5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From A Conference I Attended This Summer

Hello, my friends. So a few months ago I went to a leadership development conference in Bethesda Maryland. The ideal goal of attending the leadership development conference was to connect with all the other participants in the leadership development program (LDPs). I am in the engineering side of the house so I am an ELDP. I was able to connect with LDP participants in HR, Communications, Finance, and Operations.

While I was there, I was given some top-notch training and seminars from leaders throughout the organization I work for. From Managers all the way to VPs. Received some great insight on how to go about leading teams and understanding the importance of leadership development.

Alright, that’s enough of the backstory let’s get into the lessons learned. If I had to sum it up here are 5 things that I felt were valuable takeaways that I will continue to incorporate in my leadership development journey.

Adopt Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is looking at things from a bigger picture view. Seeing how all different components work together as a whole. Why is this relevant? It doesn’t matter whether you’re a developer, product manager, accountant, or human resources professional. Every piece of the organization is valuable.

Every piece of the organization can impact others. The organization as a whole is the system. Understanding how your decisions impact the organization (aka the system) is very important.

For example, if HR introduces a new policy requiring employees to return to the office full-time when most of the workforce has been remote for the past two years, it can potentially impact every department. Attrition rates might skyrocket.

When it comes to making a decision as someone who is working inside a business understand that your decisions do play a role in the machine and those decisions can have secondary primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, and quinary effects.

Leadership Development is Self Development

Your ability to lead and serve others within any organization is dependent on the following: your willingness to continue to improve yourself and your taking the actions to improve yourself.

A leader’s ability to effectively lead a team is congruent with how invested the leader is in their own self-development. Here is what self-development can look like: exercise, eating healthy foods, going to therapy, improving spiritually, improving written communication via online classes, paying for coaching, certifications, additional degrees, reading books on great leaders, going to seminars and conferences, joining professional development organizations, etc.

A leader has to be willing to continue to improve themselves. A leader who fails to improve themselves, over time will eventually fall short in leading others. Leadership development is the development of self. If you want to be a leader who helps everyone raise their standards and improve, you have to work hard on yourself. There is no way around it.

You Can Have It All, Just Not at The Same Time.

Being a young person has its perks, but sometimes we get caught up in trying to have it all at the same time. Listen it’s not that you can’t have everything you strive for. It’s just you can’t have it all at the same time. Life happens in seasons. With each season priorities can and will shift. Why? Great question with a simple answer: priorities will shift because that’s life!

Life throws many curve balls at you. We, as human beings, have to be willing to adapt. This means, some things will have to be more of a priority while others have to get put in the backlog. Get it? Backlog. Like agile backlog. Arlight terrible joke.

As I was saying, everything can not be equally as important. Be mindful that great things take time. If you rush, chances are you’ll be willing to cut corners. The reality is you can’t cheat the game. You have to get those reps in to get to where you are trying to get to. You will be able to get everything you strive for. It will not happen at the same time. They will come in different seasons of your life :)

“Yes and” vs. “Yes but”

Let’s face it. When someone gives you a compliment or had anything good to say to you, and then they follow with a “but”, immediately you discard everything else that was said before it.

“But” is a trigger word. We don’t like it much. We use it all the time when it comes to having conversations with others. In regards to team meetings, saying yes but can easily deteriorate progress. After engaging in role-playing scenarios where we played as corporate leaders, we used “yes, but” during our meeting. Again this was a role-playing scenario.

I have to say it was one of the most frustrating activities ever. Nothing can get done. No projects were able to get approved. The budget was not able to get approved. It was just a mess.

Now, when we used “yes, and” it was a game changer. “yes, and” is a valuable tool that can help you properly communicate with others in an organization. It moves the needle. By saying “yes, and” instead of “yes, but”, you are telling the receiver of your message that you acknowledge them as well as their viewpoints on the matter at hand.

When you share your opinion or disagreement with a “yes, and”, the individual you are speaking with is more likely to accept your message and not get immediately defensive. This is a cheat code in communication. Something I will be mindful of moving forward.

Great Leaders Are Exceptional Story Tellers

Stories have been around since the beginning of mankind. Stories are powerful. When you tell a story, you are illustrating a picture to your audience. A picture that they can understand. As a leader, whenever issues arise your job is to figure out the solution. Then executing it.

To execute your solution, whatever it might be, you need teammates and stakeholders to be on board with your solution. You have to be able to draw a picture and tell a story as to why the solution you are proposing is the best route to go.

Leadership boils down to inspiring action for a common goal. Storytelling is a valuable tool that can help inspire that action.