An Award for Wise Feminine Leadership

I must admit. Many of my clients are my “favorite” – they inspire me to no end. I learn from them every day we work together. Over the past 3 years I’ve been privileged to work with Deb Hubsmith the founder and Director of the Safe Routes to Schools National Partnership as she tripled the size of her budget, staff, and the range of her work. Please join me in congratulating Deb, and The Safe Routes to Schools National Partnership, for receiving the Game Changer Award from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention this week.

Deb is passionate and strategic, smart and visionary, intuitive and precise on details, scrappy and wise. With an interactive leadership style Deb builds consensus up front and all along the way, shares power and information to avert a crisis before it happens. She is comfortable with ambiguity, watching issues unfold, ready to respond when the time is right. She keeps her focus on what matters, while scanning with broad spectrum vision. She pays attention to the texture of the workplace as she develops and inspires her nationally based staff.  A communicator – her verbal agility and capacity to read subtle cues mean that she moves teams and causes through obstacles that seem insurmountable. A wise feminine leader!

Why is “safe routes” a critical issue? Think thriving self-reliant kids riding bikes and walking to school instead of being dependent on their parents to drive. Think liveable communities, less pollution, decreased obesity, and the kind of future we want to pass on to our children.

Deb Hubsmith, Director of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, first started her game changing efforts 15 years ago by working to improve bicycle and pedestrian routes to schools in Marin County, California. As awareness of childhood obesity grew, she took her local successes, passion and pioneering spirit to the national level and worked with Congress to create the federal Safe Routes to School program which is now established within the Departments of Transportation of all 50 states. More than 5 million children and 12,000 schools are already benefiting from more pedestrian and bicycle pathways as well as education programs.

Through her tireless efforts, Deb and The Safe Routes to Schools National Partnership ignited a national movement to make streets safer for kids to walk and bicycle to school and in daily life. Deb, her staff, and their more than 500 organizational partners, continue to show how Safe Routes to School can be a catalyst for bringing about system-wide built environment changes that increase physical activity and safety, building a healthier future for children and everyone.

Throughout developing a strategic plan that included input from almost a thousand stakeholders, evolving staffing structures, learning new leadership skills, strengthening teams, and strategic responses to complex changes, Deb is one of those clients motivated to make changes in herself and her organization. She turns on a dime when shown a better way to do something and is always ready to learn along with her talented Staff Director Team.

Thank you Deb for your fine work and dedication. It’s an honor to work with you.

Karen

Postscript - sadly Deb Hubsmith passed away in 2015 of acute myeloid leukemia. Her legacy lives on.

Learn more about the Safe Routes to School National Partnership and Deb Hubsmith’s legacy at http://www.saferoutespartnership.org

http://www.communicore.biz & http://www.thewisdomconnection.com

“The capabilities that made leaders successful in the past are unlikely to lead to success in the future. Leaders need to embrace new behaviors – but to do this they must first understand how the world has changed and how old ways can lead to business and personal obsolescence!” Annie McKee, Founder of  Teleosleadership;  Co-Author “Primal Leadership, “Resonant Leadership”

Next Octave Leadership: Discover the Gifts and Natural Authority of Feminine Power

Like many of us, you may sense that the world is changing and that you, your team or organization has a bigger role to play. A Next Octave Leader values and utilizes the gifts and natural authority of her feminine wisdom and power; with increased self-assurance she leverages her unique strengths and talents to be powerfully effective.

In a recent radio show hosted by Carole Sacino I explore the top 7 ways a woman’s vision and values are critical in business. Through stories of women around the world, we discussed the 4 steps that you can use to stabilize your WiseCore in any situation so that you can succeed through the uncertainties of change.

Carole and I explore what holds women back and how research points to 3 key factors: self-doubt, dismissal, and shrinking. They add up to a persistent lack of confidence. Do you experience this? Many women I speak with every day do.

Click here to listen to  my interview with Carole Sacino on VoiceAmerica Variety Channel for an engaging exchange and stories about professional presence, feminine wisdom, and authentic leadership with results.

All of us who are striving to lead from wisdom can benefit from regular doses of inspiration which is one of the reasons why I have developed the Next Octave Women’s Leadership Webinar  which shows women leaders, entrepreneurs and managers how to develop a more authentic and effective leadership style. You will learn how to use the 4 steps that stabilize your Wise Core and step you into your personal power.

Best,

Karen

Two Wise Leaders

How did you cultivate your wisdom today? One of my long term clients, Mark Finser, as President & CEO, grew the RSF Social Finance assets to over $120M by 2007 with a focus on putting money to work for a sustainable future. Each decision, whether it was operational or programmatic, staff or board related, was informed by his daily meditation practice and the wise counsel of mentors. Mark cultivates a rare ability to look at things from several different points of view to inform his decisions. The results of his approach show in the depth of his relationships and the scope of his results.

Mark is a wise leader. Wisdom is a multi-faceted knowledge, blending life and work experience with mental clarity, emotional sensing, and intuitive insight. The leaders I’ve been privileged to work with, those who make the biggest difference in their industry or cause, access this blend of knowledge to make smart, sensible, and astute small and large decisions that benefit the immediate and larger world.

Bob, Chief Legal Counsel for a large Federal agency woke at 4am to meditate every day. I first heard his story on a break during a Senior Management Retreat I was running in 1989 and it’s stuck with me.

You knew something was different when you were around Bob. The first time I heard him speak I was standing at the front of the conference room leading the senior management team through their first exercise of their leadership retreat. Each person in the circle introduced themselves. Midway through the circle of introductions, my attention was drawn away by a secretary entering the room with more coffee.

As Bob began to speak, the resonance in his voice pulled my attention back. The calm centered timber in his voice relaxed everyone in the room while simultaneously waking them up. He spoke without nervousness or push, without hesitation or trying. His inner knowing infused his being and radiated into his natural expression of leadership.

The results were obvious. Throughout the retreat Bob added perspective to limited thinking, came up with the suggestions that blended differing priorities and found new avenues through complex thorny issues.

It was a privilege to work with him over several years and help develop strategies for bringing wise leadership to the fore throughout the agency and the law firm he later joined.

Both Mark and Bob engaged in practices to cultivate their wisdom and made it a point to take a big picture perspective before coming to conclusions. In our hyper-focused work with big accountabilities on our desks, it takes something to do this, but the results are obvious.

What do you do to fill out the dimensionality of your knowledge? How do you cultivate your wisdom? What works for you?

Karen

What Wise Leaders Do

Wise leaders, like Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican head of the U.N. Climate Agency, encourage change by gathering and disseminating information on what is working. A recent Huffington Post article highlighted her work with high-profile executives from companies such as Coca-Cola, Unilever and Virgin Group. “Underscoring the focus on businesses, the U.N. climate agency last month launched an online database showcasing examples of companies making efforts to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change.”

These companies include and influence key decision makers in many different companies. In recognition of the decreasing chance that the political process in the US or abroad or the U.N. climate talks will actually make a significant difference, she is reaching out to corporations as the global citizens shaping the policies and practices of every country.

Global responsibility is all of ours – and especially those who wield the vast resources of corporations today. What is your company doing well? How can you recognize, publicize, and build on it?

Who do you see as a wise leader in your world? What do they do or not do so you consider them wise?

Key to a Woman's Success

As a woman leader, what does it take to launch, develop, and advance in your career or business and contribute in a big way to your organization’s success? What if wise feminine leadership is the key?

Do you spend your days:

• Producing results and performing on constricting & sometimes impossible time lines

• Delivering the results you are accountable for after a day of meetings

• Convincing the higher ups of the merits of a change that isn’t provable on the spreadsheet

• Navigating the shifting sands of changing leadership and tighter budgets

• Managing a difficult boss or discontented employee

• Navigating brutal office politics to avoid devastating personal impact

• Seeking integrity in work/life balance

• Yearning for personal feelings of fulfillment

What if your feminine wisdom is the missing element to all this and more? Why? Because it is the source of your natural authority – of knowing that you are “right” inside. Not right vs someone else being wrong. Just right – ok as you are – a sufficient starting point for what you want to do in the world.

What happens without it? In the last year I’ve spoken at the Linkage Women in Leadership Conference, Women’s International Networking Conference, and the Global Women’s Summit and a majority of managers and leaders reported that without their feminine wisdom they:

• doubt themselves

• feel shaky

• get confused

• try to be “more” which takes a lot of effort

• feel tired, exhausted, burnt out

• narrow focus and tighten shoulders

• lack power in their voice

We all know this inner essential self. I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t know this grounded powerful place inside where they feel the depth of their inner knowing. It’s delicious!

How about you? How do you find and seat yourself in your feminine wisdom? How do you settle into and express yourself from that potent WiseCore that lives inside of you?

We are enjoying beautiful fall weather in northern California with long windy hikes. I hope that you find many times that nourish wisdom and joy in your day.

Karen

P.S. The Next Octave Women’s Leadership Program applications are now available. Isn’t it time to nurture your feminine wisdom in a supportive circle of other women peers?