandemic is testing our mettle and our integrity. I sincerely hope that those two things are all that get tested and that the measures we are taking help us avoid the horrible moral dilemmas faced by Italian doctors.

The Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (SIAARTI) has published guidelines for the criteria that doctors and nurses should follow when deciding whom to treat and whom to abandon. They simply do not have the resources to take care of every critically ill person. It reads like a triage recommendation for wartime. They are urged to treat those with the best chances of survival. Of course, that means that people like me – a few weeks shy of 60 years old with a bit of mild asthma and a few platinum coils in my brain – would literally be left for dead.

My survival and the survival of many of my fellow Baby Boomers depends on us not overwhelming the hospitals here in the United States. The best chance of preventing that catastrophe is for businesses and schools to shut down for a while – which can mean an enormous loss of income. I have already lost one speaking gig and am moving a two-day leadership seminar online. My income will be delayed for a while, but the situation is manageable for me.

Other organizations are not so lucky. For example, airlines are going to be hit hard. Sports teams have already canceled and lost significant income. Austin, TX, lost South by Southwest and the income generated by it for hotels, restaurants, and stores. Is the sacrifice worth the societal gain?

I’m reminded of the Tylenol scare back in 1982. Six people died in Chicago after taking Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide. I was 22 at the time, and I remember thinking that Tylenol was never going to recover from the scandal. As you well know, they did. They survived because they acted with radical integrity and did their best to protect consumers.

In addition to cooperating with legal entities, Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol’s parent company, ran national advertisements telling people not to take Tylenol capsules. The company did a recall that cost $100 million back in 1982 when recalls were unheard of. They also told consumers that they could trade in bottles of capsules for the harder-to-tamper-with tablets.

There was no evidence that any tampering happened outside Chicago. There were some copycat killers, but authorities knew pretty early on that the bottles had been bought, tampered with, and then replaced on store shelves. Despite that knowledge, Johnson & Johnson went ahead with the national recall.

They had 35% of the market share for pain relief before the murders happened. Their market share dropped to 8% immediately. However, one year later, they were back on top because they had maintained their customers’ trust and earned their loyalty with their admirable actions.

Instead of one company facing a crisis, many companies are now facing the same crisis caused by COVID-19. Many people are calling the closures and cancellations an overreaction. In my mind, the most important thing to maintain during this trying time is people’s trust. No one is going to trust an organization less for taking actions to protect people’s health.

I, for one, appreciate every person and organization who puts the greater good over their own profit. They will earn my loyalty and respect for however many years that I have left because they are working to keep me from being cast aside as a result of some poor doctor’s moral dilemma about who is the “right” person to save.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Integrity and Your Golden Ruler

10 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership

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GoldenRuler, integrity, rationalization, success, values

Integrity meme

NOTE: This is a blog that I wrote back in 2015, but the topic has come up a lot lately.

We are happier, more confident, and more successful when we live in alignment with our values. Imagine a ruler that shows the values that are most important to you. I call mine my Golden Ruler.

Ideally, we want to hold each action that we are considering against our Golden Ruler and see if the action is in alignment with our values. For example, kindness is one of my main values. I want to be kind and be known as a kind person. However, I have a tendency to be a little snarky and sarcastic sometimes. I’m hilarious when I’m snarky, but the laugh is short-lived and I don’t feel good about the action because it’s not in alignment with my values. If I stop and ask myself, “Am I about to say something unkind?” I am measuring my possible action against my Golden Ruler. I feel better about myself and my life when my actions are in alignment with the values of my Golden Ruler.

In my leadership seminars, we talk about our values quite a bit. It’s important to know what your Golden Ruler looks like! We talk about how we want to be remembered when we are gone and what qualities we want to define us. We talk about specific examples of how we live those values. Then I ask them to tell a partner about one time when they didn’t live their values.

Without fail, everyone has to tell the story around the action. They explain why they “had” to do what they did that one time. They RATIONALIZE the behavior. That’s the red flag. If you hear yourself rationalizing a behavior, you are convincing yourself to go against your own values. You aren’t rationalizing behavior that goes against my values or your neighbor’s values, you are rationalizing to yourself in order to make it OK to violate your own values. This was a major revelation for me.

The concept really hit home for me when I was working with a particularly difficult group. This group was always late. Management did not support the training. People drifted in and out and no one really paid attention. It was the worst group I ever encountered in a decade of training in industry. When I was getting ready for one of our sessions I thought, “Why am I bothering to prepare? They are never on time. They don’t really care. There is no good reason for me to spend time prepping for them.” Wow. Then it hit me. Being prepared and professional is important to me; it’s who I am! I was letting other people’s actions and attitudes influence my actions. I was letting them influence who I was and how I showed up in the world. Scary!

The phrase I use in leadership workshops is “Rationalization is bad judgment’s best friend.” We use bad judgment when we violate our own code of conduct and make it OK by rationalizing it. Rationalizing a behavior helps us sidestep that fact that we are using bad judgment.

Acting in alignment with the values on our Golden Ruler is acting with integrity. We are doing what we feel is right no matter what the circumstances are. Integrity is a solid, constant thing that lives within us. We are happier, more fulfilled, and more successful when we remember that we have the power to choose our actions no matter what the rest of the world is doing.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Better to Be Warm or Competent?

03 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by Kathy Stoddard Torrey in Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Motivation, Uncategorized

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#LeadershipRules #LeadYourselfFirst #KathySays, #strengthvswarmth, #trust

businesswoman leader welcomes you with a handshake in her group

Research shows that we determine how we feel about leaders based on two factors: how lovable they are, and how fearsome they are. These two dimensions account for 90% of the impression that a leader makes on us.

Lovability includes things like warmth, communion, and trustworthiness. Fearsomeness includes strength, agency, competence, and confidence. According to a Harvard Business Review article by Amy Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger (titled “Connect, Then Lead”), we care about these two qualities because they answer two important questions:

  1. What are this person’s intentions toward me?
  2. Is he or she capable of acting on those intentions?

I know many leaders who actively work to project strength and competence. I don’t see as many who worry about how warm they seem. According to the research, they are missing the boat.

Leaders who are competent but lack warmth can elicit envy in others. Envy creates both respect and resentment. We will follow that type of leader but judge any missteps harshly. In addition, we don’t trust leaders who don’t seem to care about us. We are more likely to fear them, and fear makes us less creative and less resilient. A leader who inhibits people’s problem-solving abilities can’t be classified as extraordinary.

The research shows that it is better to start with warmth in order to create a positive and lasting influence. Our personal needs are to be listened to, understood, and respected. When leaders meet those personal needs, they help to create trust and the positive relationships upon which great leadership depends.

I found one study by organizational psychologists Andrea Abele and Bogdan Wojciszke particularly telling. When leaders were asked what type of training they would like for themselves, they chose training based on competency and skills. When asked what training others should take, they picked soft-skills training.

In another experiment, they asked leaders to describe an event that shaped their self-image. They listed achievements that highlighted their competency and knowledge – things like earning an advanced degree or a pilot’s license. When asked to describe a similar event for someone else, they chose something that focused on the person’s warmth and generosity – things like volunteer activities and helping others.

I’m not sure why we don’t value compassion and generosity in ourselves. Maybe we believe that we have it already. From working with scores of leaders, and quite a bit of work on myself, I know that we rarely have an accurate self-image.

Here is a quote from “Connect, Then Lead” that helps to explain the power of warmth:

“But putting competence first undermines leadership: Without a foundation of trust, people in the organization may comply outwardly with a leader’s wishes, but they’re much less likely to conform privately – to adopt the values, culture, and mission of the organization in a sincere, lasting way. Workplaces lacking in trust often have a culture of ‘every employee for himself,’ in which people feel that they must be vigilant about protecting their interests.”

The authors are describing psychological safety! One of my favorite soapbox topics! Without psychological safety, teams, groups, and organizations cannot excel. The authors tell us that one way to promote psychological safety is to lead with warmth and show people that we care about them.

They describe the ideal as a “Happy Warrior” who starts by showing warmth and then demonstrates their competence and strength. Cuddy, Kohut, and Neffinger write, “Happy warriors reassure us that whatever changes we may face, things will work out in the end.” Not many people love change, but we face it with more ease when we believe that our leader has our back.

The bottom line is that we willingly follow leaders whom we trust to have our best interests at heart and who also have the strength and competence to be effective.


For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

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