An intuitive leader is someone who is emotionally resilient and connected to their feelings. They are in their body. They are not afraid to be authentic, respectful, resilient, responsive, and reflective. These are the signs of a leader that truly cares about his/her people and is willing to build those relationships. Join Sam Reeve, Char Miller, & Sumit Singla as they talk to Karin Lubin, co-founder of Quantum Leap Coaching and Consulting. Karin helps people who are feeling burnt out and lost. She helps them reconnect with themselves and find enthusiasm back in their lives. Listen in as Karin talks about the five attributes you need to become an intuitive leader. Start practicing these attributes in your daily life today!

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Be An Intuitive Leader With These 5 Attributes With Karin Lubin

I did say there’s an expert panel here, and I wasn’t lying. Let me introduce you to everybody. Let’s start off with Char. Char has gone from the corporate world. She worked in HR for many years but then decided to step out on her own into entrepreneurship. She’s run many businesses. She is a career coach and HR consultant. She runs a health advocacy business as well.

We also have Wendy. Wendy hops in and out sometimes, so it’s nice to have her on this episode. She works with the CompTeam, with Sam and his team. She works in talent development. She’s working on her new bio for me. I’m hoping the next time she jumps in, I’ll have more to say. She’s a bit mysterious, but if you know Wendy, she has a lot of hobbies. She loves to do a lot of different things. I vibe with that. I’m here for that.

Hopefully, Howard will be able to join us, but since he is not here, let me introduce Sumit. Sumit is a People Strategist. He’s worked in HR talent management. He has a talent for going into different companies and organizations, small and large, to help them reinvent and revitalize all of their talent management processes. He’s worked with mergers. He’s done a little bit of everything as well. Lastly, we have Sam who is the Founder and CEO of CompTeam. He is a Rewards and Compensation Strategist and Expert. All things compensation, you can hand it to Sam. He is also the person who runs this whole show. We’re here because of Sam. That is our expert team.

We also have our guest speaker. I promised you a guest speaker, so here she is. We have Karin Lubin. She is the Cofounder of Quantum Leap Coaching and Consulting. She runs this with her husband. She’s been a speaker, coach, and trainer for many years. She knows how to dive deep and help you become great by working on self-reflection. She also has seasonal wisdom journals, which I’m very curious about.

Speaking of journaling, she does have a free three-day journaling challenge. We’re going to give you details about that at the end. Stick around to the end if that’s something that you might be interested in. We’re excited to discuss this topic, which is the Five Attributes Of Intuitive Leaders, so I’m going to pass it over to Karin.

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Welcome to our forum. We’re so happy to have you here, Karin.

Thank you. I am excited. I love that there’s a whole group here. You say CompTeam and here’s the team. I love that. It’s so interesting when you talk about human resources. It is also fantastic that you have Sumit who is a people strategist. That’s very cool. I’m interested to hear more about what that is. I am deeply honored to be able to be here and talk about leadership and what an intuitive leader is. Let me know when you want me to start rolling because I will roll at any moment when you want.

Will do. We’re super excited, but first, so everybody can get to know you a little bit, can you tell us a little bit about your journey in life, how you got to where you’re at, and why you started your business and the people that you help?

Absolutely. I work with people who have lost the thread or the enthusiasm in their life. They realize that they’re not getting something. They’re missing something. They have the quantity of success and maybe material things, but not the quality of the relationship and the connection to themselves. Those are the people I work with often in transition. That goes back to my own story.

When I was in public education, I was for, twenty years, very loyal to kids. I love kids. I worked with kids from kindergarten all the way through eighth grade. I then became a vice principal, and then I became a principal of schools. I went to a number of schools. By my twentieth year, I burned out. I was a walking zombie. I was so disconnected from my head and my heart. I am someone who probably had more of the right brain working, which is the more creative, intuitive, and emotional piece, rather than my left brain.

I worked very hard for twenty years, over developing my left brain, which is logical, linear, and all good things. It has problem-solving and other important things to have. I diminished and took away my right hemisphere, so to speak. I was so disconnected from my heart. When I was talking earlier, I was saying that I went on a year’s trip because I realized I was of no service to anybody, especially the kids being so burned out. I was lucky I was able to have an opportunity to take this year, fill myself up, and be able to remember what all the things that I enjoyed are.

I had this bucket list of things that I wanted to do. A lot of them were traveling. I went to Belize and learned how to sail. I went to Mexico and learned Spanish. I then went to India for three months and studied with these spiritual masters. I went on and on to all these other courses and training that I did in the United States and so on.

When I came back, I had gotten my Doctorate with my husband. We both got a Doctorate in Educational and Organizational Leadership. One of the things that we got from that training for four years was mentoring and coaching. We wanted to start our own coaching business because we had always wanted to work together. My husband, Randy, had always worked at the university level and I had always worked with the K-12. We were able to finally merge our own different strengths and talents in a Quantum Leap Coaching and Consulting company that we started, which was in 2005 or 2006. It has been a while.

It’s exciting because we started with the idea of helping people take quantum leaps out of where they were stuck or what they weren’t very excited about and moving. That was my own experience. Who I work with are those people that are feeling something is missing. Often, we call that transition. It can be a transition or loss. I think about the last couple of years with the pandemic. There are so many things and many people we have lost. There’s been this fallout, at least for me. How about you guys? Did you notice that there are people that you don’t see all of a sudden? They fell away and there’s a loss for that.

That’s a super timely thing to talk about because, in the United States, a lot of teachers have lost their passion and are moving on to different things. There is a crisis across America of finding that staff. I know you have deep expertise here in the experience of being an administrator and an educator. What do you think? What’s going on here?

The system has set up some parameters that have stopped a lot of teachers from being creative. There is a lot of art to being a teacher, and we have lost a lot of that. Instead, what we have is a system that is set for everyone, which is for teachers and kids. We’ve taken out music and art. We’ve whittled things down. Supposedly, we’re all excited as kids are coming in, but when we don’t have this vast array, that’s the same thing for teachers. They don’t have this vast array of things to pull from and support their students. When you’re being told, “This is how you have to do it,” how many of you like to be told what to do?

There is a lot of art to being a teacher, and people have lost a lot of that. Click To Tweet

Not me.

There’s a certain point where you go, “Thank you. That’s helpful.” When you’re being told, “You can’t do that. You can’t do that. Stop. Do it this way,” there’s this constant control. We want to bring our students into the world as phenomenal citizens. That means that they have this spectrum and wide range of tapping into different things so that they understand what their values are and what the things that they like are. We don’t have to say what they love, but what they like and what are the things that they might need to support themselves so that when they are going through life, they can be successful. Success can be defined in many different ways, but let’s say success is in feeling good about what you’re doing.

Translating this over to the business, I can see that it’s much of the same thing. Leaders out there are very caring leaders. I know Char has a lot of experience in this with leading with her heart and so forth with her teams. As leaders, we want the best for our people. We want them to develop, perform well, be happy, and all these things. I’m eager to dive into five things, but Char, what do you think about that?

What I have is something called HR with a heart. It’s interesting how you talked about your experience. I, too, had found that pathway in my corporate-level career and didn’t feel there was enough heart in HR, in general. It is more of a bureaucracy-type of a pond, so to speak, executing mass layoffs and various business operational things. It was lacking in the heart.

When I left and decided to start my own company, I chose to lead with heart and completely change the paradigm of performance management. I love that talent development and organizational effectiveness through the heart and trying to explore different approaches and avenues. With the freedom of having your own company, you could do that. It’s challenging for HR individuals, though, and talent.

I love that talent development conveys what heart means on the spot as to what you think about this subjective type of topic. It doesn’t make any sense to our corporate-level team, so it’s hard. It’s a hard fence that HR has to be at. If you can’t get it right, your employees will not have a lot of trust and faith in your executive team. That’s my view.

First Attribute: Authenticity

You said an important word, which is trust. That is the core of when you’re building a team or any relationship. When you say heart-based, I’m all in. That’s me. How I define it, though, is that we are relationship-based. Wherever we go in work, and I don’t care what work it is, whether it’s the biggest corporation or the smallest solopreneur business, we are in a relationship with our clients, our families, the people that we are working with, and our distributors. Whomever and whatever we’re working with, we have relationships with. If we’re not building trust, then that’s the downfall. It takes time to build trust, and very quickly, we can erode trust. It’s amazing how quickly.

 

I’ve seen executives walk around with a plastic façade, I call it, and have that facial expression that they’re supposed to appear trustworthy, caring, or that type of thing. Employees can see right through that. If they don’t feel the authenticity and trueness of one’s self, they won’t trust your senior team. You’ll be seen right through.

Amen to that. Of the 5 attributes, 1 of them is being real. This is my own personal experience. I have not been real. I have put on that face that you talked about. People can see through. You know you’re not in integrity. How many of you want to be in integrity? I sure as heck do, so it feels horrible. At least it has, for me. It has felt so bad when I have not been saying, “I feel bad now. I’m going to pull through. I’m going to get through this. I’ll be the best support I can be, but know this is what’s happening for me.” We don’t have to take an hour to share. We can give a little, “That’s where I’m at. I’m doing my work to come back, but I’m going to take a little time here.”

That’s super important. Where do we find that balance as leaders? You can go too far with this. You can be over vulnerable or go take it to an extreme. Where do we find the right balance as a leader, and how do we know when we’re at the right balance?

Here’s how I do this. The five attributes are qualities that you embody. It’s not just you, but every person on your team. I invite everyone to embody these. They can take it or leave it. However, when you begin to empower people to be real, we’re developing trust here. How you respond to that realness is very key.

I did this. It’s interesting. For the SHRM, the HR group in New Mexico, there are many breakout sessions. I was one of the people presenting and we did this exercise called What’s Up With Me? It’s one minute each. When you’re doing What’s Up With Me, you’re explaining and sharing what is present in your mind and your heart. You’re not telling your story. You’re not saying, “I’ve always had this issue.” It’s nothing like that. We could even practice it for a moment here. What’s up with me is I’m excited. What’s up with me is I want to give the most I can to all of you. What’s up with me is I was a little frustrated with my internet earlier.

 

Maybe you had an argument with your spouse or your beloved or your kid got upset and that’s bothering you. You can say that. You get one minute and everyone else listens. No one else talks. That is a very powerful tool to be witnessed and to be real. You’re saying what’s up with you? You’re being authentic, vulnerable, and transparent. You’re allowing people to see who you are in this present moment.

I have a question about that exercise. What’s up with me is I’m battling the mounds of clutter in my garage because I’ve been moving too much. I have too much crap in my garage. At the end of me sharing that what’s up with me, does everybody give you organization tips? Do they give you feedback, questions, or anything like that?

No. They just get to listen. That’s the difference because it’s not about advice-giving or anything. It’s about us being present to you being frustrated with this experience that you had. We’re right there listening and you get to let it go. You put it out there and none of us are flipping out. If you wanted feedback, maybe after the whole experience, you can say, “If anyone does have any suggestions for me afterward, I’d love to hear them,” but this is not advice-giving.

When we’re pouring out, it’s like, “My pet died,” and everybody is like, “Gosh,” is part of that of validation as well as far as the team at the end?

If you said that to me and I’m listening, I’m going to be like, “Wow.” That’s all I have to do. There’s nothing I need to do or say. I’m here and listening. The thing is you’re not on your phone. The rest of us are present. We’re not doing anything else. We’re there for one minute. It’s the most important one minute that you’re taking.

Char or Sam, if you were sharing whatever it is, we get to be witnesses. That is important. Nothing else needs to be done. Notice how you feel after you’ve said it. It’s probably a little lighter. No one has run away screaming. You’re safe. There’s safety here, trust being built, and respect for wherever you’re at. That’s where you’re at, and we’re okay with it. You have to model it and continue to model this.

How are leaders doing this? Are they doing this on a daily basis? Are they doing this weekly? What is the cadence for something like this activity?

Every time you meet, if you can, it’s one minute. If there are 6 of you, that’s 6 minutes. If you can do that, that’s great. It’s also a great way if you’re going from one thing to another. It’s so good to help you transition into, “Here we are now.” This is one of the things that I often will do as a practice to help people connect.

There are five attributes. Being real is one of the attributes, but there are also these practices. I have five practices, tools, or habits if you want to call them, that I use as an intuitive leader, which is in my family life and work life because that’s how I see this. I’m always looking at how I can create this opportunity to connect. It is a connection opportunity. Connection is so important. I know you know this. I know Char and all of you know this because if you don’t have that connection, you’ll do this for the money, and then you’re going to be done. It wields resiliency.

If you're just doing something for the money and you don't have a connection, you won't have the resiliency to go on. Click To Tweet

I so relate. When I was 25 years old, I had my first HR leadership job. Even my boss, even though I loved him as a leader, as soon as he showed no empathy for the fact that my cat was tragically killed in a bad cat accident, I came to work mortified. I was devastated. As soon as he showed zero compassion for that and did not want to talk to me about it, it was shortly after that I was applying for a new job.

It is not just about the cat. It’s about caring about your people. It doesn’t matter if you hate cats. You still care about your people. They’re going through pain.

It was sad, too, because I liked this boss. As soon as that experience happened, I thought, “I’m going to start looking for a different position.” They typically say people start looking for new jobs a good six months before they have any clue that they’re out looking for a job. It’s those micro-moments of no compassion, lack of feeling, and not listening to that trigger those episodes that cause people to say, “This is not a good place for me to be. I need to go move on.” This could be an excellent retention strategy as well. I love your idea.

It was created by a woman named Lisa Nichols who you might have heard of. She does a lot of coaching with teenagers. She’s in the Transformational Leadership Council. I want to give her credit for being the one who came up with that. I didn’t. I wish I had, but it’s a wonderful experience. You can do that with What’s Up With Me. You can do that with What’s Good With Me. You can change it. You can do that with What’s Miraculous With Me. You can shift it so you don’t have to do the same thing. You can ask your team or somebody on the team, “How should we do What’s Up With Me this time?” Get them to also buy in.

Second Attribute: Respect

Char, you’re such a good leader in the sense that you keep bringing in these things that I’m going to take to the second attribute for an intuitive leader. It’s Respect and Being Respectful. To me, being respectful means that you are listening deeply. When you said that your boss did not even validate or act as if they heard you that you might have some feelings and emotions around something, to me, maybe he felt that he was being the best he could. Probably he was doing the best he could at that time. To me, being respectful means that you say, “What I heard you say is,” and you repeat back. Maybe in your case, you don’t repeat back, but you go, “How is it?” You might ask deeper questions. You can be like, “How are you doing with this situation?” You then practice silence. You get quiet.

I’d love to hear Wendy’s perspective on this because I know that she does a ton of talent interviews. Diving in and getting that story is so important in that background.

What’s coming up for me about this is going back to what Sam was saying. You may not like cats, but there’s something that you can relate to in that scenario. Where is your humanity? If you love and respect the people that you work with and care about them, then it doesn’t matter what’s going on for them. Whether to you it’s a big deal or not, if it’s a big deal to them and you care about them, then, you have to let them know. That was what was coming up for me. 

How does this work, Karin? Leaders want to be respected, but people want to be respected, too. There is this mutual thing. How do we go about this?

If you were to use this exercise of What’s Up With Me and something comes up, then all of you who are listening are being respectful by just witnessing. The attribute can be a quiet attribute, but it speaks louder than a lot of words when we can be like, “I’m listening right here.” You don’t have to say a lot. I’m not saying be so quiet that you never say anything, but when you’ve moved, you can find that, “I’m not in your shoes. This has to be hard because I heard you say that. Whatever I can do to support you now and going forward, please let me know. I’m going to hold you in my heart right now if that’s okay,” then shut up and be quiet.

You can be respectful by just listening. Sometimes listening speaks louder than a lot of words. Click To Tweet

What about in situations where we have people who are passionate about a particular idea and their work? They’re like, “I want to do this. This is so important to me,” but as a leader, you’re going, “That doesn’t fit in with our overall strategy. It doesn’t fit in with our cultural values.” How do you listen and not shut a person down with that respect?

I would ask them how it connects to your mission and your vision. Get them to tell you. If they don’t have any clue, then you say, “I’m willing to listen. I’d like to hear. I’m not seeing the connection yet myself, but if you think there’s some connection, let’s talk about it a little more.” There’s something called where we don’t want to devalue. Hopefully, that person is going to go, “You’re right. That was a little off. That’s more my passion. I see. Maybe I can tweak this, though, and then bring it back in so it can do X, Y, and Z to support whoever and whomever we’re working with and for.” There could be ways that you bring it back to that person. If they can’t figure it out, you go, “Got it. Let’s sit with it for a moment. When you do have something, bring it back.”

What do you think, Sumit?

That’s fantastic advice. One of the other things I’ve seen good leaders do is to still encourage the person. While you’re technically shooting the idea down, in a sense, they could also say, “I think that’s a great passion project. You’ll end up learning a lot even though it doesn’t have direct organizational value. Count me in. If you want to bounce around some ideas, I’d be more than happy to do that or maybe connect you to the right people.” You’re expressing support and saying, “I’m listening to you. I respect, appreciate, and value your idea. It may not be a tangible idea for us right now, but I’d still like to support you.”

That’s awesome, too. I love that. It’s both and. It’s everything that Sumit said and what I said. I bet all of you could add something.

I was thinking about some of the tech organizations where they build that into their work. The big portion is the stuff that goes towards the company and goals, but then, there’s this 5% or 10% of their time that they’re allowed to work on their ideas. They have support from their organization for that. I know that’s slightly different than what we’re talking about, but is there an opportunity there?

What I was thinking was maybe there’s a nudge to say, “You’re passionate about this. I don’t see the connection to how this fits into the overall goals, but could I nudge you? Can I push back on you to dig a little deeper and see how could we find the connection?” The other thing that came up for me is as a peer, or whoever, as an inert leader, could you connect that person to someone who could mentor or coach them with this exciting idea? They could support them on the journey if you’re not the person. Even that is like, “I have a buddy who’s also into that. I’d like to connect you because maybe they could support you,” and that shows how much you care.

I love everything you’ve said. We’ve talked about being real and respectful. These are the attributes of an intuitive leader. I don’t even know if I even have described what an intuitive leader is. I started beforehand, so I want to catch up with myself here if I may. How I define an intuitive leader as someone who is emotionally fit. They are people who feel like they are emotionally resilient, are connected to their feelings, love creativity, and have the downloads of whatever those things are.

Sometimes, we say they have a good hunch. They listen to their gut. They trust that. That’s a lot of the right brain. They’re heart-based. They’re relationship-oriented. They also have their left brain working. There’s some balance here. There’s problem-solving going on. There are some linear, logical, and sequential things that are happening. You’re integrating the best of that within yourself to the best of your ability.

Third Attribute: Resilience

I believe that an intuitive leader has been downplayed for so long. I’ll talk about North America or the United States. It’s been disregarded as emotions get in your way, but the reality is that we’re humans. As humans, that’s how we handle things. It’s through our emotions. We have to integrate that. There’s a high level of success for intuitive leaders when they have that balance of their right and their left brain but are coming from a place of also these attributes that I’ve been talking about. Those are being real and being respectful. The third R in all of this is resilience and being a resilient being. Does anybody want to take a stab at what resilient means to you so that I’m not just talking?

I know that resilience is super important in the past few years. It means the ability to continue on to be able to handle all those shocks that the company is facing and what we’re facing as individuals. We need to balance that emotionally, professionally, and behaviorally. That’s my thought. What do you think, Wendy?

Resilience is a big one for me. My personal story is I was near the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. I thought I was going to die that day. It was a very real feeling for me. I was only 22 years old. I was all alone. It was a hard, traumatic experience, but it was a life-changing experience for me, as a positive. The greatest gift that I’ve ever gotten from my mom is that she told me, “You’re resilient.” That helped me live the rest of my life. It was by having that knowledge.

It was a beautiful thing that she shared with me that she saw and reflected on me. It was that you can go through where you think you’re going to die and you feel all alone, helpless, unsupported, and scared. I thought it was World War III starting. There were helicopters flying overhead. I thought I was going to die at 22 and not get to say goodbye to my parents, but now I know that I have that.

It’s being able to put even if it’s the tiniest baby step forward out of something like that to rise from the ashes. To put one bone on top until you stand up, that’s the resilience that in the face of anything, you can take a step forward. You do not move on but move forward. That’s what I think of when I hear that word and why I understand how important it is. I’m grateful that I have it because I know not everyone does.

I want to, first of all, thank you for sharing how authentically scary that big situation was for you and how it impacted you deeply. I also want to say that I have great respect for someone like you and all of us who have gone through stressful, hard times. That sounds like that was down to zero. We were all at zero there, and you were there.

To me, being resilient is being able to spring back at whatever pace from a stressful situation, which could be negative or positive. You can have stressful situations that are super positive. You get married, or you move. These are supposedly positive things. You get a new job. That is positive stress. How do you spring back, and how do you handle this so you come out stronger? That, Wendy, is what I heard you say. I thank you for saying that so beautifully.

Being resilient is being able to spring back at whatever pace from a stressful situation. Click To Tweet

To me, when I think about how you build resilience is that you have to keep checking in with yourself. Here’s the writing. I invite all of you to think or share. You don’t have to write, but you could write if it gives you an opportunity to get it out and see it. What do you do to feel a greater balance in your life? When you feel stressed or feeling out of balance, what do you do to bring yourself back? You all have tools.

I’ll give you examples for myself. I exercise and journal. Journaling is my thing. Meditation used to be a thing I do, but I seem to do less of that and more of the exercise. That’s how it is, and it’s all good. For me, it’s also being out in nature. What is it for you? How do you get yourself back into balance when you feel out of balance? You might be watching your favorite movie or eating ice cream. What is it for you? Share, if you don’t mind. It would be good to hear.

Char, what do you do?

It’s important to connect with my friends and my colleagues and have conversations. I love that “how are you doing” conversation or that type of thing. I also listen to a lot of different talk radios, perspectives, and podcasts. To get my mind off of my worries or my anxieties, it’s good to listen to fill my head with different perspectives.

I did want to make one other comment on the intuitiveness of a leader. I’m very intuitive. I believe that’s one of my talents. I’m also a compassionate and emotional leader, quite candidly. Unfortunately, I knew that we would have to temporarily shut down and I knew that my employees would be impacted. Over the course of the year, I gave all my employees a heads-up to be prepared. I supported them with their career transformation and supported them.

As an intuitive leader to know that something was on the horizon that could impact us and that we may have to lay off a percentage of our employees was very nerve-wracking. I was being vulnerable and expressing to my employees the honest truth of what could potentially happen in our industry and what can I do to support them with perhaps a career transition during this difficult time. I was doing those months ahead of time before anything ever happened and my employees appreciated that. For me, back to the original question, I was anxious about that change. Having the heart-to-heart and honest-truth dialogue with my employees helped both of us. I was able to sit down and say, “What can I do to support you through these difficult times?”

That’s beautiful. That is being so real and respectful of each person. How you then handled that is incredible.

A lot of companies are so afraid of losing employees about being very true about business change, potential department shutdowns, or process flows going to impact people’s positions. Unfortunately, many leaders are afraid to tell their employees the real, honest truth about what’s happening because they don’t want that employee to leave. It is so unethical.

It’s so interesting. You’re sharing that connecting with people was also a way that you were dealing with how to create some balance for yourself. You were having a heart connection, which fills you up in a big and important way. Did I hear that right?

Yeah. I saw all too many times in many of my corporate positions where the senior leaders did not want to be forthright and honest with their employees about business changes. That is particular with the healthcare reform and the affordable healthcare, which was causing challenges with reimbursements and therefore, impacting physicians. Many of our executives did not want to be honest with their employees and keep those things hidden and behind the scenes. Sadly, it was the day when I was laying off 80 employees in one day that I was like, “This is a tough thing for me to coordinate in a compassionate and people-focused way.” I did my best, but it was tough.

We know what stress can do to our bodies. We can get high blood pressure. We don’t sleep at night. There are a lot of things. We bark at our family. We’re not pleasant. How do we find this resilience? I see somebody going out, walking on the beach, going into nature, talking and being with their partner, being with their animals, or climbing mountains. Those are excellent.

 

Fourth Attribute: Responsiveness

There is also journaling, writing, talking to people or your best friends, or sharing what’s going on in your heart and having somebody listen. These are all things and tools that will help you to stay resilient. It’s not like you need this once and then you’re done. This is a journey. This is an ongoing evolution of who we are. As an intuitive leader, small business person, solopreneur, or whomever and whatever we’re doing in the world, it takes some resiliency training. This is a big part of then moving into what I believe is the fourth attribute, which is being Responsive. Char, you gave an example of being responsive. You were seeing what was going on. You shared it and then took action. You told people beforehand. That is so freaking powerful. A lot of people don’t do that.

When we re-open, many of those employees wanted to come back because of the way we managed the situation. They were like, “Give us a call.” To not have that anger and resentment, I didn’t want to have that even if we had to close down for six months. It’s important. On the employer side, I would say it was also good. I saw nature walks, music, and various things.

Leaders, in general, should set up the environment for those things. Coordinate groups like hiking and art groups. I got into art. Coordinate those social settings. We don’t have to do bowling. Not everyone likes bowling, but coordinate those ways to de-stress, like various outdoor concerts or other things.

Employers often think, “It’s a holiday party. That’s the time of year that we do a special thing for our employees.” They don’t think about those things that can happen on a daily basis, like coordinating walking breaks for everybody to take a nice walk around the block together as a team. We want to sponsor those healthy types of processes and support mental wellness days saying, “We fully support mental wellness days.” It’s okay to take a day off or a mental break is also a big one.

Mental wellness is a positive mindset. If we’re going to move forward in our lives and in our business, we have to have some resilience in our mental mindset. Mental health is massive. There’s one other thing that I want to say. It’s a short story. When I was a teacher, I had a principal with who I would share my problems. I’d be like, “Help me. I need help.” He would look at me and be like, “Okay,” and then would then get up. It was as though I never said anything. This happened so many times with this particular principal. I realized, “I never want to be like that,” because he never responded to anything I would say. It was as though he was a sponge. Everything I said went into the sponge and then when you squeezed it out over here, it was gone.

Don't be a sponge because they never respond to anything. You give something to a sponge and they squeeze it out. Click To Tweet

Backing your people up is a part of this issue here. When you’re responsive, you have empathy. You got to put yourself in the person’s shoes a little bit so that you can hear what’s being said and then see if there’s any action. This is where the action is. Being responsive is action. Even if it’s just listening, there you have it. You have to have some response to somebody. If they share something, they have a problem or a concern. Assume it.

It can be a collaborative thing. You’re not saying, “This is what we’re going to do.” This is how you empower your people and say, “What do you think we might do about this? Do you have some suggestions? Do you have some ideas?” If you have a person who’s always pulling everything down, you need to train them to learn how to find solutions also. That’s a disservice to them and to your whole team because then, that person gets labeled a certain way. I would not want that for my team. It’s not always their strength. You can bring it back to them. Do you have any thoughts on that?

That makes perfect sense because you’re not putting the person on the spot. You’re not victimizing them in the eyes of other people. You’re also not encouraging the behavior of constantly ranting about some problems. They might have a disproportionate share of problems, but you’re sending a signal to the rest of the team as well. You’re like, “When you come to me, we’ll think of ideas. I won’t be issuing prescriptions to you. I’m not the one who’s in your shoes. You are the only one who’s in your own shoes. We need to find a solution that fits you and not a solution that would fit me if I were there.”

Fifth Attribute: Reflectiveness

If I could add the last and fifth attribute, it’s Being Reflective. It’s very hard to not be connected to yourself in order to do those other four attributes that I talked about. Being reflective is about connecting to yourself. It’s about understanding who you are in the present moment. I’m not talking about several years ago because that’s what I used to do. I was disconnected from myself. I thought I was going to be a principal or in public education forever, but I’m a well-being coach, a trainer, and a speaker. I am in education. I do educate, but I educate people to empower themselves. That’s the thread that goes through this.

 

How are you reflective? What do you do? That’s why I started these seasonal wisdom journals. I had people that I was working with who had no idea of how they felt. I asked, “How are you feeling?” They’d be like, “I’m good.” That was all they could say. In the journals that I’ve created, I have a whole feelings list. They were more of what we might state as negative or harder to deal with. Those were the harder ones. We then have the expanded feelings, which are the more joyful ones where you’re like, “I like this one. I want to stay here forever,” which we won’t, but it feels like we’d like to. There’s this opportunity to reflect.

I created a prompted journal. I give prompts and suggest specific things for people to tap into what’s going on for themselves. It’s like, “How are they feeling? What is that feeling in their body? Where is it? Get into your body.” An intuitive leader is someone who’s embodied. They’re in their body. I was somebody who was not, once upon a time. I still have to work on this. This is why I do this work as a well-being coach. I’m always checking in. I’m in my head. I’m a Gemini. I’m like, “I could talk about ideas in my head forever, but no. I got to be in my body.” That’s why I do all this other work. When I say work, it’s a play for me. It’s engaging myself in a way.

 

How do you support yourself? How do you do reflection? What does that look like? Some of the things you talked about with being resilient, walking in nature, etc., might be a time where you’re with just yourself or you’re talking to somebody and then there’s that reflection. You’re like, “This is where I’m at now. I got it.”

Here’s a question that you could always ask yourself. It’s what could be better and why. There’s another question. It’s what went well and why. I use these in my own journal. I love asking what went well and why. Sometimes, it’s what could be better. If you had a crappy experience, it’s good to ask that question and then what went well. You always want the what went well. You could also do what went well, but ask the why. It brings it back to you. You go, “I was open. I could have been contracted, but instead, I stayed open. Yay for me.” I believe journaling is a powerful tool. It’s not for everyone. Do you have anything you want to say, Sam?

Always ask yourself, 'What could be better and why, and what went well and why?' Click To Tweet

I know that we’re coming towards the top of the hour. The things that you’re saying are critically important for leaders. As we wrap up here, I would love to hear more about how people can interact with you, learn more about your services, how they can get help, and so forth.

There’s this 3-Day Journaling Challenge. I invite all of you to register. It’s September 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of 2022. It will give you a very powerful way to learn more about how you connect to yourself. You also get to see how I facilitate and work with people. I am all about empowering others. My homepage is DrKarinLubin.com. You can explore. I do a lot of different things.

I am a Gemini. I’m about being in my body. I do exercise. I do stuff around passion and bringing people to light that fire again. You don’t know who and what you’re all about unless you’re doing some reflection. Those five Rs that I talked about, which are being real, respectful, resilient, responsive, and reflective, are all key to being intuitive leaders. Wendy, you’ve done it. Maybe you can say something about it or not.

I had a big breakthrough even on day one of that workshop. It’s been key for me. That was very helpful for me to go through that. I used Karin’s seasonal journals. I was amazed at how I did not have feeling words in my vocabulary either. That was a big light bulb for me. It’s been good. Even writing one sentence in the morning and one sentence at night became a practice for me. Thank you.

Thank you. The other piece around that is when you’re doing journaling, there’s an evolution here. My journals are for busy people and deep thinkers. It’s for people who don’t have a lot of time. That’s why I created this. We get right into the heart of things. That’s what I like. I’m a simple gal, but I want power. I want powerful tools that are simple and that you can remember. The journal is one way to help you. Go to DrKarinLubin.com. I love that I was able to spend this quality time with all of you. Thank you. This was a gem of a time.

It’s always fun. We enjoyed having you on. There are so many good nuggets in there to improve our lives not only personally, but professionally. Thank you for your time and for sharing your wisdom.

It’s my pleasure. Anytime.

Everyone, we’d love to see you again next time. Thank you for another wonderful session, especially Karin and all our wonderful hosts. We’ll see everyone next time. Thank you very much.

 

 Important Links

• Char Miller – LinkedIn
• Wendy Settle – LinkedIn
• Sumit Singla – LinkedIn
• Karin Lubin
• Transformational Leadership Council
• 3-Day Journaling Challenge
• DrKarinLubin.com

 

About Karin Lubin

Karin and her husband are co-founders of Quantum Leap Coaching and Consulting; a consultancy specialized in helping individuals and business leaders to take ‘quantum leaps’ into living and leading from mindful purpose, passion and authenticity.

Karin is currently authoring a book on the core principles of high-performing “quantum leap leadership” and “enlightened teams” and strategies to accelerate connection, personal growth & transformation, purposeful contribution, and success.

Karin is also a Global Director & Senior Master Trainer of The Passion Test® Certification Program and The Passion Test® for Kids & Teens and supports 2500+ Passion Test® Facilitators. She has helped thousands discover and more fully express their passion and leadership in this capacity.