Becoming a self-differentiated leader.

How to become a self-differentiated leader?

For me, to become a self-differentiated leader will be to foster a positive and safe environment.

I will focus on this, because I believe that this will take care of the rest of the things that are very important.

Before I proceed I would have to define What is Safe Environment from my perspective.

When I am in a safe environment, it means that as long as I follow social and professional expectations, I won’t be at emotional, social or professional risk. I won’t be in any danger of feel the “fool” of the classroom, neglected, disrespected and that my mistakes have a solution. In addition, not only I feel like this, but every else feels like that.

When reading the book of having crucial conversations brought me back a lot of personal and professional experiences. I liked the book because it mentions a lot of psychological theories and a many emotional intelligence leaders need to have to be able to make the best in a crucial moment.

For me, this is what life is about. Seize the opportunity of a growing moment, work on it and continue. Nobody is perfect and everybody messes up, what is important is what are you going to do after that. Are you going to lament? Get angry? Cry? Or learn from it and continue working. Learn from that moment, observe where the changes can be done and then continue to try again and seek for success. This is what I am talking about.

What I just describe is problem solving or also known as computational thinking. The only difference is that we are applying this to a inner-emotional situation, but at the end of the day is the same.

That is why my initiative is to foster and pursue computational thinking, because that helps all of us (students, teachers, parents, admin, everyone!) to have the opportunity to learn and grow.

That is why I want to focus on a safe environment. If we are in a safe environment, those crucial moments will happen, but with not so much emotional baggage and if there is too much, I will find ways to defuse the situation by applying the technique that needs to be applied at the moment.

Therefore, this is would be what I am planning to do to create a safe environment:

– Have the mindset that all of us are important members and we share a common goal (Start with Heart)
– Be always respectful (STATE my Path and Explore Others’ Paths)
– Be proactive and identify potential emotional triggers and plan accordingly.
– Continuously foster respect by giving it. (Learn to Look and Master my Stories)
– Address team members’ concerns and involve them in the solution. (Learn to Look)

I want to become a differentiated leader. I want to become an influencer. I want to create a change in my organization. I want to implement my innovation plan and people believe in it. I believe that following this plan is another tool that will support and help me to achieve my dream. If I am a leader that involve and respect everyone. A leader that appreciates all participations and ideas. A leader that observes and believes in the team members. A leader that is passionate and puts the heart in on this path, I feel confident that success will happen.

This plan is my own plan. It is the result of everything I’ve been exposed. Some ideas I have already tried and others I will try them, but I feel comfortable with it, because I am putting my heart first. My passion and heart will be a big engine to support not only my leadership, but my whole innovation plan. As it can be appreciated, many of these ideas match in different aspects the ones from Crucial Conversations book. The reason I am doing this is because I am creating my OWN process, plan and system as how to be successful within my organization and with my project. This is the way to make what I have learned from the textbooks, participation in class and all materials we have had access to. It is important to be clear that there are many ways to become a self-differentiated leader. During this course, we have learned that this is a self-creating live process that changes and adapts, just like life. That is why, I am not addressing exactly point by point how I will use the Crucial Conversations in my plan, because if I don’t feel this is my own, I will not be able to implement truthfully. As well, Dr. H has constantly foster in us that this is our project and we have to make it our own. I am implementing, designing and creating as I feel it will be the best for me and my project.

As a conclusion, I can mention that everything that I have share is to be applied to any situation. Once my project starts, it will have rejection, acceptation, passion, sabotage, welcoming thoughts and many many other feelings and emotions. For me, the important thing is how to address the whole team when things are in their place and when they are not. My proposed plan is a live plan. It will be working the whole time, not only where there is a problem or there is high tension. I believe that with my plan, this can be prevented, and when things happen, they will deescalate more easily. As mentioned before, this is what I feel and think that definitely will help me to develop a methodology to address any issues in the team once my project starts.