It’s been another amazing week of Four Simple Word Dialogues. Our conversations have covered everything from self-care, ageism, the power of politics, the magic of being a conduit (for ideas and people) and the importance of creating homes, organizations and communities grounded in belonging. At the end of each of these conversations I have felt …
Crying? Me? Why do you ask? These red and swollen eyes? Just allergies. Honestly! Well, ok…truth be told, I’ve been balling like a baby. We just finished The Good Place on Netflix and I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime while watching this show. Simply put, it is brilliant. I laughed, I cried, I learned …
“Leave leadership out of it”. It was the second time I had heard that statement in a week and it caught me off guard. Even more this time. How could we leave leadership out of servant leadership? Isn’t that the entire purpose of this Four Simple Words journey to figure out how we can lead …
I am sitting in one of Elsie’s favorite places, surrounded by memories of her and Clifford, aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins once removed. The chair is in the kitchen at the farm house she and Clifford bought in 1942 just outside of the village Chaffeys Lock, an hour north of Kingston. The chair …
When asked about my 8 years as a single, self-employed father I reply with a few observations. One: it was truly the worst and the best of times. There were weeks I was unsure how I was going to put enough food on the table. And yet, helping raise two amazing adults (one of whom …
I’ve been thinking about Emotional Intelligence (EI) this week both with my personal reading and after a professional development session. And after some refection I have come to the conclusion that my past opinions and impressions about EI have been wrong. Very wrong. The good news is that unlike my long held perceptions, EI isn’t …
At some point during most of my Four Simple Words talks I mention my mom Kath (Elsie’s youngest child) as an example of someone who modeled the words day in and day out. Although she passed away 10 years ago (!) last month, she remains a perfect model of a person who lived ‘its not …
Our Four Simple Words Forum #2 with CV Harquail this week about the connections (and tensions) between feminism and servant leadership was brilliant for a number of reasons. The conversation really challenged a lot of my thinking about what feminism is, my role in it and being aware of the MANY barriers that people who …
Our Four Simple Words Forum this week with my friends Glenna Banda and Melanie Lang was a lot of fun. The three of us shared some experiences around serving teams remotely. It was a great chat and had me reflecting on how I need to be adapting my leadership in these dramatic times of change. …
This week was filled with Zoom meetings. From hardly using the platform 3 weeks ago to now running my day, I have to say it is a great tool. Privacy issues aside (yes IT friends, that is a big aside) Zoom is allowing me to serve clients, expand my volunteering in creative ways, check-in with …
This has been a challenging week. With work grinding to a halt and a number of other projects now on hold, I’ve been feeling very limited in my ability to truly serve. While most of my professional life is online and the phone, something has felt different this week as the collective level of anxiety …
This week has been filled with examples of strong and not-so-strong servant leadership. Trying to absorb the onslaught of information has me reflecting on the power of acknowledgement as we lead others through change. A great example of servant leadership has been from a long-serving CEO of a hospitality business crumbling because of the sudden …
