Mermaids and leadership. Two great things that go great together!

It's a short one this week! 1 minute, tops!

A real life mermaid leader

Did you know there are professional mermaids? It's true. There are people who make a living being a mermaid. For reals.

Mermaids are leaders. They take responsibility for their worlds.(Recognize the theme from past couple of weeks?) It matters that they show up with their scaly tails on time and sit still in a pool for 2 hours delighting mesmerized children. They take responsibility for the joy they put into the world. They are leaders.

So, let's remember the core of the past two rebelicious newsletters:

Leaders take responsibility for their worlds.

It doesn't matter if you are a CEO, a stay-at-home mom, a manager, an administrative assistant. a student, or your mail carrier.

Leadership is not defined by your position, test. Leadership is defined by your perspective. It matters that you show up, do your best, and take responsibility for yourself and your world.

Let's look at a few examples:

Leaders decide what kind of energy they want to put into traffic.You have a choice to flip the bird to the person who just cut you off or to assume they are doing the best they can and smile in solidarity knowing that tomorrow, it could be you.

• Leaders clean up the messes they create and admit when they are wrong.
• Leaders treat cashiers, servers, and janitors kindly.
• Leaders know that they are not responsible for everything and everyone.
• Leaders build relationships and consider other people's needs. You have opportunities to lead every time you go to the grocery store, in every meeting, on every team you serve, and in every class you take.

What will you do this week to take responsibility for your world?

Lead on!

Christina

Stressed out at the idea of "taking responsibility?" Read this.

Estimated read time: 2 minutes

A real response from a bonafide reader!

It's been exciting this week to receive your responses to last week's question: What does "leaders take responsibility for their world" mean to you? (Look for YOUR response below).

You responded with many amazing and beautiful ways you take responsibility for the food we eat, your families, your work, the safety of our beauty products, and generating love and peace. It's humbling to see all the ways the group that receives this rebelicious newsletter is having an impact. I'm honored to be among you.

You work in IT, the finance industry, healthcare, regulatory affairs, coaching, and education (to name a few of your worlds). You have families, parents, pets, homes and communities. Each of you is taking responsibility in ways large and small "in the spirit of making a better universe" (and I quote one your brilliant comments).

Today is about the "responsibility" of leadership.

One of my clients was struggling (fretting would be a more accurate word) with the "responsibility" part of his leadership. He tends toward "over-responsibility" and "responsible for everything" which left him feeling pretty daunted by "Leaders take responsibility for their world."

I wouldn't be the corporate rebel coach if I didn't give you strategies and ways to process this for yourself. Here's what my client and I created together in our session in case you worry about over-giving, too (shared with his permission, of course).

1. Let go of the illusion that you can control everything. A need to control leads to over-giving, over responsibility, and burn out. Burn out ain't good for anyone's world.
2. Be responsible for the talents you've been given. As you saw in the list above, this amazing group has a wide-variety of talents. Do YOUR work. And let other people do their work (this is the part where you get to let go - guilt free - of many, many things).
3. Discern what's yours and choose where you put your time and energy. Trust that you are doing enough, that you are having an impact, and what you do every day matters.
4. Think about how to expand your "world" without succumbing to #1 or #2.

Pat yourself on the back. You're doing great things in your world. You really are.

Christina

The shortest newsletter on the planet

Time to read: 20 short seconds

My tween rocking her leadership!

Today, I have one question for you. Below is a definition of leadership that I use in my own life and with my clients.

Leaders take responsibility for their worlds.

It's both simple and profound. What is your world and what does it mean to take responsibility for it?

We'll dive into leadership more next week.

Ponder away!

Christina