Leadership Success Stories

At Mind Gardener we love hearing about
our client’s successes .  This year we have
run a number of leadership programs and
heard some great success stories that are
worth sharing.  We hope you find them
as enlightening and inspiring as we did.

The Power of Attention

A leader was looking for ways to help a
staff member improve their performance
results. During our leadership program he
realised that the way he had been
approaching it was probably triggering
a threat response in his team members
brain, causing her performance to drop
rather than increase. With the improved
understanding of the brain he got from our
program he decided to try something new.
He asked the team member to not worry
about results at all for the moment but to
focus instead on the mood of her
customers and how she could influence it.
Within one week her performance
results had improved way above
benchmark and she was finding her work
satisfying and enjoyable.

The Power of Listening

A leader had a staff member who was
unhappy and dissatisfied in his role.  The
leader had suggested all sorts of strategies
to try and fix the problem without success.
At our leadership program we discussed
the power of listening and silence.  The
leader realised that he did most of the
talking during one on one sessions with
this person. The next time the leader met
with this staff member he made a effort
to really listen, to ask questions and to
wait for the team member to speak. During
that session the leader uncovered what this
person was really passionate about and
was able to find a role in the organisation
to meet their passion. He is now
an engaged employee who is one of their
shining stars.

The Power of Focus

One of the participants in the leadership
program was really struggling with
‘busyness’ and got to the end of many days
feeling totally exhausted but having no clue
what she had achieved. After the
discussion about the impact
of multitasking on the brain she
committed to do one thing at a time, with
full attention.  She was amazed – she
reported that she had achieved heaps more
than she expected to, that she felt more
energised and that she left work most days
feeling like she had really contributed
effectively. The experience had renewed
her confidence and her enjoyment of her
role.

The Power of Purposeful Action

One leader was struggling with work life
balance and felt guilty all the time because
she believed that neither work nor home
was getting the best of her.  Our session on
purpose got her thinking more about her
own purpose in life.  She went away and
spent some time reflecting on her purpose
and realised that her purpose was to help
herself and others be the best they could
be. This discovery helped her achieve the
right balance in her life because it was
easier to identify the most important
actions – they were ones that contributed
to purpose. She stopped trying to do and
be everything and started living in a more
focussed and disciplined way.

These stories are just some of the practical,
simple and powerful ways leaders are
applying tools and ideas from our
program. Hearing these stories is a
powerful reminder of the value of paying
attention, being focussed and living with
purpose. Stories likes these always renews
my commitment to the practices I teach
others -  I hope you feel similarly inspired.