On Connection Conversant

Change and uncertainty are unavoidable challenges for organizations and leaders to lean into today. Whether those changes and shifting circumstances are externally driven or strategic choices, they can be disruptive and dislocating. They also offer powerful opportunities for generating connection, resilience, and value-producing cultures.

Mickey and Robin join Emma Rose to share what they've observed can help or hurt your ability to navigate times
of change and uncertainty, including practical and proactive focuses for your leadership.

When we find ourselves in disagreement with another person, it's easy to put our energy into winning the argument. How do I get my point across? How do I get them to see it my way? How do I prove that I'm right?



If we treat conversations and conflict like a win-or-lose game, we all lose. If we practice conversational accuracy, we create an opportunity for both sides to learn from the other.



In this episode, Mickey, Robin, and Emma Rose share the essential shift to focus on if you want to turn those differences into an opportunity to build something together. It starts with how you listen, and what you're listening for.



Resources:

The 10 Laws of Collaboration Summary (2004)

The Conversation Meter

TEDx Boulder: Rediscovering Connection & Belonging | Mickey & Emma Rose Connolly

Conflict resolution and the valuable management of differences are leadership skills that continue to be identified as critical areas of development across organizations and industries. While conflict is something we all tend to avoid or leave unresolved, the way we choose to engage with it can either hurt our goals and working relationships or increase our access to trust and new insights.



In this episode, Emma Rose, Mickey, and Robin share
practical ways you can engage with conflict to reveal new opportunities for connection and collaboration.


Resources:

Gartner Future of Work Trends 2024

TEDx Talk: Rediscovering Connection & Belonging | Mickey & Emma Rose Connolly

Bioreactive Styles Assessment

Leading others has its challenges, and for the most senior leaders of organizations there are some challenges that weigh heavily.

What gets elevated to senior leadership isn't the easy stuff. It's often the complex, messy, challenging things that couldn't be resolved by others. Those leaders, however, are just human beings - people that have personal lives and responsibilities that draw on their emotional bandwidth. Because they have powerful influence, this means they have to be conscious of how their own emotional quality impacts those they lead. Practicing emotional leadership, however, is a tough charge - and an uncommon one.

In this episode, Mickey and Robin join Emma Rose to share what they've learned from working with senior executives around the world (and from leading organizations themselves) about why it matters to develop emotional leadership, and how to do it.

A new year brings opportunities for reflecting on our hopes and intentions for the year ahead, both personally and professionally. In organizational life, we set strategic plans and priorities, schedule milestones and deadlines, and put together development plans for ourselves and others. Most know that no matter how great the plan, we often get derailed as circumstances inevitably shift.

So how can we align our intentions with reality? And how can we care for that alignment throughout the year so that our efforts lead to successes worth celebrating? Whether you have goals for yourselves or for those you lead, we have some uncommon advice to help you launch a year of valuable achievement.

We know that influence is not limited to those with tenure, title, or hierarchy. Every member of an organization has the capacity to influence those around them, the quality of work, the collective understanding of challenges, and much more.

Choosing to develop influence as a skill is a worthwhile investment not only for senior leaders but also for leaders and contributors of all levels. We recently released an episode devoted to that topic, and this one expands on that conversation with a focus on non-executive audiences.

Conversant consultants Katie Mingo and Patrick Kennedy join Emma Rose to share what they've learned from their personal experiences and those with other leaders about developing influence and growing your impact without tenure or role-related authority.


On Connection: Leadership Influence