Welcome to Leadership Lab with Wendy Hultmark!
This is a monthly newsletter where I share light-bite content on a variety of topics related to leadership in today’s world and times. Whether in the sciences or creative spaces, the word lab has come to be associated with a space for experimentation, innovation, and collaboration.
In this space, I will share tips worth passing on, words I have found worthy of reflection, and the occasional funny story to keep it all in perspective.
What are the most important leadership qualities for today’s workplace?
What are the most important leadership qualities for today’s workplace?
This is a question I have been contemplating as my clients and the leaders in my community grapple with the challenges of instability and rapid change. Organizational strain tends not to bring out the best qualities in people. Nerves fray, tensions brew, and trust erodes. In their book The Fourth Turning, written over thirty years ago, William Strauss and Neil Howe predicted that qualities like trust, reliability, patience, perseverance, and selflessness would become “hard currency”—and what I see today that we crave more and more in today’s leaders.
As workers navigate a world of contradictions and challenges, charisma will begin to take the back seat to things like humility and authenticity. Twenty years ago, these stability-bringers may have seemed quaint, dismissible, and maybe even laughable, but times have changed and call for something different. It’s easy to feel frustrated at the lack of trust, reliability, patience, perseverance and selflessness you may observe around you and wonder why it is worth the effort to behave differently. But leadership is a long game. To be a model of these qualities is to shore up credibility when it is in short supply, to be able to attract talented people when they seem few and far between.
If you are a leader today, I encourage you to ask yourself how you have been doing with some of these qualities–and not to self-flagellate for where you fall a little short, but to take this as the moment to step up and grow in new directions. Great leaders seek help with their professional growth. If you’d like help to stretch yourself professionally, you know where to find me.
Coaching for a Cause and Move for Amirah-That’s a Wrap!
I’m so pleased to share the great success that was this year’s Move for Amirah campaign, including my second annual “Coaching for a Cause” fundraiser. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of people in this community, on the North Shore of Massachusetts and well beyond, fundraising goals were surpassed all around and at all levels. Amirah raised over $100,000 my team raised over $5,000, and I personally raised over $1,300. It was such a great opportunity to connect with folks, get the word out about Amirah, and move our bodies!
Thank you!
Work with me here.
Once Fall arrives, we have such a short window of time before things wind down for the holidays. (I know, can you believe I have the nerve to utter the “h” word in July???). But, folks: now is the time to think about your Fall training and development needs. I provide full-and half-day workshops for The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team and Everything DiSC. If you’d like to learn more about how I can serve your team virtually or in-person, please email me or book some time to talk.
