Leading from Within: A Workshop with Greg Giesen - posted by Reid Palmer

The topic of leadership has a variety of perspective and ideas. There are issues involving groups, individuals, and performance. To be an effective leader as an individual there are several things that one can do to improve yourself. Many books have been written and assessments been designed to establish who you are and what your leadership style is. Greg Giesen is one such person who has
developed a program to help people develop their own leadership skills. He calls his program “Leading From Within”. 

Greg came to Metro last Wednesday night to present some ideas from his program.  Greg’s program typically runs for a three-day retreat in the mountains of Colorado, but he was happy to come and share ideas with us in the heart of Denver on the Auraria Campus. 

One of Greg’s most effective points was he wanted to establish that people are the most effective leaders not when they are trying to be “good leaders” by emulating traits or buzz words. People become effective leaders by learning in depth who they are, nurturing that knowledge into how they can be an effective leader on their own terms. Being a good leader is not a one-way solution, not everyone who is a good leader does so in the same way. This was one of Greg’s main points and that to lead from within you need to know who you are at your core.

To further the idea of people getting to know themselves Greg had the group complete and exercise in which we were asked to imagine a book we would write about ourselves. This lesson had us thinking about what traits we were good and how we might use those in the context of finding our own leadership style. We shared what we had written and this helped each one of us learn a little as well as see how others view their strengths.

The workshop was a great chance to meet with a community member who knew a lot about the subject of leadership and has ways to help others get the best out of themselves. Greg Giesen is a helpful resource on the subject of leadership and we were happy to have him on campus.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

If you haven't already seen this I strongly encourage you to view this video of Carnegie Mellon Professor,  Randy Pausch.  This is a wonderful, inspiring, touching lecture on "achieving your childhood dreams".

Motivation

It only seemed right to have this video follow the post on "Drive".

Gretta's book recomendation: "Drive"

Daniel Pink, “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”

Reviewed by Gretta Mincer

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’ s a mistake, Daniel H. Pink says in, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, his provocative and persuasive new book. The secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Last month, I heard an interview with Daniel Pink on NPR’s Morning Edition and was intrigued by the concepts he discussed in the interview. Interested enough to read a book though? Not an automatic yes. You see—I haven’t read more than 5 books a YEAR since I’ve been out of school. Perhaps I got ambitious with my new year’s resolutions—I ordered the book. Here’s my preview. You all are welcome to check-out this book and several others available in our small Leadership library in Student Activities.

Why Should I Read the Book:
The book contains scientific information about what motivates people. It challenges traditional approaches and gives new ideas for motivating others. The book focuses on three themes for motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

In working on a college campus, I can see how this might play out in student organizations. Groups may be setting themselves up to fail if you build an expectation that food will be at student organization events. Food may be a small motivator for new people to be involved, but people who continue to participate in the organization may build this as an expectation. People are much more likely to remain involved if they are given autonomy, responsibility and some creativity and feel like they contribute to the team. The second half of the book contains exercises designed to grow your skills in motivating others.

http://www.danpink.com/drive

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122271669:

Women's Leadership Conference Recap

This morning starting off with a truly moving keynote speech by Pam Grier.  She's a very passionate and engaging speaker, with a touch of sass, who comes across as genuine and sincere.  She spoke about her life, and coming into fame, she talked about her book, and the many obstacles that she's overcome.  She spoke about leadership and what that looked like to her noting that "love is the most powerful leader of them all" which really set the tone for the rest of the day. 

The rest of the morning was organized around two sets of breakout sessions covering issues from career planning to what makes a woman.  One of the breakout sessions that I attended was led by Jenny Finn from Colorado Springs and focused on "inner sustainability".  This was a very unique breakout session, stirring up lots of emotions and it brought a large group of individuals much closer in a short period of time.  We were all pushed outside our comfort zones and encouraged to recognize how we felt in various scenarios. We acknowledged how we tend to conform to society's expectations of how we should act.  Jenny Finn talked about the metaphorical masks that we wear and she designed activities around taking those masks off.  We started the session by writing down one word that best describes the light inside of us on a pebble that we placed in a large metal bowl.  At the end of the session we all picked one of the stones out of the bowl and described how it was meant for us.

The conference came to an end with lunch and a final panel of female leaders in the Colorado community.  The panel was comprised of Rebecca Crummey, Canon at St. John's Cathedral in Denver; Charlene Porter, author of Bold Faced Lies; Tamra Ryan, CEO of Women's Bean Project; and Judi Diaz Bonacquisti, VP of Enrollemtn Management at MSCD.  Each woman shared their unique and exceptional life stories that brought them to where they are today.  It was a very diverse panel and it was great hearing from such accomplished women. 

While I wish I was able to see more of the other breakout sessions, I truly enjoyed meeting such incredible individuals.  Between the presenters, facilitators, and attendees, there were so many inspiring people brought together today.