This course is designed to help you become a connected leader. But what exactly do we mean by leader and connected? Perhaps these concepts feel positive for you and you're eager to learn more. Or maybe this feel abstract right now and you're not sure how they apply it. You might have mixed or even negative associations with them and have decided to step out of your comfort zone with this course. If so, thank you. Before we begin the connected leadership course, let's then take a moment to unpack what we mean by these two words. Often, when I teach these types of courses, I find that the term leadership, in particular, provokes a range of reactions. While some individuals have positive associations with the word leadership, it can carry negative associations for others, particularly those from identities and communities that have historically been marginalized by bias. Associations with leadership can also depend on context, whether leadership is earned or assigned, whether it serves the public good or an individual's ambition. Whether it involves leading subordinates, peers, or the broader community. It is important to recognize your individual lived experience whether you or someone close to you has had good or bad interactions with leaders in the past. Please take a moment to write down your associations with the word leader and what you think of the word leadership. You might include two columns, one for positive associations, and one for the negative based on your context and your lived experience. When you think of leading, do you think of whos and wheres? Or do you think of whats? From what position? Do you think of behaviors and traits, or bosses and titles? There is a suggested template in your workbook to help you unpack your thoughts about this crucial term. A common theme that comes up in these reflections is that people tend to view leadership positions and leadership abilities and behaviors very differently. People might be more skeptical of someone appointed to a leadership position, for example, since that person is benefiting from hierarchy and doesn't necessarily have leadership ability. Someone with leadership ability meanwhile, doesn't rely on their position to motivate people around them. Instead, they use skills such as empathy, compassion, awareness, and a deep sense of responsibility to their team and the broader world to inspire action. This is the aspect of leadership we want to focus on in the connected leadership course. Just as it is beneficial to draw the positive, neutral, and negative connotations of leadership for you and to consider their roots, it can also be helpful to consider how the term leader is different for you from the term manager. In short, managers might be managing tasks and work out how to get things done right. Leaders lead people and work out how to get the right things done. Let's also consider where we lead from. A common feeling is that we're not truly leaders until we're out front or on top of the organization chart. But when you cultivate your leadership ability, you can lead from any position. In your current professional or personal life. You might have the opportunity to lead in the field or define the steps to achieve a goal, a project with parameters to be determined by you and your investigation. Or you might lead from the side, creating consensus on goals that you and your partners will work together to achieve. Equally important is being able to lead from behind and serve as the coach, educator, or advisor who guides the course of a project. A purpose-driven, connected leader, nearly always leads from within. We'll cover this in this course as leading from within suits all four positions well, and you are stronger and more effective when anchored to your individual purpose. You can then lean towards the different leadership positions depending on what is appropriate for the situation. In my own professional life, I've been involved with projects that have needed my leadership from each of these areas. Sometimes the situation is obvious and I had no choice but to lead from the position I found myself in. But other times, I have a conscious choice and I can adapt my leadership style for the situation. Regardless, when I'm connected to my purpose or the larger purpose of the project, I am more effective in those leadership roles. I've asked you to question the definition of leadership because I want you to claim it as a term you identify with and want to lean into with this course and beyond. I would like you to create a personal definition of leadership that is inspiring, but also feels comfortable and achievable. Include the words you want as part of the definition and try and shed the connotations that are not helpful to you. Or indeed the world that you're going to improve. To help you draft your definition of leadership, here are two that I found helpful. One of my favorite definitions of leadership is from the same institute that created the four-circle Venn diagram for your leadership approach and position. This is where Stuart Freeman's definition comes in, founding director of Wharton School Leadership Program. He offers a common definition as leaders mobilize people toward valued goals. But he then expands our field of view to consider leading in all aspects of our life, our work, our home, our community, and our ourselves. He calls this a four-way win, as there are positive feedback connections on where you lead and how. His total leadership program teaches how to develop authenticity, integrity, and creativity, founding traits of a good leader in all aspects of life. Please take the time to reflect, what leaders have inspired you so far? Take care to include a wide definition of leader, and include those that may not be seen as having power in the conventional sense of the word status or hierarchy in that traditional sense. What qualities do you admire about them? Before we get started, let's also consider the meaning contained within connected. Connectedness helps us evolve outdated concepts of leadership as isolated and authoritarian and other words that may have come to your mind during the last exercise and takes us to a place that recognizes our deep need for connection with each other and the world in which we live. It calls for the leader within to come forth with confirmed purpose and a sense of what's important and where they are going, a leader who is centered and mindful about their place in the world and their ability to be effective within it. Connected leadership involves working with others. I think of the connected leader being fully present with those around them, bringing their authenticity and naturally unintentionally encouraging others to do the same. You might have heard of the window or mirror schools of management. A contrast between the leader who views the situation through the window or the one that looks in the mirror. This draws the distinction between a leader who tends to look out from their building and see others from a distance, but not really look at themselves and the leader who reflects first on their own role in the team effort, both positively and negatively. It is often used as a shorthand story to warn about the downsides of a leader that is quick to blame others rather than themselves when things go wrong. I see both types of leader in this story falling short. Staying inside their office distant from the rest of the team. I see the connected leader balancing the ability to see the needs and capabilities of the team and themselves, but would be outside their office in this example, and near their people, rather than leading with a mirror or window in their office. At the higher system level, I think of a connected leader as not only cognitively analyzing the world and systems in which they live but connecting authentically on a deeper level to the systems around them. A connected leader knows and appreciates their unique viewpoint and experience with all its benefits, but all its limitations too. Looking around, the connected leader has a genuine, and insatiable curiosity to discover the system and the people, connections, and purpose that make the system what it is. By ensuring our concept of leadership is not only positive for us but is also connected, hopefully, helps us transform an outdated image of an isolated authoritarian leader into one that works from their personal values in service of the greater good alongside others. We move from notions of hubris, hierarchy, and an attachment to it has to be large scale to humility and responsibility and an embrace of any scale of leadership however local, and from whatever position one is given. When we identify our purpose and connect to the world around us, we choose great work that inspires action. I hope after taking a closer look at the concepts at the heart of the course, you are as eager as I am to claim or reclaim these terms for your own unique leadership journey.
