REMAINING clam in moments of urgency when things are coming apart at the seams is the subject of Grace Under Pressure: Leading Through Change and Crisis by John Baldoni.

Good leaders do three things writes Baldoni. One they take care of their people. Two, they take care of themselves. And three, they prepare for the future. What pulls them all together is grace. Grace is the “catalyst for the greater good.” Grace is critical to creating the connection with others that leads to positive forward movement. “When it comes to dealing with change and crisis, grace becomes evident in how we treat one another.”

Baldoni looks at the three characteristics of good leaders through the lens of grace. In all three areas Baldoni stresses the importance of community. It’s good for the organization, it’s good for you, and it’s good moving forward into the future and whatever it may bring. “Communities by nature are places where people feel they belong.” But it’s more than that, says Baldoni. “It is more than a place to work; it becomes a place to be.”

We seek to create community where individuals feel empowered to lead with conviction rooted in wisdom, compassion gained from suffering, and good examples learned from experience.

Three lessons regarding community:

1. Lay down your baggage. “When you belong to a community, you are not your resume. You become a fellow contributor.”
2. Find ways to work with people unlike yourself. “Learning to get along is vital to becoming a whole person.
3. Build trust by showing trust. “How often do we wait for the other person to make the first move?”

Grace makes this possible. “Grace facilitates our ability to connect with ourselves more genuinely so that we can contribute more humanly with others. Such connections are essential to keep oneself together when everything around seems to be falling apart.”

Here are some thoughts in brief from each of the three sections on how to demonstrate grace under pressure:

Good Leaders Take Care of Their People

Build resilience through divergent thinking throughout your organization. Become a better listener. Be direct and honest but inspire hope in the face of uncertainty and crisis. How can I make things better for others? How can I find humor in the situation?

Good Leaders Take Care of Themselves

Anchor yourself in the values that are most important to you. Even in a changing world they will not change. Prioritize what is most important. Be intentional. Confront your biases and be willing to change. Assume the best in others.

Good Leaders Prepare for the Future

A crisis often elicits innovation. It is important that we are open to it and encourage it by listening to others. Be patient. “Having patience gives us the space to learn and enables the heart to direct and our character to rise to the fore.” Baldoni advises, “Speed to the chase, but wait for the opportunity.”

Grace is more than a thought. It is a practice. It is something we do. In the final section of the book, Baldoni presents pithy and practical chapters for practicing grace under pressure. He highlights the many and sometime subtle mindsets that motivate grace into action.

At the end of the book, Baldoni summarizes his thoughts in a handbook and challenges us with a Grace Under Pressure Self-Assessment.

Grace Under Pressure means meeting:

Anger with composure.

Denigration with respect.

Sadness with abundance.

Insults with smiles.

Selfishness with selflessness.

Hoarding with generosity.

Life with gratitude.

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IT SHOULD go without saying that the health and well-being of employees have a direct impact on the success of an organization. Yet, it is unusual for an organization to put it on the high-priority list along with profitability and customer service.

The solution is to build it into the culture of the organization. Willpower alone won’t do it. Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-Being at John Hopkins Medicine, Richard Safeer, provides six building blocks to do that in A Cure for the Common Company.

1. Shared Values

Including employees through conversation or, in most cases, online surveys is a good way to know the values are shared. “Don’t try to sweep discontent under the rug. As a manger or leader, if you interact with an employee who doesn’t care for the shared values of the organization, try to help them find their personal connection.”

The challenge, of course, is getting a refined set of values and definition of well-being with the buy-in of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of employees, all of whom have their own values and cultures they bring to work with them every day.

2. Social Climate

“Leaders can promote a positive social climate by building a sense of community, fostering positive attitudes, and creating a shared vision.” Questions to ask include, “What process does your organization have in place to help new employees feel like they are part of the team right away?” “What opportunities do you create for employees to socialize?” “What volunteering opportunities has the organization provided for your employees?”

3. Norms

Norms are the way the organization does what it does—behaviors that we do without much thought. “In organizations around the world, norms that run counter to what is healthy for most people are rampant.” It’s not just free donuts but work hours, after-hour emails, and eating in front of your computer.

“Norms can be identified, and they can be changed, and when we make the effort, we can have a profound positive impact on people, teams, and organizations.” Knowing the impact of soda on the health of the employees, Safeer began tackling that at John Hopkins:

I took a stroll through our buildings. Sure enough, there was soda everywhere: the cafeteria, vending machines, gift shops. It was served at our meetings. Our culture embraced unhealthy beverages. The widespread presence of soda, along with visual cues, product placement, and financial incentive (at the time, a soda cost less than the same size bottle of water) were all contributing to a culture of unhealthy nutrition and making it easier for our workforce to accept that drinking soda was the norm.

4. Culture Connection Points

A cultural connection point is where the design of the workplace acts upon our well-being. “Cultural connection point can influence healthy behaviors and attitude, or they can be complicit in unhealthy behaviors and attitudes.” Connection points like the green leaf symbol tagged to healthy foods, choices placed at eye-level, fitness classes, rewards and recognition all help to support healthy life choices.

5. Peer Support

Willpower is not a good strategy. Peers can provide support and help to build subcultures that encourage healthy choices. “Peer support is unique in that it is based on a trusted relationship, is ongoing, and is grounded in a familiarity with day-to-day circumstances.”

6. Leadership Engagement

Well-Being needs to be on the leadership agenda along with everything else like finance and customer service. Participate in well-being initiatives. “Well-being is not an expense, it is an investment, and without it, you’ll end up with ‘No People, No Profit.’”

Leaders need to eliminate organizational speed-bumps. Safeer points out nine speed-bumps like all talk, no action, a lack of accountability, losing focus, and moving too fast.

The building blocks are pretty straightforward, but part of the challenge is dealing with all of the various subcultures that exist within the organization. While you are trying to create a culture pointing in one direction, there may be subcultures that point its members in a completely different direction, like that group that smokes behind the building.

Subcultures do not have to be solely formed around work-related elements. They can be formed around common interests of a group, such as jogging or sharing the same religious beliefs.

Subcultures often have a more powerful influence on their members than the broader culture because the behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs of the members of a subculture are more deeply intertwined with each other.

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IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Laura Gassner Otting on just taking action:

“When struggling to make big life choices—leaving a job, ending a relationship, seeking more education, quitting smoking—studies show people who flip a coin and ‘go for it’ regardless of the outcome are more satisfied with their decisions and much happier six months later than those whose coin toss instructed them to maintain the status quo. Action beats stagnation. When you’re unsure about what to do, you’ll be happiest if you just choose something to do.”

Source: Wonderhell: Why Success Doesn’t Feel Like It Should . . . and What to Do About It

II.

Admiral William H. McRaven on death before dishonor:

“Leadership is difficult because it is a human interaction, and nothing is more daunting, more frustrating, more complex than trying to lead men and women in tough times.

<br>To live life above the common level of life: to be noble when other may be unprincipled, to be honorable when others many be shameless, to be men and women of integrity when others may resort to dishonesty. What I found in leading and being led by great offices from all branches of service was the importance of character and having a personal code of honor to help guide you through the difficult times.
”

Source: The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy)

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NAME-CALLING. Stereotyping. Micromanaging. Foul language.

Is your workplace a hotbed of disrespect—and are productivity and collaboration tanking because of it?

When co-workers, managers, and their subordinates lose respect for one another, it negatively impacts their work and the work of the people around them. Some organizations respond with well-meaning exhortations to “just get along,” or they encourage private chats with human resources or senior management. Yet quite often, there’s no action taken at all.

If someone’s disrespectful behavior crosses a policy or legal line, there may be an investigation followed by disciplinary action, interventional coaching, a lateral transfer, demotion, or termination. Or—once again—there may be nothing done at all.

Is there a better way to address and curb disrespect at work? Without a doubt, yes.

At the Center for Respectful Leadership, we believe that Coaching for Respect™ (CfR) is something every organization should consider trying first (even if they rule it out) before moving to more formal, investigative, disciplinary, or legal remedies.

At the core of this process is a simple question: What do you respect in the other person?

We’ve found that when co-workers clash over disrespectful behavior or language, what they do respect in their colleagues isn’t completely obscured. It’s just being overridden by intense negative feelings and emotions.

Once the “what happened”—the intentions, actions, impacts, and perceptions—are uncovered and explored through coaching and rational discussion, what people respect in each other is much easier to see. And their work environment will improve because of it.

Three Common Areas of Respect

Typically, what we respect in our work colleagues falls into three areas or attributes:

By having people identify precisely what they respect in others, they’ll start to break down hardened perceptions, such as an employee labeling a colleague as a “disrespectful person” or the accused suggesting the aggrieved party is “too sensitive” or “a complainer.”

Ideally, you’re trying to get the sparring parties to identify something they respect that relates to their work together. For example, an aggrieved employee may respect a particular skill the accused has and understand that without it, their own work will be much harder, or impossible, to accomplish.

Be warned: This can be a challenging process. Strong, negative feelings make some people resistant to seeing offenders in anything but a negative light. You’re going to have to work hard here and be persistent, respectfully, of course!

Ask for Specifics

Ask the parties to specifically name the traits and attributes they respect in each other. What events, times, and places have showcased these traits in the past?

Don’t accept “There’s nothing I respect in them” as a final answer because if you do, you won’t be able to move forward with the process.

Here are some approaches and opening lines you might use:

The bottom line: We don’t have to like a person to work with them, but we do have to have a level of respect for them. Without respect between co-workers, it’s almost impossible to work effectively and productively.

Next Steps

Identifying respected traits and attributes is just one step of Coaching for Respect.™ If you have colleagues who have fallen out with each other due to perceived disrespectful behaviors—and if you have the willingness, the positional authority, and the patience to try something supportive and collaborative first—the CfR process may be exactly what’s needed to turn that relationship around.

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Gregg Ward is the founder and executive director of the Center for Respectful Leadership and a highly sought-after speaker, facilitator, and executive coach. He’s the author of the award-winning bestseller The Respectful Leader: Seven Ways to Influence Without Intimidation and its follow-up release, Restoring Respect. Learn more at RestoringRespectBook.com.

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IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Dave Ramsey on momentum:

“Momentum is an interesting and somewhat elusive thing. When you have momentum in any area of your life you look better than you are. When your star is shining everyone thinks you are smarter and prettier than you really are. Conversely when you don’t have momentum you are better than you look. What we discovered is that momentum is not a random lightning strike, but on the contrary, it is actually created.”

Source: EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches

II.

Associate professor Mark de Rond on lovable fools and competent jerks:

“The analysis suggests that if someone is strongly disliked, it is almost irrelevant whether or not he is competent. By contrast, if someone is liked, her colleagues will seek out every bit of competence she has to offer, meaning that a little likeability has far more mileage than competence in making someone a desirable team player.”

Source: There Is an I in Team: What Elite Athletes and Coaches Really Know About High Performance

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HERE’S A LOOK at some of the best leadership books to be released in April 2023 curated just for you. Be sure to check out the other great titles being offered this month.

The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy) by Admiral William H. McRaven

The title “Bullfrog” is given to the Navy SEAL who has served the longest on active duty. Admiral McRaven was honored to receive this honor in 2011 when he took charge of the United States Special Operations Command. When McRaven retired in 2014, he had 37 years as a Navy SEAL under his belt, leading men and women at every level of the special operations community. During those four decades, Admiral McRaven dealt with every conceivable leadership challenge, from commanding combat operations—including the capture of Saddam Hussein, the rescue of Captain Phillips, and the raid for Osama bin Laden. THE WISDOM OF THE BULLFROG draws on these and countless other experiences from Admiral McRaven’s incredible life, including crisis situations, management debates, organizational transitions, and ethical dilemmas, to provide readers with the most important leadership lessons he has learned over the course of his forty years of service.

Grace Under Pressure: Leading Through Change and Crisis by John Baldoni

Grace Under Pressure: Leading Through Change and Crisis focuses on three things leaders need to do when change and adversity strike: take care of their people, take care of themselves, and prepare for the future. And they must do it all with a sense of grace—calmly, collectedly, and compassionately. He shares his expertise here, focusing on how leaders need to prepare for change by focusing on what matters most—their people. Among the themes Baldoni explores are fear and loss as well as empathy, resilience, and hope. This book also provides a roadmap for leaders seeking to create community as they meet the coming challenges with dignity and grace.

An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford by Richard Norton Smith

From the preeminent presidential scholar and acclaimed biographer of historical figures including George Washington, Herbert Hoover, and Nelson Rockefeller comes this eye-opening life of Gerald R. Ford, whose presidency arguably set the course for post-liberal America and a post-Cold War world. For many Americans, President Gerald Ford was the genial accident of history who controversially pardoned his Watergate-tarnished predecessor, presided over the fall of Saigon, and became a punching bag on Saturday Night Live. Yet as Richard Norton Smith reveals in a book full of surprises, Ford was an underrated leader whose tough decisions and personal decency look better with the passage of time.

The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower by Morra Aarons-Mele

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the world. But in our workplaces, anxiety has been a hidden problem—there in plain sight but ignored. Until now. The Anxious Achiever is a book with a mission: to normalize anxiety and leadership. As leadership expert and self-proclaimed anxious achiever Morra Aarons-Mele argues, anxiety is built into the very nature of leadership. It can—and should—be harnessed into a force for good. Inspired by the popular podcast of the same name, The Anxious Achiever is filled with personal stories, research-based insights into mental health, and lots of practical advice.

Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary by Ozan Varol

We say some people march to the beat of a different drummer. But implicit in this cliché is that the rest of us march to the same beat. We sleepwalk through life, find ourselves on well-worn paths that were never ours to walk, and become a silent extra in someone else’s story. Extraordinary people carve their own paths as leaders and creators. They think and act with genuine independence. They stand out from the crowd because they embody their own shape and color. We call these people geniuses—as if they’re another breed. But genius isn’t for a special few. It can be cultivated. This book will show you how. You’ll learn how to discard what no longer serves you and discover your first principles—the qualities that make up your genius. You’ll be equipped to escape your intellectual prisons and generate original insights from your own depths. You’ll discover how to look where others don’t look and see what others don’t see.

The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems–and What to Do about It by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon

There’s a force we encounter every day that we aren’t aware of—and it threatens to derail otherwise promising careers and lives: microstress. This hidden epidemic of small moments of stress has insidiously infiltrated both our work and our personal lives with invisible but devastating effects. Microstress doesn’t trigger the normal stress response in our brains to help us deal with it. Instead, it embeds itself in our minds and accumulates daily, one microstress on top of the other. Unregistered microstress weighs us down, damages our physical and emotional health, and contributes to a decline in our well-being. What’s more, microstress is baked into our lives. The source is seldom a classic antagonist, such as a demanding client or a jerk boss. Instead, it comes from the people with whom we are closest: our friends, family, and colleagues. The good news is that once you understand microstress, you can fight back.

For bulk orders call 1-626-441-2024

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“… a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

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Here are a selection of tweets from March 2023 that you will want to check out:

• Chronos or Kairos—Is it Your Moment for a Career Change? by @artpetty
• Leaders Love Puzzles (for Better and for Worse) by @edbatista
• No Time for Career Development? by @Julie_WG
• Self-Esteem: Why It’s Career Rocket Fuel! by @KateNasser
• 5 Signs You Are Elite At What You Do by @BrianKDodd
• Why Managers Need an Operating System to Guide Them by @artpetty
• PODCAST: @jamesstrock interviews Sasha Stone She is a pioneering blogger and founder of Awards Daily
• 16 Lessons Your Organization Can Learn from March Madness by @AlanSteinJr
• Leadership Storytelling from @wallybock
• Disrespect Diversity: How You Unknowingly Show It by @KateNasser
• The Silent Killer of Organizational Culture by @James_Albright @LeadershipMain
• How Leaders Can Create a Pocket of Excellence in a Toxic Workplace by @JenniferVMiller
• The 1% Rule – What it is and Why it’s Useful for You as a Leader by @suzimcalpine
• Judge Me… Judge Me Not … by @ellenfweber
• Six Leadership Strategies To Nail A Transition by @TerriKlass
• 2 Lessons From a Remarkable Turnaround by @mlombardiNFL @TheDaily_Coach
• From Upper Hand to Joining Hands: How Workplace Power Dynamics Are Changing by @Julie_WG
• How To Experience The Greatest Thrills in Leadership By Being The Solution by @WScottCochrane
• Mr. President, We Need to Talk. Now. by @jamesstrock Americans Urgently Await Congressional Debate and Oversight of War Aims
• Boss’s Tip of the Week: Ask for help from @wallybock
• 22 Top Leadership Blogs to Read in 2023 Thanks @teambuildingcom
• Creative Chaos by @samchand
• A Focus on Bringing Your Purpose to Life (and work)—Insights from the Jam Session from @artpetty We see purpose in action in all walks of our lives.
• Mercy Most Merciful And Affirming from @JohnBaldoni
• Boss’s Tip of the Week: People are people from @wallybock
• The crucial link between motivation and self-awareness via @BBC
• It’s the People, Stupid! from @wallybock
• Don’t Get Smug The Next Time You Win from @JohnBaldoni
• Leadership Sketchbook: 7 Keys to Mastering the Art of Leading by Ken Downer @RapidStartLdr
• Heroism and Leadership in the Movie, 12 Angry Men by Scott T. Allison @HeroesToday
• The Five Elements of Intentionality by James Albright @LeadershipMain
• Treat Your Career Pivot as an Agile Project to Make Progress Faster by @artpetty If you know exactly what you want to do for the next stage of your career, consider yourself fortunate.
• The Real Purpose of Eye Contact by @DrNickMorgan Public Words
• What Is The One Surprising Secret Of Retaining Great Employees? by @LaRaeQuy
• LISTEN TO: @jamesstrock interviews Derek Leebaert author of Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made Great insights!
• You’re The Boss or Client: Here’s How You Should Respond to Creative Work by @philCooke

See more on Twitter.

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