Hello readers!
The last newsletter in December shared a tool with you to make it easier to reflect on your year in 2024. Some of you wrote to me about your own reflections – thank you! It means a lot to hear from you. On New Year’s Eve, one of my family members had the idea of going around the table to share a highlight from 2024. We hadn’t done that before and that moment is now a happy memory.
It’s already mid-February…woah. Thank you for patiently waiting on the first newsletter of the year (as I’m sure you were, ha!). I’ve been working on something new. This year, I have created a theme for these newsletters.
The theme I have chosen for 2025 is Steady Action. My hope is to give readers tools to assess and strengthen the foundations of your leadership, all while taking action to improve your life and the world around you.
Each newsletter edition will build on the material from the previous month, mirroring a leadership development pathway from start to finish. You can expect to see a lesson, a tool for you to try, and an example of how to use the tool. If you or someone you know would like more support than what is offered here, please send them my way for coaching and/or additional resources.
Here’s the planned sequence for 2025, though I may adjust these as I learn what works:
#1: How to choose an area of your life to develop or change
What part of your life needs attention to live in integrity with your values?
#2: How to care for your health to steady your leadership
What do nutrition, exercise, relaxation, and sleep have to do with leading?
#3: How to create a motivating goal to start taking action
What would be different if you achieved this goal? How will you celebrate?
#4: How to see your inner strengths and use them at the right time
What parts of you can you activate to start taking action?
#5: How to see the path from here to where you want to be
What array of paths lead toward your goal and which will you try first?
#6: How to find your way past the inner and outer obstacles
What specific things can support you to step over obstacles?
#7: How to start taking specific steps along the path to your goal
How can you design simple experiments to enable learning as you go?
#8: How to track your position & assess your progress
How can tracking help you see where you are on the path to your goal? What is your position telling you about your direction, pace, and what lies ahead?
#9: Adjusting your approach based on new information
How to adjust your progress based on what you learn as you go
#10: Crossing the finish line
How to celebrate what you have accomplished and sustain the change.
That’s it for this one! I wanted to share the theme and what to expect. Read on to learn a leadership tip and about a new group I’m reaching out to. And as always, if you’re looking for more personalized support, hit reply or schedule a call.
-Lindsay
Art credits: La Tour Eiffel à Paris by Armand Guillaumin
A Leadership Tip
If you are interested in setting a goal for the year, consider starting with a 3 month goal. Shorter-term goals are easier to envision and follow through on than longer-term goals. As you get more comfortable setting goals, you can play around with different time frames.
What I’m Up To
One special update: as a former federal government employee, I have a lot of sympathy for federal government workers right now. I have decided to donate 10 hours of free coaching to help federal workers navigate this challenging time. This means that I will provide one free 60 minute coaching session to ten federal employees or contractors during the months of March and April. Please help me reach federal government workers. If you know someone in the federal workforce, I encourage you to share this newsletter and/or this link to my scheduling page with them. If there is a lot of interest, I may continue to offer this.
A new program: I am excited to have started working with a city government fellowship cohort. My role is to them find a good job as they wind down a two-year fellowship in mid-sized cities around the country. I’ve been enjoying getting to know them and helping them each create and implement a personalized career transition plan. I am grateful for the chance to have worked with the program team to create this coaching opportunity and integrate it into the existing fellowship program. I am carefully observing how it goes in its first year. It’s kind of cool to be in this position now, because ten years ago I was finishing up my own fellowship experience, transitioning from Germany to Chicago, and could’ve really used a career coach!
I continue to coach graduate students in the Leadership Lab course at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. It’s my 7th academic quarter in this role, and I still just love this job, the faculty, and the students. The time in this role has allowed me to see how, as the curriculum grows stronger and the course has gained in reputation, the students do better. I wonder if, in general, there is a deeper understanding of what leadership development is: this year’s students seem to be starting from a higher level of understanding about who they are and what they want out of the course.
In February, I will be facilitating a leadership and team-building workshop with the executive team of an organizational development firm. We’ll use an assessment called the Hogan to help them learn about themselves, each other, and how to work together effectively. It’ll be fun to learn from this experience!
In March, I will teach a class on managing stress at the end of the day. It’s a different perspective on the daily task of cooking dinner. We’ll focus on how cooking can help us unwind, relax, and nourish ourselves at the end of a busy day. Please join me in Minneapolis and share with people in the area!