Leading Leaders

Leading leaders is hard. Maybe scary is the right word. Heavy? Important? I'm not sure what the right word is, but the sentiment seems to be implied in those words--it's a big responsibility. When I first started in my role and formally leading official leaders by title, I was like...Oh, snap. This is real. This is real life. These are real career goals that I have an impact on. Real people with real education and real experience and they are looking to me and I'm supposed to lead them? 

And then I zoomed out a little bit and started seeing everything that my team does and how it reflects leadership and that was another hefty dose of oh my geeze. I've come to recognize how much I love leadership and how much I love being part of people's growth. All three of my best friends semi-recently got promoted into more leadership roles and they all reached out to me and I was truly honored. I also realized that I hang out with leaders...now, being recognized by title, but all of my friends are true leaders. All of us thought we loved direct work in our respective industries...and we did, but then we found leadership and saw how much more of a difference we can make.

I took a screenshot from one of them that was just so nice that said: "All my fb friends are lovely but none of them display your level of insight when it comes to leadership". Is that not one of the nicest texts someone could send?!

Anyways, where all of this is coming from is not from the formal leadership titles. It's about developing leadership abilities in those who don't have (or don't want) a formal leadership title. To recognize that you don't need a title to be a leader. On my team, there are a few people that stand out as leaders and I've been trying to figure out how to really help develop them (preferably without losing them...) and how to grow that potential. I've started identifying some ways and kind of playing around with some ideas. And then tonight, I got an email from someone. The subject line was "Career growth question". In the email, they included that they are interested in learning and growing more and wanted to start to develop more career goals. I told them how proud I was of them and their growth and asked a couple of questions, which they answered thoughtfully, and then said "I honestly owe it all to you". I was about near tears. I've been mulling it more and more in my head that this is the responsibility of a leader--it's to develop other leaders. Whether formally or informally, for people to grow and develop and become leaders in some fashion. 

When I called a couple of people and threw around some of my ideas and told them why I was reaching out to them--I could tell that it made a huge difference to them and they told me that it meant a lot to them. And the more I think about it, the more pressure I feel, and the more I need to reign it back in because it's heavy recognizing that so many people are looking at you and looking to you. Looking to you to guide them, to grow them, to have answers, to say it's okay to not have answers, to see how you respond and react. We often say that leadership is not for the faint of heart and that's no joke. I take the investment in people and leading leaders seriously. 

A while ago, I sent this to one of my friends--switch out parenting to leadership and there you go!

Racial Injustice

One of my friends texted me this the other day:

Good morning ladies! Recent events and Jesus beating me over the head this morning has made me return to a thought I had months ago about learning more about racial justice.

Would y’all be interested in Zooming once a week, or every other week, to talk about racial justice? We can read a book together, listen to a podcast or Emmanuel Acho’s YouTube videos, etc.

I tense up every time race comes up. And I want to be able to speak. And I feel comfortable with both of you. I want to have an open, honest, respectful, and “educational” conversation about these issues and I believe I can do that with y’all. 

So what do you say? Interested? 

I am so grateful to have strong, supportive, loving people in my life. I guess also this person is more than a friend, they are my cousin 😁😁 One of the ones I talked about in the "Family Bonding Time". She texted her sister and me this and I am truly blessed. Blessed to have people like them in my life, to have people who hold me accountable, to have people who love Jesus and see that loving Jesus means recognizing our white privilege and advocate for our black friends. We get it wrong, we mess up, we learn, we try. And none of us are known for our advocacy or would consider ourselves advocates. But we all have learned that racial injustice is real and that part of our power includes standing up. 

Investment

2015: Relentless
2016: Intentional
2017: Growth
2018: Enough
2019: Focus

2020: Vision

2021: Investment 

The word investment has been rolling around in my head for quite some time. Investing in people; investing time, energy, talents, skills, knowledge, abilities. Even be willing to invest in hypotheticals. 

Within my first year of working as a therapist, I wrote: "It is literally my job to hear people’s stories, create a safe place for them, be a safe person. It’s my job to invest in people and work with them as they identify that they are worthy, as are others.” Investment is embedded into all areas of my life, even when it's hard. 

The official definition is "a devoting, using, or giving of time, talent, emotional energy, etc. for a purpose or to achieve something."

For this year's "Word of the Year", it seems to be much more integrated between work and life outside of work than previous years. I think that's for a lot of reasons, both good and bad. Good--Alignment between work and life and bad because I've kind of started having work take over life again...we'll cross that bridge another day. 

I started doing what's now dubbed as a "State of the Union" for my team and I shared with them what I believe investment looks like for our team, our program, for them as individuals, and what each of our roles is in that. I was brutally honest with them about where we were, where we are, and where I want us to be. And it's going to take some friggin hard work and some deep investment. The gist is that it felt like our department was in complete shambles for a while. Our morale was abysmal, we were losing people constantly not due to growth opportunities but due to burning out; our caseloads were beyond comprehension; our reputation had started to weaken throughout the agency and the community. We were not in a good place. And it was brutal. Beyond brutal. I never want to experience what I experienced during that time ever again in my lifetime. No one ever should. It was for all kinds of reasons, not one person or system to blame, but I never want to be back in that place again. It was truly horrendous. 

So I created and committed to three primary goals when I became the Director of the program. Though we have gone through A LOT this year (who anticipated a global ongoing pandemic and immediately stopping all community in-home services?!). I have continuously reflected on these goals and am so proud of where we are now. Our morale is lightyears ahead of where it was. Our reputation has gotten incredibly strong. We are known throughout the agency as being a strong team, committed to team building, and outside of the agency as one of the best programs to entrust high acuity cases. I cannot even begin to express how much those sentiments mean to me and those views did not come without investment, hard work, and a strong vision. 2020 is the word that I designated for this program was "vision" and no matter how difficult the year became, I committed to not losing sight of the vision. 

One of the first things I realized that we needed for the vision to come to fruition was to create values. In my first week of being a Director, I started to outline my goals, plans, and vision for the department. We did a values exercise and throughout the year we connected our actions to our values. For this year, I created pillars based off of the words I wanted us to be defined as and the words the team valued and this is the current result. 

Investment is hard and grueling, and short-term way harder and doesn't always seem worth it. That's the most difficult part about investment--you have to believe that the short-term hardships are going to be worth it. I've discussed before how much I struggle with hypotheticals--I like assurance, I like definites, I like promises that can be kept. Deciding on a word such as investment was really hard because it means I have to be willing to invest in a possibility. I'm not a risk-taker, I don't take chances (but I love that song by Celine Dion--added for fun), and I really struggle when something isn't definitive. Part of that is having to be a leader and stepping up and saying, "Let's try. Let's invest. Let's dig deep. Let's make things happen."

All of this was written about investment in the workplace, and that's mainly because of my "State of the Union" presentation so I had it all ready to go! There's a lot of investment I have to do in my own life that isn't work-related. Investing in relationships and investing in people is huge. Probably literally investing money, but I don't understand stocks so perhaps not on that one :) Investing in myself and actually working on my dissertation, sleeping again, resting, and relaxing. Invest. Take chances. 

Discerning Love

 From my Journal  (11/27/2020)

Spending some time in the Word and with God this morning. Reading 1 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Philippians. This verse stood out:

And this is my prayer! That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Philippians 1:9-11

To me, that passage says that the more we ask questions and grow in our knowledge of Christ, the more we dig into the Word, the more we will have an abounding love. I also love the word "discern"--having discernment is to show "good or outstanding judgment and understanding." The Bible may not always be explicitly clear and there are so many messages, but the more we stay within Christ, abide in Him--we will grow in love, discernment, insight, and knowledge. Develop insight and using discernment leads me to an uninhibited belief that Jesus truly loves us. This is why I do believe that black lives matter, why I do believe He gives everlasting grace, why I believe that His heart is one of justice, mercy, truth, and grace. And calls His followers to do the same. 

And Philippians 1:27a: Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ

And this: ...Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice." Philippians 4:8-9

What a reminder of strong encouragement of how to align ourselves with the one true, holy God. How to be holy, set apart from others, in a God-honoring way. Love, love, love, love. Love justly, love mercifully, love with plentiful grace. 

Anchored by Truth

My best friend semi-recently reminded me that there is a standard of truth and that immediately anchored me. Between her, the Bible, and prayer, I'm feeling significantly more assured and anchored than before I texted her. I'm also feeling a bit convicted and that's kind of uncomfortable. 

Essentially what happened is that I texted her and said: "I think I have a problem but I'm confused and not sure and want your insight/input" and she immediately called me. I'm not much of a phone talker and I didn't anticipate such a quick response, but it was really appreciated. I explained the presenting situation and as we talked it through, she seemingly casually said that we believe in a standard of truth. And I was like "Wait, wait, wait. Say that again. That's it. That's exactly it. What you just said, anchors me. There's a standard of truth." When I got lost in relativism, I legitimately get lost. There is no actual standard of truth in the world of relativism and it's confusing and illogical. It sounds nonjudgemental, but it's actually irrational. 

It's scary to be untethered or to feel like everything is relative and I had definitely been falling into that trap--that relativism is real and good, rather than a belief in Truth. There is truth, there is a standard, there is an anchor. And it's okay, good, and holy to stay anchored, stand firm to that. That Jesus is the way, the truth the life. He is the standard. He's what's good, what's holy, what's right, what's true. 

1 Peter 2:16-17: Live as free people do, but not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God's slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.

A couple days after I had this conversation, I spent some time with another Christian friend--what was going to be a two-minute wave hello ended up being a two hour bonding time (we tried to be safe in the midst of the pandemic! It's been several weeks and neither of have COVID, so I guess we did alright!) and I told her how much I needed more connection with Christians. She brought up a conversation about society, truth, the Bible, etc and it was closely related to some of my struggles, though she was much more anchored to her beliefs than I was--which was helpful, weird, and refreshing. That's exactly what I need; stronger anchors to the truth. The Truth; the truth in who Jesus is, what He's done, is doing, and will do. Infallible, everlasting, infinite, bigger than everything, wholly, intimate. 

A few days after that at church (online), I was reminded that when the Church has the courage to hold to biblical truth, things happen. And that when we're wrestling with our sin, that's not a bad place to be--we're responding to conviction. 

IDGAF

I told my best friend that the other day I had the STRONGEST urge to straight-up party in Vegas. I'm talking party Vegas style--loud music, grinding, making out with random guys, getting drunk, the works. 

It was SUPER weird, because none of that is remotely close to me or what I do in real life. Nor is it just real at all. So when I had this urge, I was 1-extremely confused; 2-a little embarrassed, 3-confused. So confused that it warranted being listed twice with different levels of severity. I didn't want to tell anyone, but I'm getting so much better at telling people things and reaching out when my thoughts get wild (this time, in the literal sense of wild, I guess). 

Anyways, we realized that it was more of the urge to truly not give a f*** about anything. She sent that to me and a hilarious gif, so I felt immediately better. 

It led to a good, deeper conversation about the weight of so many things and responsibilities we carry, especially in the midst of a pandemic. I am so grateful for real friendships. Where I can be real about my super weird (not real) desires (but feel so real) and we can laugh about it, get the deeper meaning, and have hilarious conversations that also have meaning. 

Side note--the other day someone at work randomly said, "Ashley, you seem to have a lot of friends." And I was like..."No...I don't..." And they said, "Well, you seem to have really good friends; every time you talk about someone in your life or your friends, you can tell that they are really good." So, that's cool :) 

Drawn To My Knees

I finished re-reading my favorite book, Redeeming Love. Every time I read it, I'm drawn to my knees. It's in a different place in the book nearly every time that happens and for various reasons of why. I wrote about my experience the first time I read it here. 

The beauty and majesty of God are breathtaking. To have a Lord that loves us the way He does, a God who pursues us, a Lamb that calls us, a Lion that roars for us, a Savior that redeems us over and over again, never forsakes us. That's the God I want people to know. He loves us, Oh how He loves us.