Issue 677 - Empowermernt Required: "How Do You Deal With Uncertainty?"


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 677
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Empowerment Required: "How Do You Deal With Uncertainity?" John Wooden Video Clip (130 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "What is your advice on managing expectations?" Very powerful video clip! Empowerment is tested most clearly in moments of uncertainity. When direction is unclear and expectations are shifting, empowered individuals don't step back-they lean in. John Wooden in his Pyramid of Success emphasized Iniitiative advising us to to: "Cultivate the ability to make decisions and think alone. Do not be afraid of failure but learn from it." Current best selling author, researcher and elite leadership coach Liz Wiseman describes "Impact players" as those who "get their arms around the chaos." The message echoes across generations:" Don't wait to be told what to do." Empowerment means stepping beyond our assigned lane when necessary, taking responsible action, and choosing ownership over hesitation. In an empowered culture, uncertainity becomes an oppurtunity to lead. In her bestselling book, Impact Players, Liz Wiseman describes the value of this attitude in today’s workplace, when describing high performers (Impact Players): "When dealing with uncertainty , while others are freezing, Impact Players are getting their arms around the chaos. They venture beyond their assigned job to tackle the real job that needs to be done. An average employee waits for directions. An impact player steps up and takes action. Sometimes the most important work feels as though it is everyone’s job yet no one’s job. This leaves some employees with uncertainty: Should I stay in my lane, do my job, and attend to my duties? Or should I leave my post to pursue work in no-man’s-land? If the latter, how can I make sure I still excel at what I’ve been assigned to do? Today’s leaders don’t need more dependents, they need extensions, more eyes spotting opportunities, more ears listening for unmet needs, more hands solving problems. We asked a group of managers what employees’ behaviors they most appreciate. Their number one response? "When people do things without being asked." Coach Wooden put it this way: "The worst thing you can do when action is needed is to take no action at all." Reflect on this idea of self-empowerment. How are you doing? Write it down. Share it with someone on your team. Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 677. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 677. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE The Lonely Old Fellow The roses are bedded for winter, the tulips are planted for spring; The robins and martins have left us; there are only the sparrows to sing. The garden seems solemnly silent, awaiting its blankets of snow, And I feel like a lonely old fellow with nowhere to turn or to go. All summer I've hovered about them, all summer they've nodded at me; I've wandered and waited among them the first pink of blossom to see; I've known them and loved and caressed them, and now all their splendor has fled, And the harsh winds of winter all tell me the friends of my garden are dead. I'm a lonely old fellow, that's certain. All winter with nothing to do But sit by the window recalling the days when my skies were all blue; But my heart is not given to sorrow and never my lips shall complain, For winter shall pass and the sunshine shall give me my roses again. And so for the friends that have vanished, the friends that they tell me are dead, Who have traveled the road to God's Acres and sleep where the willows are spread; They have left me a lonely old fellow to sit here and dream by the pane, But I know, like the friends of my garden, we shall all meet together again. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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