What's Hot and What's Not for Leadership in 2022 and Beyond

Hey everybody, Dr. Robyn McKay here and welcome to this week's episode of Mindset Rx! I'm your host, and you are in the right place if you're an emotionally intelligent leader who is ready to set the tone for a positive, productive and purposeful week, month, year, life, business, leadership, fill in the blank. That's what we're all about today, so I wanna just start, as we always do, just by inviting you to come into this present moment to set aside everything else, all of the other screens that you've got open, all of the other competing priorities that you have open, and just make yourself a priority for the next 15, 20 minutes or so as we explore this week's topic, which is what's hot and what's not in leadership. What I'm seeing coming down the pike in the rest of 2021 and on into 2022 and beyond.

And as we prepared to explore this topic of what's hot and what's not, I just want to invite us to take a couple of deep breaths, breath in and breathe out, to know when you're breathing in and know when you're breathing out. The gift that you have with your intellect, your abilities, your creativity, your innovations, come in the present moment. So just coming into the here and now gives you the opportunity to hear your creative spirit, to hear something in a new way, and to refocus your attention on the here and now gives your brain a break, 'cause we spend so much time thinking about what's next, thinking about what's last, worrying, planning, we toggle back and forth between the present moment, but our point of power is in our presence, and when you bring your presence to any conversation, that's when magic happens.

So if you're here with me live, I'd love to hear from you. Say hello, if you are watching the recording on LinkedIn Live or if you're listening to the podcast, write to me at Robyn @DrRobynMcKay.com and say hello. Let me know, your number one take away from today's session and from any other session you've been watching or listening to as well. Alright, so let's go ahead and dive into this. I'm gonna take a sip of water here. And you know what, let's be honest, it's not water, it's coffee, it's too early for water, I'm kidding. Okay. So let me just give you a little bit of background about this what's hot and what's not topic today. A couple of weeks ago, I was having a conversation on LinkedIn, on my profile, with some of my colleagues about this very topic of what's hot and what's not, I've been talking about over on Facebook as well within the CEO executive coaching community as well as with the people who are working in corporate as leaders.

So this is kind of a cross-section of opinions and observations that are coming from experts who care enough to bring this forward as something that they're seeing in their own practices, in their own work, in their own careers as well. So let's take a look here, and I wanna share a couple of things with you and then I would love to invite you to add, to contribute to this conversation, what are you seeing as hot in your industry right now in terms of what your clients are asking for, what your colleagues are talking about? What's the thing that's going on for you? And I think that this helps us all kind of set the tone for what's next, set up expectations for what we're gonna be doing, how we're gonna be contributing now and in the future as well. The future belongs to those who decide that they're going to start shaping it, and I know that for a lot of visionary leaders, for a lot of emotionally intelligent leaders, this is the time where we're really looking at what's the status quo and asking what's a better way, what are the things that didn't use to be so important and now they are important, what are the practices and the attitudes and the mindsets that need to come forward and be amplified, and what are the things that we need to let go as well?

You've heard me say for a while that grit, tenacity and hard work have gotten us as far as we can, so that's definitely... Those key words and those catch phrases are definitely not hot, but what is hot are things like prioritizing flow over hard work, mindfulness over distractibility, human connection before getting down to business. And along with the not hot of the grit, tenacity and hard work, we can kind of segue this into something that I know happens a lot in my own practice and also the practices and the work lives of my colleagues and my clients as well, is having these back-to-back meetings where you start your meeting and you just dive right into content, you drive right into the to-do list and you fail to connect.

And so, all this to say, when we look at human connection before getting down to business, this is the thing that I believe is going to turn the tide in our teams and in our work lives, is when we're actually connecting eye-to-eye and heart-to heart. That's why when I start Mindset Rx! Every week, I ask us, let's take a few deep breaths, let's bring our presence to this session. And as a leader, you have full ability to do the same thing, you'll find your own words for it, but if the status quo or the norm is dive into content, start with your to-do list before you even say hello, or even if you do say hello, if there's a superficial hello... "How was your weekend?" "Great. How was yours?" "Great." "Okay. Let's go."

But setting the intention to just connect eye to eye and heart to heart as you start your session, start your meetings, this is gonna make a huge difference in terms of the other things, it's easier to get into flow, when you know that you're connected with your team, with your colleagues, with your clients, but it's more difficult to get into flow when you're constantly having to guard against being too vulnerable or too deep in how you're showing up. And I get it, I mean, working on Zoom for the last 18 months or so isn't great, it isn't fun, we are craving personal connection, and some of us are getting that, some of us are actually being able to go back into the office and to have these conversations in person, but others were having to still do this Zoom conversation. So making sure that you're coming to the table, that you're coming to your sessions with an open heart and curiosity, that's gonna set the tone for a very different meeting.

I really think... I've been in on a lot of meetings, and there is sometimes when the to-do list can take like five minutes, it probably isn't even worthy of a meeting, and yet we create meetings for things that don't need meetings, that can be better solved on an email or a text message even. But if you are gonna bring yourself to the meeting, bring your whole heart, bring your presence. So that's what's hot. Personal connection, taking some time at the beginning of a session to connect, "How was your weekend? What was going on? How's your puppy?" Whatever it is, just get to know your people and connect eye to eye and heart to heart. The superficial connection, it's on its way out; back-to-back meetings, rushed hellos, that's going to be a thing of the past sooner rather than later.

Here's another thing that's hot: It's profiling for emotional intelligence plus expertise when you're filling leadership positions, and this is for top leaders in organizations, I think a lot of times, 'cause what's not hot is simply promoting into leadership those people who are the best technical experts. Just because you're really good at technically doesn't mean that you're good people leader, and I think now more than ever before, there is a call for emotionally intelligent leaders, not to be taught how to be emotionally intelligent, but there is a segment of the population who actually have a highly able and are highly capable in emotional intelligence already.

So we wanna find those people and position them, they need to know enough about their technical field, but they don't have to be the very best. They need to be able to speak the language to understand what's going on on the teams, to be respected by the teams because of their understanding, but the emotional intelligence is what's gonna set them apart as leaders, and that's what needs to be profiled. So we're looking now for the intersection, for leadership, especially in technical fields, between technical expertise and emotional intelligence, it's both end because yes, emotional intelligence can be taught, it can be, just like math can be taught to people who are not adept at math.

But wouldn't you rather have somebody who's got an expertise in emotional intelligence, who has a refined understanding of their own emotions and of the emotions of other people, and has the capacity to inspire people, to build teams, to build connection? Wouldn't you rather have somebody who's a little bit of a savant at emotional intelligence leading? Wouldn't that be nice? Think about how work would change if the emotionally intelligent ones, who have also the technical abilities, are the ones who are tagged for leadership. That's where we're headed. That's where we're headed. It's very exciting time we're living in. Okay, again, not hot, promoting to leadership solely based on technical performance. It's a thing of the past. It's very 2019.

Last one I wanna talk about today. This is a big one. What's hot is prioritizing mental and emotional well-being. What's not hot? Stigmatizing therapy, stigmatizing mental health, stigmatizing counseling. Anything to do with mental health right now is hot, because I really believe this from all of the years of being a psychologist and working with people from all walks of life, your mental health is your wealth, if you wanna have your best performance, if you wanna have your highest levels of creativity and innovation, you have to have a sense of mental well-being, period. We're not robots, we're not clones, we're not cogs in a great machine, humans have emotions, we have mental health issues now more than ever before, collectively we do. So prioritizing both personally and professionally. Mental health is what's hot right now, and I'm so glad... I'm so glad.

Mindfulness practices, by the way, are a part of mental health, and I always find this funny, I shop at my local supermarket every day, almost every day I'm there, and I see in the magazine section these magazines with whole issues dedicated to mindfulness practices, happiness, well-being, and I think to myself, "Finally, finally, we're ready to hear it," because I've been teaching and studying and working in this area for 20 years, and finally just... It's been in the last couple of years that there's been more prominence and more attention to the mental and emotional well-being, including using mindfulness to do so.

So that's good news for us. That's good news for those of us who have been practicing these more uncommon ways of feeling good, feeling our best, but bringing those to work, having meditation circles at work, I think is a great practice for people, giving people permission to spend five minutes in meditation every hour for example, to spend two minutes in meditation at the beginning of a meeting with your teammates. Can you imagine how that would change things? I get it, getting people on board with that can be rugged sometimes, but there can also be an invitation to do something a little bit different, and I think it's with the leadership, those of you who are leaders, who are top leaders, who are the decision makers, it's gonna start with you.

There's a grassroots movement for this individually with the individual contributors and the middle managers who are saying these things are important, but it's also a top-down. You gotta meet in the middle. So top leaders are being invited right now to prioritize their own mental and emotional well-being, so it's not just for the people who report into them, is it? It's for you too. If you want your teams to shift, if you want your teams to feel good, it's time for you to start feeling good as well. So that's what's hot. What's hot and what's not... What's hot and what's not in your world? I'd love to hear from you. Let me see, I'm gonna check some comments... It's so good to see you guys here.

How to best... Robert wants to know how to best manage a remote workforce with regard to what's hot and what's not? And that is best practices for managing remote workforce. I have a secret I wanna share with you. I've worked remotely for the most part since the early 2000s, I think I started working from home in 2002, the pharmaceutical company that I worked for as a medical writer, it was in San Diego and I was based in Kansas, so I had worked from my home office and it worked great for me. I was promoted into leadership and was managing a team of PhD scientists on big projects, and here's what I would do because I was so far away, so I didn't have that connection, that personal face-to-face connection all the time, I would go out there about once a month. But what I would do every single day, is I would sit quietly with my hand on my heart and I'd envision all of my teammates... I would envision Carl and Reshma and Christine and Ruth, and all of the people that I worked with.

And I would imagine my heart and I would see their hearts as well in my mind's eye, and I would just imagine a really beautiful golden connection between each of us. Every single day I would do this, so that when I would get on a call with them, when I would get in meetings with them, I could have a sense of who they were and what was going on with them. That's my emotional intelligence at work, and that's why I think I was so adept at managing from a distance. So when COVID came around and everybody got sent home, wasn't so difficult for me to do the same that I've always done, but this is something new to a lot of you all who are managing teams from a distance.

When you sit and practice, being present with your own heart, with your own breath, and then you bring in your imagination, your inner vision, and you start to see each of those people who report into you, who you're shoulder to shoulder with, and you start just seeing them at their very best as well. You watch things change, you watch people get connected in ways that are beyond expectations, for sure, and we can certainly talk more about that managing remote teams and remote workforces. Brian says, "Helping others continue to move forward on items when many are exhausted from all the changes." Oh yeah, decision fatigue... Decision fatigue, burnout, all of those things, it's like being motivated from the inside, and part of that, I think Brian, is to acknowledge the burnout, and that goes back to mental health, it's really hard to keep going when you're out of gas, in fact, it's almost impossible to.

So by acknowledging burnout by acknowledging exhaustion, like really being able to unplug, and that starts at the top too. You can't tell your team to unplug if you're not willing to unplug yourself. Let's see. Thank you guys for being here and joining me. Holly says, "How to give more focus time?" Yeah, competing priorities, Holly, I think that's what you're talking about when you've got all the things. Plus, you've got the kids in the background. Plus the dog is barking. In my house last night, my dog was... My puppy was sick, so we had that going on and he's still not this morning, and I told my husband I was getting on LinkedIn Live this morning, and he asked me had I called the vet yet.

So there's just that constant competing and juggling priorities when we're working from home, it's a legit question, by the way, but it just... It's like work and life get pressed up against each other all the time, so the thing that helps with that... And let me tell you, I'm not the best at this. This is a practice for me as well, is adopting the mindfulness practice, not in that moment, that moment is when you need your mindfulness practice, it's not when you practice your mindfulness practice. So the mindfulness practice over a period of time creates the conditions for you to feel less reactive and more responsive to whatever is right in front of you, so it becomes more like a tennis match.

"Oh, here comes the next tennis ball, and I'm gonna volley it," versus getting pelted by an out of control tennis ball machine thing, which I don't know the name of it, [chuckle] but you get the point. You're welcome for my bad tennis analogy. So to give more focus time is... That starts with decision-making, that starts with, "Okay, here it is, I'm gonna clear my mind, I'm gonna clear my field so that I have this focus time." For me, it starts with the decision, maybe it starts with the decision for you too, decide first and know that there are going to be distractions that come up, but I'm gonna say like 98% of those distractions are not fires that you have to put out right now, but instead, you can press pause on those as well.

Alright, so that's what I have for you all today. Thank you so much for being with me live. If you're watching the video recording or you're listening to the podcast, thank you so much for doing that as well. I appreciate you so much. If you are a leader, you're a decision maker, and you would like to have a conversation privately with me about how... Well, first about what's going on with you and your organization, and about how I might be able to help you, reach out to me, Robyn @DrRobynMcKay.com, and I will personally set up a time to chat with you. There are tons of people from around the world who are asking these questions, and it's time to get some real solutions going within our organizations for our people so that we don't have to maintain the status quo anymore, but we can actually rise above it and start really creating and innovating in new ways. Alright, big love, everybody. I will see you all next week with our next edition of Mindset RX! Dr. Robyn McKay, see you later!