Choice in Personal Growth and Leadership
Margaret and guest and fellow fundraising professional Jenny Mitchell address the power of choice and its impact on personal growth, leadership and decision-making.
The conversation opened with the age-old nonprofit challenge about how navigating board relationships is challenging for most nonprofit leaders. They explored how choice can help these and other relationships.
As leaders, we always have choices — often more than they initially thought. Realizing this can lead to a shift in mindset and behavior.
We Have More Choice than We Thought
Margaret shared a story about a time she was stuck in a tough relationship, and her close friend reminded her she always had more choices than stay or go. The friend jokingly suggested that a poison dart to the neck is a choice — even if not a recommended one. We don’t have to use all the choices, but knowing we have them creates possibility.
Jenny recalled parenting teenagers and wanting to provide choices to her kids. She found that if she and her kids could co-create the choices, it always went better. She also found power in choosing not to do something, which is, of course, also a choice.
General Strategies To Find More Choice
Jenny introduced the language of “solution strategies.” She finds that the idea of problem solving often creates only two solutions, as well as an idea that one is right and the other wrong. A Solution Strategy focus more on more flexibility and creativity in finding solutions.
They also discussed the concept of taking small steps towards improvement, rather than trying to solve everything at once. Stepping out of overwhelm can often create more choice.
And a third strategy is to discern between the Judger and the Learner. The judge is the one that shuts down an idea as too expensive or already-been-tried. The learner, on the other hand, tries to keep an open mind to possible solutions and explore each idea in the here and now.
Working with Nonprofit Boards Is Hard … Where Can Choice Help?
Difficult board relationships often put things into an “us versus them” perspective.
One place both women see space for choice when working with a board is by choosing to assume positive intent until they prove otherwise.
In addition, Jenny emphasized how useful it can be to choose to slow down and seek to understand others’ perspectives, rather than jumping to conclusions. Asking for a clarification is a solid leadership choice.
Jenny also suggests “mining for mineral rights,” or looking for what might be happening below the surface. Sometimes what people are saying doesn’t communicate what they are actually concerned about.
They also touched on the importance of taking a moment to collect thoughts before responding to challenging situations. In other words, taking a deep breath is a choice too.
We can also choose to disagree and to view disagreement as a natural part of the decision-making process rather than a disaster.
More Conscious Choices for High Achievers
Jenny and Margaret discuss the importance of making conscious choices in professional and personal life, particularly for those in the nonprofit sector. Jenny introduces the concept of “high-value tasks” and suggests breaking complex projects into manageable pieces. Margaret believes there are parallels between scarcity mindsets regarding time and money, and that there is a tendency for high achievers to adopt a martyr mentality. The “rescuer” is a common archetype in the nonprofit sector. Jenny recommends asking ourselves, “If I truly loved myself, what would I do?”
They address how we can choose to manage a situation rather than to solve it.
Switching Mindsets in Meetings Challenge
Jenny offers a challenge to listeners to practice switching from a judger to a learner mindset at the beginning of their next meeting or conversation. She suggests using a physical reminder or visualization technique to help make this shift.
Jenny is the Chief Visionary Officer of Chavender. She is a dynamic speaker, executive coach, host of the Underdog Leadership podcast, and fellow fundraising geek. She is an author of Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women to Step Out, Be Seen, and Lead, which unites 12 exceptional women leaders with one common goal: to share their leadership stories as a mentorship resource for the next generation of women leaders.