Start Thinking About Positive Thinking, Damn It

For the last 3-ish years, I’ve lived and coached from the maxim- “Thoughts produce feelings which produce actions which produce results. Whether you’re looking to develop yourself or your employees, if you want to get a different result work backwards until you re-shape the thoughts that are motivating the process that is leading to the undesirable result.”

While finishing Marcus Buckingham’s Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently over the weekend, I realized that this process is missing a vital component. While going to the source of any problem is important to facilitate a new solution and a shift in thinking, feeling, and behavior, we do ourselves a disservice if we only ask “What is not working?” and proceed from there. As Buckingham and strengths-based leadership folks (like me!) purport, you want to reinforce the areas where one feels strong, (i.e. energized, motivated, successful) and minimize the areas where one feels weak (i.e. depleted, bored, unsuccessful). We need to apply this same premise to reshaping thoughts.

When we trace our successful results back to the behaviors, the feelings, and ultimately the thoughts that energize them, we can see where our thinking is strong. We want to identify how we can extract this strong thinking and reapply it in the instances where we concede to weak thinking. For if we muse too long on the thoughts that are undermining our success, we inevitably reproduce this thinking and miss an opportunity to multiply the thoughts (and as a consequence the feelings, actions, and results) that allow us to live strong.

So the next time you find yourself seeking to get to a new result, look at the nutritious thoughts that fuel your successful results. Rather than seeking to eliminate or reduce unproductive thinking, see how you can harness your thoughts that are working. You may be surprised by how quickly any habits of weak thinking melt away.

Why Great Teachers Make Great Leaders

I know that my background designing, delivering, and evaluating participant-centered professional development programs for New York City educators prepared me deliciously for the focus of my current work- partnering with a broader range of emerging and evolving leaders to realize sustainable success in their respective businesses and careers. In Amanda Ripley's January/February 2010 The Atlantic article, "What Makes a Great Teacher?" Ripley summarizes the commonalities among great teachers. Her findings validate what I’ve always known intuitively yet have never put down in print. Being a successful teacher is one of the most important characteristics of being a successful leader. And perhaps not too surprisingly, teachers like leaders are evaluated based on the kind of measurable results they are able to actualize.

First, Ripley says that great teachers make big requests of their learners. They believe in their ability to achieve and that the most effective way to awaken underachievers’ often dormant abilities is for them to visualize success in a big, bold way.

Second, Ripley says that great teachers are constantly reinventing the way they do their work and ask learners to do theirs. She says that it’s vital to be engaged in a constant process of trying, reflecting, and trying again. Successful teachers are constant learners who make sure that they are on the lookout for what is working as much as for what is not working. When the latter emerges, they go to the root cause (e.g. their own delivery of instructions, students’ lack of foundational understanding, lack of engagement, etc.) and make the necessary changes to ameliorate it.

Third, successful teachers understand that it takes a team to achieve success. In the case of student achievement, it takes an active family. Teachers who spend a little time and energy to solicit parental participation at the beginning of a school year (by initiating phone, email, or face-to-face communication with parents/guardians at times when they are available) spend less time contacting these adults later in the year as fewer student behavioral and achievement problems emerge.

Fourth, great teachers don’t necessarily work “hard,” but they do work “smart.” They understand that while there is always some kind of work they can undertake, they organize their time around pursuing actions that are going to get the results they are seeking.

Fifth, teachers deemed successful work backwards. They understand that once you identify where you want a group of learners to be and how you will assess whether they have gotten there, you can design curriculum backwards through to your first lesson. This ensures that each element of your instructional design and delivery both build on themselves and lead to the destination at which you are seeking to arrive.

Sixth, great teachers reinforce what is in their control. This is more than employing the proverbial “the glass is half full” mentality. Thoughts fuel feelings, and feeling motivate actions. The teachers who empower their students to achieve model for them how to be resilient; they identify where their actions can facilitate change and they make their impact there. And for that which feels in anyway beyond their control, they adjust their thinking and response to those events so that their energy is positive and catalyzing success for themselves and others.

On the flipside, Ripley says that an enigmatic personality or extraordinary knowledge of curriculum have little to no bearing on teacher success. (What might that say about “great” leadership?) What’s more important is whether a teacher can shift his/her persona and style to meet the needs of his/her students. Sometimes s/he must be a cheerleader. Other times a partner. And on occasion, a disciplinarian. Similarly, a great teacher does not need to be an expert in his/her curriculum. S/he must understand how to break it down in a way that students are able to absorb it, retain it, and reapply it in future academic and professional work.

As New York City continues to recruit more and more business leaders to be principals of schools, I’m curious why so few corporations, small businesses, and government and community organizations are turning to successful educators for their next generation of leadership. Fingers crossed that this newest research not only gets into the hands of the Obama administration (which it has) but also crosses over into boardrooms, think tanks, state governments, and the SBA.

If You Open the Door, Be Ready for What Walks In

As I mentioned in my last post, Millennials/Y's love feedback. We frequently disengage from managers and from our work when we feel like what we are doing and who we are being is failing to leave an impact on others. One of the greatest lessons Gen-X and Baby Boomers can learn from the younger generation is not to wait to receive feedback. It's usually too late to make an adjustment when someone chooses to give it to you of their own volition; so step up and solicit it frequently.

At a professional association meeting last week I made it very clear that I wanted feedback on our programming, which I was now responsible for, as well as on my individual performance. I know that the association has a lot of room for growth; and while I'm a vision gal and could come up with a finely nuanced direction and probably motivate a good percentage of our members to come on board, I want to ensure that I'm giving people what they want and are paying some pretty steep dues for. This is the foundation of sustainable success.

Sure enough, a few people stepped up and let me know exactly what they were thinking. While their words might have had some extra adjectives and adverbs to soften their impact, the participants' non-verbals said it all. I'm not getting my needs met. I'm spending a lot of money. And if you don't make some changes quickly, I'm not sticking around to see what you're gestating.

As I tossed around what I had heard over quite a bit of the weekend, I realized that the beauty of feedback is that it enables you to know what the future holds if you just keep playing your game the way you have always played it. (In this case, some of our newest members will leave.) And for someone who's a recovering perfectionist, it's hard not to get my panties in a bundle when I recognize I need a miracle to have a shot at winning the game.

I have often faltered at this stage of the feedback process. I try to fix everything... yesterday... and burnout. Or I re-play the emotion I experienced while processing the message and get in my own way of producing a solution. I never question whether asking for feedback is the right choice. For me, it always is. I always prefer knowing what people are thinking so that I can self-correct. However, I want to get better at responding to feedback so that it doesn't just propel me "to do" but also "to be." For often times it's how I show up to problem solve and strategize that dictates how successful I will be and feel. So I've come up with 5 principles I want to carry with me as I continue to respond to the call to be a better leader for my association.

1. Identify more concretely where I (and those I'm leading) want to be; figure out how to assess success; and work backwards to figure out how to get there.
2. Share the game plan with others to solicit buy in.
3. Empower those who were most critical to be a part of the solution.
4. Check-in frequently to honor progress and clarify next steps.
5. Recognize that I can't give everyone what they want all of the time. But if I employ the previous steps, I can sure increase my odds!

Make 2010 a Year of Millennial Thinking

After nearly each of my speeches or workshops this fall, at least one person (equal parts eager and irritated) would approach me and say, "I really want to shift from surviving to thriving" or "I want to recycle the box I've put around myself," but "I'm just too old. I'm not like these Millennials you talk about."

In each instance I'd reply, "Here's the good news. None of us is ever too old to correct hiccups in our path to success or create/refine the vision and corresponding strategy for where we and are companies are headed." Then, I'd follow-up by saying, "Yes, Millennials are 95-million strong and will be the largest generation working, making purchases, and casting votes by 2016. Now that you know this, you have a competitive edge. The sooner you understand, value, and adjust to our thinking, the more quickly you will create the foundation for the sustainable success you seek."

As Professor Bill George of Harvard recently declared, "We have come to realize that the economic crisis was less a matter of subprime mortgages than subprime leadership." As each us of embarks on a year of ensuring that our nation's social, economic, and environmental crises are footnotes in history rather than reoccurring themes, we are charged to develop courses of action that are informed by what we have learned from assessing professional and personal successes and shortcomings from the past. We must just as importantly take note of the ways of doing and being that are working in the present and are necessary to carry us into the future. As you go about strategic planning in your organization, small business, and career, employ these 10 facets of Millennial-thinking to activate your best leadership performance.

Strategy One: EMBRACE CHANGE
With an affinity for job hopping, Millennials have mastered the art of adapting quickly to anticipated and unforeseen circumstances. In 2010, get up and go more quickly than you did in 2009, and re-frame change from something scary or unpleasant to an opportunity to reinvent and bulldoze forward stronger and wiser than before.

Strategy Two: PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS
Millennials may have received trophies for everything short of breathing. But having competed in activities like sports and debate as soon as we were out of diapers, we also learned that not all trophies were created the same. We realized quickly where we were star players and often avoided activities where we were sub par. Identify your 2-3 top strengths and let them fuel your top goals and objectives for the year.

Strategy Three: EMPLOY A TEAM
Once you identify the areas where you do your best and most enjoyable work, identify where you could use support. Whenever I embark on a project, I ALWAYS look for a great detail-oriented person to maintain records as well as someone who is a bottom-line thinker (as I can luxuriate a little too long in the possibility phase). Millennials have been working in teams throughout their education and understand that they are the only way to actualize a vision and, most importantly, share it (and gain commitment) from those who need it most. The Obama presidential campaign understood this and used Millennials as a key tool for disseminating their message of "change" brilliantly.

Strategy Four: ASK QUESTIONS
Millennials have been asked by teachers, parents, and family friends and mentors for their opinions throughout their lives. As a result, we tend to ask a lot of questions of our supervisors, colleagues, friends, significant others, and most of all, ourselves. While answers are important, devising solutions before articulating the right questions means we engage in thinking that operates symptomatically rather than in thinking that gets to the source. If you are someone who is always looking for a quick-fix, take a deep breath, slow-down, and check-in on the questions you are asking. Ensure they align with the actions you are taking.

Strategy Five: MAKE THE PRESENT PERFECT
When you are coming of age, you tend to think about the future. When you are in your twilight years, you tend to reflect on what you have done and who you have become. When you are in your professional and personal prime, naturally, you have an easier time putting both feet down in the present. And this is exactly where you want to be regardless of where you are in your life or career! While reflection and strategizing are important, so is showing up fully and maximizing the current moment.

Strategy Six: GIVE CARROTS
Clients, customers, and most importantly, co-workers, thrive from feedback that is frequent, specific, timely, skill-based (versus personal), and action-oriented. Yes, Millennials love to be told when we have done a good job. But as Coach Suzy Rogers says, "Millennials are like sponges," and we know that to learn and grow we need to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly of our performance. Don't wait for people to come to you for an appraisal. Condition peak performance by following the aforementioned feedback guidelines. And most importantly, let your people know when they have done a good job and the why and how behind it so success can be replicated.

Strategy Seven: SUSTAIN WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION
Millennials don't believe in work-life balance. As Millennial blogger Rebecca Thorman muses, the work-life stuff is "more of a see-saw, kind of up and down, and is only ever balanced for the briefest moments." Millennials instead want a quality of life that allows for more up moments of alignment between work and life than not. We understand that having such integration is vital for health, engagement, peak performance, and overall sanity. Ensure that you and those you work with and for allot time and consideration for the achievement of work-life integration. It really is the foundation for sustainable leadership.

Strategy Eight: BE OF SERVICE
I find it ironic that Millennials are often branded the "Me" generation and yet have such high levels of community service. To facilitate change that is good for you, your business, and your global community, you don't need to travel very far. As you shift from symptom to source thinking, as discussed earlier, figure out where you can be of service and give your ideas, time, money, and other applicable resources. Sometimes the biggest opportunities to make a contribution are those right in front of you.

Strategy Nine: BALANCE SOCIAL MEDIA WITH FACE-TO-FACE CONNECTION
Millennials love their gadgets, and yet older adults are the fastest growing population on Facebook. The majority of Twitter users are Gen-X and older. Find your message. Find your audience. Connect with them the way they want to communicate. Often times this is face-to-face. (I have yet to conduct a workshop with a Millennial where I didn't facilitate buy-in from an experiential activity). And if you haven't seen the new film, Up in the Air, make sure that you do. It creatively addresses the limitations of media.

Strategy Ten: JUST DO IT!
The theory of praxis, which has grounded my current work as a coach as well as my previous work as a theatre and social justice educator, says that you must take action, reflect on it, and then take new action (or transformation) based on what you have deduced from your post-action musing. Millennials have worn Nikes as much for the slogan as for the product. Perfection is the enemy of progress and sometimes done is better than perfect. Get the answers you need and then get off your tushie and make a leap forward.

Have You Done Your End of the Year SWOT?

One of my coaching clients asked at a recent session for a tool to assess her learning and growth from 2009 and set new goals for 2010. While we both are fans of Jinny Ditzler's Your Best Year Yet!: Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever, I wanted to offer her something that enabled her to more strategically align her business and personal goals with her core values and leadership strengths.

I suggested she conduct a Personal SWOT Analysis. Traditionally, a SWOT analysis allows businesses to identify specifically the conditions of the marketplace from which they can set short-term goals and develop long-term plans. However, the same kind of thinking can be employed by individuals looking to set their own strategic professional and personal goals. And the end of a calendar year is the perfect time to look at one's life via the following 4 lenses:

Strengths- In what areas of your work and life do you both excel AND feel strong?

Weaknesses- In what areas are you NOT at the top of your game or do you feel depleted?

Opportunities- In what areas are you most likely to succeed based on your individual strengths and values, resources, and enthusiasms?

Threats- What are real and self-imposed, likely and potentially unforeseen individual, social, economic, or environmental obstacles to short and long-term success?

Based on what came up in each of the four areas:
• Where is it most important for you to focus your attention over the next year so that you are playing to your strengths 70-80% of your time and your weaknesses no more than 20-30%?

• Which 2-3 strengths and 1-2 weaknesses will be most important for you to grow based on what you’ve discovered about opportunities and threats?

• How can your 2010 goals reflect your SWOT analysis?

I Have Found My Nutritious Community

Brilliant leadership coach and arts consultant, Steve Barberio, often talks about the importance of building yourself a tribe of people who share your values, vision, and professional and personal interests and enthusiasms. He calls them your nutritious community, because you feed one another on a variety of levels. (Keith Ferrazzi has done perhaps the best job of chronicling the process of building such a group in Never Eat Alone and Who’s Got Your Back.)

Many young professionals go from high school to college to career without giving much thought to who will be a part of their nutritious community. We connect with the people in our classes and in our offices, often making friends with our friends’ friends. We rarely, if ever, articulate what we are looking for in our inner circle in the way that we do with our romantic partners.

Having just relocated my home base from the New York City metropolitan area to Las Vegas, I’m acutely aware of the need for a local tribe of nutritious people. While my generationally appropriate affinity for texting, Gchatting, Facebooking, and tweeting has meant that I’m able to hold on to and in a few cases build on existing relationships, it is no substitute for sharing a glass of wine, hanging out in a coffee shop, or sweating side-by-side in Downward Facing Dog. I’m old fashioned. I still crave face-to-face experiences.

And as I have been thinking about the pretty vast network of friends I’ve built up over the years, I realized that with the exception of just a couple, I never made the choice to integrate them into my life. In fact, I’ve spent more time determining my milk substitute than whether or not most of my friends should actually be friends. And perhaps as a result, many have popped up out of convenience, in most cases have stayed for a few seasons, and then for various reasons returned to acquaintances and social media friends.

I’m intentional about so many things. Up until recently, just not friends.

There are a lot of things that happen in Vegas that stay in Vegas. One that I have experienced both times I have lived here is the feeling that there are no real people or genuine friendships to be had. For the first weeks of fall I allowed myself to buy in to this limiting belief, counting down the days before a sojourn back to the Big Apple. But somewhere in the last two months I got out of my own way and began seeking out all of the sorts of things I said I would do when I got to New York City but somewhere between graduate school, theatre rehearsals, and starting a business never did with any regularity. I returned to ballet class. I joined some eco-friendly, green alliances. I want on mid-century modern home design tours. I signed up for a vegan cooking class. I became President-Elect of the Nevada Professional Coaches Association and joined the boards/planning committees of other professional and artistic organizations that get me jazzed. And rather effortlessly, I have built myself a nutritious community that I’ve got a feeling is going to stick around for a while. For I’m clear on why I have chosen the members.

While having separation between professional and personal life is vital for work-life integration, I see that I don’t need to dichotomize my work and play friends. Most of my tribe members fit conveniently within both categories and many business opportunities have emerged as a result. I’ve become a bit cliché in some of my recent speeches and workshops, sharing that your network is everyone you know and everyone that they know. Knowing this expands restrictive notions of who you can and want to share your career aspirations and needs with. Most of my tribe members know my unique benefits statement and likewise I know theirs. And as a result, I can fulfill more core value of having meaningful relationships whether I’m working, playing, or relaxing. And regardless of what I’m doing, I’m getting to be a whole lot more.

You Know You Need a Virtual Intern When...

Virtual interning can be a great, inexpensive way for young people (as well as non-traditional students/career transitioners) who may not be in metropolitan cities to gain experience with companies. It also is an effective way for companies and solopreneurs to minimize the expenses of workspace and hands on supervision. Virtual internships can be paid or unpaid and include anything from more mundane tasks like data entry and web research to internet branding/social media strategy and grant writing. Virtual interns tend to be self-motivated, thrive with minimal supervision, and can communicate well using non face-to-face mediums (e.g. email, Skype, Twitter, G-chat, etc.)

As a prospective virtual intern or supervisor, you want to be clear on the intern's primary and secondary tasks and make sure that there is enough variety to keep the intern engaged so that it's a mutually beneficial relationship. In successful virtual internship relationships, it's important for both parties to co-create the internship agreement (e.g. discuss expectations, how training will be conducted, supervision/support, medium(s) for communication, grounds for evaluation, how conflict will be negotiated should it arise, and possible next steps). Virtual interns want to walk away from the experience having provided value to the company or person and with a good reference, ideally placed on the intern's LinkedIn profile.

I love the concept of a virtual internship, although I've been reticent to take a virtual intern on. Yet, I know it's time because...

1. I have uttered the words, "When I have a virtual intern I'll launch..." half a dozen times over the last month.
2. Each time I speak with a motivated college student I envision him or her as my virtual intern.
3. I find myself increasingly speaking about the benefits of virtual internships to young people, professionals, managers, and media.
4. When an intern butchered my name and bio at a recent speaking event, I thought to myself, "My intern would never do that."
5. I spent part of a day off (Thank you Nevada for Nevada Day!) writing about my need for one!

Okey dokey. By the end of 2009, I will have a virtual intern in place to make 2010 Catalyst for Action's best year yet.

Why Gen-Y (Millennials) Should Learn About Solar

Whether it’s closer to 400,000 or 1 million solar jobs that are created in 2010, as has been forecasted, numbers alone do not tell the story of why college students and recent grads want to bone up on their solar know-how. Although I’m confidant that the U.S. is still very much transitioning into a green economy, just as we entered a technology-based economy at the end of the twentieth century, solar panels have yet to become the new personal email account. Nor will they anytime soon. With our continuing recession, climbing unemployment, and millions of foreclosures still to take place as interest rates continue to reset, most Americans just can’t make the $40-$50K investment.

Nevertheless, many homeowners can and are taking advantage of the usually free home energy audits that public and private energy providers are offering. The goal of course is to sell the consumer on a range of units that cut down on energy wastage and boost efficiency. Many of these technologies- such as attic fans, pool pumps, and water heaters- run on solar energy.

As I tell college students, recent graduates, job seekers, and career transitioners whenever I speak, you always want to know and be able to communicate how you are uniquely poised to produce results that are needed and will be well compensated. You also want to ask yourself: How might I bring my strengths to the green sector? And as you continue to flesh out how green tech might utilize your experience in PR, advertising, teaching, finance, etc., get educated about solar. While those looking to do installation work will need to pass an OSHA PV Installer Licensing Exam and become a Licensed Electrician, professionals looking to start businesses, market or sell products and services, or recruit, manage, and grow talent in the green sector can take some basic courses in solar to give themselves the competitive edge.

In Las Vegas, nonprofits like Solar Forces educate community members about PV systems and solar economics. In the solar-centric Bay Area, approximately fifteen community colleges and universities such as DeAnza College and Mission College offer some kind of solar training or certification program. And for those interested in solar engineering careers, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Massachusetts Lowell offer two of the most noteworthy programs.

Even Thomas Edison knew that solar was the wave of the future. He’s quote as saying, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy, what a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out, before we tackle that.”

"Entrepreneurship is no longer a career field; it's a way of being": An Interview with Sarah Katyal, President of Impact Entrepreneurship Group

If it were not for youth entrepreneurship initiatives, I would never have had the means or strategy to launch a nonprofit girls' leadership institute as a college sophomore. By winning the Independent Means National Youth Business Plan Competition, I connected with a community of business leaders who showed me that making a big difference and making a big living were not mutually exclusive. And I received a very generous academic scholarship to Babson College that I so wish could have been applied to an MBA! But I digress....

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Sarah Katyal, the National President of Canada's Impact Entrepreneurship Group, about Impact's programs and the evolution of youth entrepreneurship. Enjoy.

Alexia: Please tell me a little bit about Impact.

Sarah: Impact is Canada's largest non-profit, student-run organization dedicated to encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit amongst youth in Canada and becoming a starting point, as well as a catalyst, for youth interested in entrepreneurship and leadership.

We started in 2004 as a small conference in Kitchener, Waterloo. And since then, Impact has developed programs both at the national and local level. Consisting of over 100 student volunteers nationwide, Impact is dedicated to driving the entrepreneurial spirit in youth. In 2008, as the host organization for Global Entrepreneurship Week Canada, our programs have recently reached over 500, 000 young people across the country!

A: Why is entrepreneurship such an important leadership skill for Generation Y/Millennials?

S: Entrepreneurship is no longer a career field; it’s a way of being. The skills one learns from entrepreneurial endeavors provide more insight into leadership then almost any other form of leadership opportunity. What Gen-Y needs to understand about entrepreneurship is that starting a company is no longer synonymous with entrepreneurship. Starting a charity, a cause, changing existing patterns, being ambitious and innovative all fall under the umbrella of entrepreneurship.

My entrepreneurial experiences have taken me to a level of leadership that can’t be taught in a classroom. Gen-Ys/Millennials are the movers’n’shakers. They’re media savvy and want things faster than ever before. Taking charge of your own projects and your own decision making is entrepreneurial and crucial to the future of leadership.

A: One of Impact's programs that brings emerging leaders and entrepreneurs from all over the world together is the Global Youth Entrepreneurship Congress. How does a young person get involved?

S: GYEC is one of our global events offered by Impact in partnership with Global Entrepreneurship Week. Its goal is to bring like-minded youth leaders and entrepreneurs from host countries for the week to discuss, collaborate and spearhead the next generation of youth entrepreneurship.

It takes place from November 19-22^nd, 2009 in Downtown Toronto, Canada.

For a young leader interested in getting involved, s/he can visit our website which will be launched soon. But in the meantime, you can email Dave Wilkin (dave.wilkin@impact.org), our Program Chair, to find out more!

A: What are the 3 most important skills that an entrepreneur should possess?

S: Vision: Ability to think well beyond the present, to understand the strategy behind long term goals. It’s what drives the passion.

Ambition: Without that ambition, you can’t call yourself an entrepreneur. Ambition will push you past the ups and downs that you face every day.

Communication: Unfortunately, it’s the most underrated skill, but to me, one of the most important. Communication is what drives the team, the mission and the overall internal and external development.

I call these skills even if they’re more like personality traits. They help create skills you need to be an entrepreneur, the nitty gritty skills like Sales/Business Development or Finance, etc.

A: How do you envision entrepreneurship evolving as our global community continues to think about social, economic, and environmental sustainability?

S: Entrepreneurship is the answer to many of our sustainability issues. In order to tackle some of the failures of our institutions, to accommodate the new mindset of our generation, as well as social and environmental issues still in existence, we must create and focus on new ideas, new programs, and innovative solutions. Hence, entrepreneurship is the backbone behind these solutions.

A: What's on tap for Impact over the next 2-5 years?

S: Impact is working on a couple of new projects and hoping to grow these into programs across Canada and potentially with global partners.

We’re looking to start one of our most exciting programs to date, the Impact Ventures program, sometime in 2010. This is the Canadian spin-off of the successful Y-Combinator model. It’s a 12-week incubator whereby entrepreneurs receive funding, mentorship, resources and participate in weekly lunches and learn to connect and discuss individual company challenges. The goal is to develop viable products for funding.

A: Thank you, Sarah.

To learn more about Impact's programs, to volunteer, or to make a donation to ensure that our next generation of global leaders succeed, visit Impact Entrepreneurship Group online. To connect to other entrepreneurs harnessing their values, strengths, enthusiasms, and resources to create businesses that make a positive social, economic, and environmental impact, check out:

1. Net Impact
2. NFTE- Teaching Entrepreneurship to Youth
3. Echoing Green
4. Skoll Foundation
5. Young Women Social Entrepreneurs

Empathy is the New Assertive

It’s a really exciting time to be a feminine leader. And by feminine, I don’t necessarily mean female- for many of the most successful women leaders have been female without choosing to show the slightest inkling of femininity. While there’s much to laud Hetty, Hillary, and Martha for, embodying traditionally female characteristics in their leadership style isn’t one of those reasons.

Although I’m a product of an all-girls secondary school and majored in and have taught women’s studies, I’ve still spent a lot of my educational and professional life establishing myself as a leader in a patriarchal society without abandoning such traditionally female values as compromise, nurturance, and humility. And while I’m by no means suggesting that patriarchy is a thing of the past, everyday I become more aware of how our national definition of “good” leadership is evolving. And I couldn’t be happier.

President Obama’s election was a pivotal moment in this transition into a new era of leadership. One that now privileges grassroots-coalition building to maverick hawkishness. President Obama says, “I’m sorry,” when he feels he’s made a mistake. He’s preternaturally calm. He feels comfortable sitting in the unknown. And he exhibits equal amounts of empathy for those who are with him, against him, and more often than not, for the folks situated in the necessary and often underutilized gray space between these two poles.

In A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Daniel H. Pink posits that successful leaders across industries in our current conceptual age will need to hone six senses to cultivate sustainable success: design, story, symphony, play, meaning, and empathy. While all six of these senses privilege more feminine ways of knowing and being, and Pink says one competency is not more important than the others, it’s hard not to walk away from A Whole New Mind seeing empathy as a foundation and catalyst for the other senses. Pink defines empathy as:

the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what that person is feeling. It is the ability to stand in others’ shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts…. Empathy is a stunning act of imaginative derring-do, the ultimate virtual reality- climbing into another’s mind to experience the world from that person’s perspective.

I’m totally jazzed to think about one day bringing a child into the world who gets to see male and female leaders across sectors with finely developed EQ’s. And I hope that this revolution in leadership values starts a chain reaction of positive movement into how we socialize girls and boys in the first place.

And in the meantime, I feel very grateful to be able to show up to my life each day and finally have my authentic leadership style valued!