Brave Enough To Be Bliss

Please bow your head and pray with me. Our Father in Heaven, we praise you. Although you are great, your loving care is seen in the details of our lives, and we give you thanks. But Lord, so often we find it hard to trust you. We try to work out our problems in our own strength and we are overcome. Father, help us remember that your help is given to those who admit their needs and not those who cover them up. And help us to be an inspiration to others in the way we live our lives by faith in You, even when it means that we must step outside of our comfort zones. And now Lord, be with us for the rest of this evening as we make decisions to further your mission here at Shawnee Mission Medical Center. In Jesus’ s name we pray, Amen.

“Build someone up. Put their insecurities to sleep. Remind them they’re worthy. Tell them they’re incredible. Be a light in a too often dim world. ” Unknown

While I didn’t have any formal leadership training, I was fortunate enough to work for some amazing leaders and humans early in my career (thank you, Kenny Mossman, Doug Vance, Shelley McThomas, Cheryl Dillard, and Samuel H. Turner, Sr.). As I mentioned a few chapters ago, I was constantly assessing situations and people to prepare for the future in an attempt to avoid surprise or pain. That attention to detail allowed me to pick up on and retain information that could be used at a later date. If there was anything I did right early on as a manager, the credit sh ould go to these great leaders, but there are likely many more things I didn’t do ideally simply because I didn’t know better and I’m human. I looked at the opportunity to become a leader as one that was in line with my purpose for living. I was extremely serious about everything at that time, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I just had very high expectations for everyone and unreasonable expectations for myself. I had one employee who wasn’t a bad employee at all, it just didn’t seem to be a fit. The employee didn’t appear to be happy doing the job and I didn’t feel the performance was at the level it needed to be. We had meetings about how to improve performance, but after several of those and no significant improvement, I felt the best course of action would be to give the employee two months to find other employment before moving forward with termination . While I avoided conflict on a personal level, I didn’t ev en look at performance improvement discussions as conflict. I wanted all my employees to be the best they could be and to enjoy the work they were doing. When that wasn’t possible, to me, it was only logical that the employee would be better off somewhere else where there was a chance the work would be more appealing and rewarding. Clear, honest and direct communication led to positive working relationships and then if these types of conversations had to occur, trust had already been built and generally it wasn’t some thing I was uncomfortable with. This particular employee seemed to understand and agree with the plan, so I offered to do whatever I could to support a transition within a reasonable timeframe. That employee has gone on to experience great career success, which has nothing to do with me other than encouraging the employee to move forward and find something that would provide greater satisfaction and allow strengths to be best utilized. The reason I share this story is because it provides a clear description of the disconnect between how I behaved as a professional compared to my personal life. If I had utilized those communication skills in my personal life, my relationships could have been much different. I led with my heart as a leader, always caring first and foremost about the human beings who worked for me, but in my personal life, I actually allowed my scared brain to lead and that led to disconnected relationships. “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persis tence and determination alone are omnipotent.” Calvin Coolidge As a young leader I had only previously weighed in on hiring decisions. When I was given the opportunity to make the first hiring decision of my career, I made a huge error in allowing personal bias to affect my review of a resume. It was an entry level position and there were a number of candidates who were just graduating from

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