Sara Sheehan shares an episode containing three messages about mindset approaches. The three approaches collectively yield an attainable vision of transformational leadership. Drawing on her years of experience, Sara’s passion for building long-term relationships and delivering business results gives this episode a timely impact. Transformational leadership has never been as important as it is now.
The three mindset approaches Sara lays out involve resilient leadership, the learning leader, and aligning vision with action. Resilient leadership is about transforming challenges into opportunities. Not all leadership navigates smooth waters, storms will be encountered. How does a leader handle storms gracefully? The learning leader and aligning vision with action address qualities that a good leader must cultivate to realize success.
In this episode, Sara’s advice encompasses the necessity of continuous education, what that education involves, how to cultivate a clear and compelling vision, and how to align goal setting with that vision. While Sara acknowledges that all leaders are individuals and every organization will need different strengths at different times, transformational leadership will always involve resilience, growth, and the alignment of vision and goals. Knowing how to approach these mindsets and make them work for each organization is part of the legacy of effective leadership.
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Transcript:
Sara Sheehan: [00:00:02] Hi there, I’m Sara Sheehan and welcome to my podcast, Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan. Today I’m sharing a collective of three messages with mindset approaches that yield transformational leadership in a monologue format. In the first segment, I’ll talk about resilient leadership, transforming challenges into opportunities and building resilient leadership. In the second segment, I’ll discuss approaches for the learning leader. Keeping ahead of the curve with continuous education. And finally, we will discuss how aligning vision with action is the key to strategic success.
Sara Sheehan: [00:00:57] Hi there! Today I am going to talk a little bit about transforming challenges into opportunities and building resilient leadership. Leadership is not just about steering organizations through smooth waters, but also about navigating through storms. Challenges and setbacks are inevitable aspects of the working world, and a leader’s ability to handle these situations gracefully and effectively is what defines true resilience. For CEOs, cultivating resilience is not just a personal trait, but a crucial component of their professional legacy. Resilience and leadership goes beyond simply recovering from setbacks. It involves using challenges as stepping stones for growth and learning. When faced with difficulties, resilient leaders look for lessons and opportunities for improvement. They see every setback as a chance to refine their strategies and enhance their teams capabilities. This mindset not only helps in overcoming current challenges, but also prepares the organization for future hurdles. Another key aspect of building resilience is focusing on personal and team strengths. By understanding and leveraging your strengths and those of your team, you can navigate challenges more effectively. Strength-based coaching can help identify these areas of potential and develop them further, contributing to a more resilient organizational culture.
Sara Sheehan: [00:02:58] One way to look at using your strengths is by thinking of a strength as a muscle that you need to build and work out. If you are using it regularly, you’ll be more likely to increase its strength, increase the connection that you have with that capability, and actually build more confidence in it. Constructive feedback is a cornerstone of personal and professional development. For CEOs, seeking and acting on feedback that can lead to significant improvements in leadership style and decision-making processes, embracing feedback not as a criticism, but as a vital part of input, a vital piece of input that can help refine your strategies and approaches. Just to double-click on this topic a little bit, make sure that you’re looking at feedback as a tool, a means to an end that can help you make significant leaps in your performance. If you don’t have feedback happening where you’re able to learn from others, you may be stuck in a significant way. You may be hitting that upper-limiting problem. Seeking a mentor’s perspective is something that is so very important. Experiencing challenges offers a great opportunity to check in with a few of your mentors, to learn how they have handled similar situations, to ask if they have any innovative solutions to tough dilemmas that you might be experiencing, and see if they’ve had any other points of view that could help you create a productive path forward in a particular situation.
Sara Sheehan: [00:05:36] For one of my coaching clients, we used all of these approaches in our engagement. She was able to build more resilience over time to get much-needed perspective on her situation, and use constructive feedback to her advantage, and learn to lead from her strengths more in each situation. The engagement created a deeper self-awareness and more empathy in others as well. It’s truly remarkable when you take a moment and you take a step back and look at opportunities to grow and learn, to use your strengths, to tune in to feedback and check in with a few mentors, it’s amazing what can result from a few of these strategies. You can absolutely become more resilient. Resilience is not developed in a day, truly, or by facing one difficult challenge. It’s built through consistent practices and a mindset that views challenges as catalysts for growth. By focusing on resilience-building strategies, CEOs can ensure that they not only survive but thrive in the face of adversity, setting a powerful example for their organization and their teams. I would love to hear from you about what you think about resilient leadership, and if there are any tools or approaches that you find incredibly useful.
Sara Sheehan: [00:07:51] The learning CEO and keeping ahead of the curve with continuous education. The landscape of global business is continually evolving, driven by technological advancements, market shifts, cultural changes, so many pressures on individuals, teams and organizations. For CEOs, staying relevant and effective, means maintaining a commitment to continuous learning and adaptation. Embracing the mindset of a lifelong learner is crucial for leaders who wish to lead their organizations successfully into the future.
Sara Sheehan: [00:08:46] Today, we’re going to talk about three different approaches that can be extremely helpful in helping to keep your edge sharp. Continuous learning. Executive shadowing and feedback. And finally, participating in masterminds. In the quest to stay competitive, ongoing education is truly vital. This can be through formal training workshops, reading, engaging with thought leaders, getting into very interesting conversations. Each learning opportunity helps you to gain fresh insights and perspectives which are essential for making informed decisions and leading innovatively. Learning from real-world experiences and direct feedback is also incredibly valuable. To that end, executive shadowing allows you to observe different leadership styles and organizational dynamics firsthand, providing practical insights that are often not available through a traditional learning mode or method. When you couple that with constructive feedback, this approach can really, truly, significantly enhance your leadership effectiveness. When you are in the presence of a significant leader that you admire and respect, and you’ve worked with for a period of time, always take the opportunity to ask for constructive feedback, because you might be amazed by what you learn, and it might open up a completely new thought pattern for you that is an absolute aha moment.
Sara Sheehan: [00:11:04] Finally, participating in mastermind groups is another excellent way for CEOs to engage in continuous learning. These groups provide a platform for sharing challenges, solutions, and strategies with peers, offering diverse perspectives that can broaden your understanding and spark innovative ideas. I know people that are constantly in a mastermind, and that’s how they keep their edge sharp, and I definitely think they are on to something. One of my coaching and consulting clients used all three approaches that I have just talked about in this segment as growth tools during our coaching engagement. From a style perspective, she is able to lead with information or input for others, as she’s constantly learning about the next cohort that she’s about to join. She is a constant, thriving learner and is a student of new courses, books, workshops, and programs of any kind. She has actively used all three approaches in her own career trajectory. After reaching a senior level of leadership, she was able to separate herself from her peers and get not only mentoring, but constructive feedback that helped her shape professional goals and values for the next phase of her career. Finally, masterminds help participants collaborate on creative approaches that they may never have thought of, as well as uncover and work through blind spots and my particular client is an active participant in masterminds and has used them to help her get more insight on a continual basis.
Sara Sheehan: [00:13:21] I think that the approaches that work for you are personal and they have to fit your personality and your personal strengths, but there’s definitely something to learn by being a learning leader. The continuous commitment for learning is what separates transformative leaders from the rest. By investing in your personal and professional development, you ensure that not only your growth, but also the advancements of your greater organization as a CEO set a lifelong learning agenda and inspire your team to follow suit.
Sara Sheehan: [00:14:15] For any CEO having a clear and compelling vision is absolutely fundamental. However, the true challenge really lies in aligning every action and decision with the vision. Strategic alignment ensures that all efforts are directed towards the same end goals, optimizing resources and enhancing organizational coherence. First, I want to focus on vision and alignment. Strategic success starts with a clear vision. As a CEO, it’s your responsibility to not only define the vision, but ensure that every part of your organization understands and aligns with it. Regularly communicating your vision and its relevance to daily tasks can help maintain focus and motivation across all levels of your business.
Sara Sheehan: [00:15:31] Second, goal setting with accountability. To ensure alignment with your vision, set specific, measurable goals for yourself and your team. Establish regular check-ins and monitor progress and adjust strategies as necessary. Accountability mechanisms should be in place to keep everyone on track and ensure that actions directly contribute to the broader objectives. Employ visualization and journaling techniques. Employing visualization techniques can keep your goals and outcomes top of mind. Visualization is so incredibly powerful. Visualizing your success can boost your confidence and clarify the steps that you need to take to achieve your vision. This practice can be particularly powerful in helping you maintain focus during difficult or challenging times.
Sara Sheehan: [00:16:53] Additionally, journaling can help you discern patterns to see where concepts may be repeating in your life and help clarify the best next steps that you need to take. Taking a moment to journal about what you learned on a given day or a given week can really help you come to great insight. One of my coaching clients used all three of these approaches during our engagement, and she was able to uncover blind spots that she had to find completely new paths forward that she had never considered, and she was able to stay true to her overall vision by continuing to work on her planned actions. If you do the work, you’re more likely to achieve the goal. It’s a great thing when you just do what you planned on doing. You’re going to move things forward. Aligning your actions with your vision, it’s just, it’s not a one-time task. It’s an ongoing process that requires constant attention and refinement. By ensuring that your daily actions are in sync with your long-term goals, you pave the way for sustained success and a legacy of effective leadership. Each of these concepts are just examples that you might experiment with to see what helps you gain more clarity. What helps you show up as a better leader? What helps you achieve more of the goals that you set? Everybody’s different and some approaches work for some people and not for others. But when you’re putting the effort in, you’re more likely to achieve the goal.
Sara Sheehan: [00:18:24] Thank you so much for listening to episode 14, where we delved into the power of mindset in transformational leadership. As leaders, our thoughts and approaches can dramatically influence our abilities to navigate challenges, learn continuously, and align our vision with our actions. Some of the key takeaways from today’s episode: First, building resilient leadership. Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back from setbacks. It’s about leveraging challenges as stepping stones for growth. By focusing on personal and team strengths, seeking constructive feedback, and learning from mentors, leaders can develop a robust, resilient culture. Second, commitment to continuous learning. Staying ahead in an evolving business landscape requires a commitment to lifelong learning. Engaging in continuous education, executive shadowing, and participating in mastermind groups can provide fresh perspectives and innovative ideas to enhance leadership effectiveness. Third, aligning vision with action. Strategic success comes from clear vision and alignment. Regularly communicating your vision and setting measurable goals with accountability and utilizing visualization techniques can ensure that every effort is directed towards the end goal, optimizing resources and enhancing organizational coherence. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure that you subscribe so you never miss an episode. As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments.
