Leadership and Healthy Messages
Leaders play a special role in the lives of others. Think of some of the most influential leaders you’ve encountered in your life. There are a number of skills and qualities they could have possessed that appealed to you, whether they were fearless, experts in their field, great communicators, or immensely selfless, among other attributes. One thing is for sure — they made a positive impact, one that left a lasting impression and/or contributed to growth and change.
The Faces of Leadership
Leadership, according to Merriam-Webster, is defined as the office or position of a leader; the capacity to lead; or the act or an instance of leading. This shows the width and breadth of leadership, whether one is filling a formal leadership role or taking the initiative to lead at home, work, or within their community. Some of the most influential leaders that might come to mind were not tasked to lead but felt compelled to in order to address an issue or meet a need. It’s important to not discredit the influence we can all have in our lives and work every day. Maybe this is you. Or perhaps you don’t see how you influence others at all. Consider your “sphere of influence,” personally and professionally, and the areas where you can make a positive contribution or effect change.
Challenges and Misuses or Abuses of Power
In addition to the leaders we remember fondly, we’ve all likely encountered leaders who, unfortunately, have stood out for not-so-good reasons. There are individuals who might serve in a leadership role due to their knowledge of a certain area, even “seniority,” but lack some of the skills and/or qualities that would make them better leaders. Some of these leaders are largely not good at working with people, and exhibit negative behaviors, such as placing blame or pointing the finger, being overly critical or putting others down, miscommunicating, and/or abusing their power, to name a few.
Oftentimes, we lack awareness of the power or influence we can have on others. Whether providing pertinent information to a group of people, giving someone advice on how to handle an issue, or posting a message on social media, it’s important to think about the impact it might have on others. This isn’t to say that one should be so cautious that they end up not sharing what might be necessary. On the other hand, within the larger society where it’s easy to share information, including potentially thoughtless or inconsiderate opinions and criticism, and just as easy to be criticized for doing the opposite, it’s crucial to keep the tenets of healthy messaging in mind. A healthy message 1. serves an intended purpose, fosters growth, and/or brings about positive change, for yourself and others, and 2. is clear and consistent, aligned with values and goals, and contributes to organizational objectives, if applicable.
Key Leadership Skills
In whatever capacity you lead or influence others, it’s always worthwhile to develop or refine skills that improve your impact. The International Institue for Management Development (IMD) noted eight key leadership skills you need to know in 2024, including:
Relationship building — the foundation of a high-performing team.
Agility and adaptability — staying at the cutting edge as a leader.
Innovation and creativity — learning to push your boundaries.
Employee motivation — improving engagement and efficiency.
Decision-making — leading with conviction.
Conflict management — keeping the peace.
Negotiation — winning the game.
Critical thinking — understanding the links between ideas.
Do you consider yourself a leader, and if so, what makes your leadership or influence beneficial to others? If you don’t consider yourself a leader or question your influence on others, why is that? This writing provides a high-level overview of leadership and healthy messages. To explore these and other topics more, please view current and upcoming writings, and feel free to share a comment. Request a free consultation to get started with services and reach out if interested in partnering.
Healthy Messages™ provides professional consulting services for the growth and positive change of individuals, leaders, and organizations around areas of service. Whether you’re a professional seeking to develop new skills, a leader or business owner wanting to see positive change across systems, or either in need of direct writing support or a partner to simply walk with and advise you along the journey, there are many ways to create healthy messages. Learn more about Healthy Messages™’ mission, vision, and outcomes.
Effective Self-disclosure
Self-disclosure seems clear enough — one’s disclosure about themselves. However, self-disclosure involves a lot more consideration than what might be perceived — what should someone disclose, and when, and how does one self-disclose effectively? In today’s age of sharing what one thinks, does, or believes on a regular basis online, the art and science behind self-disclosure might not readily come to mind.
What is self-disclosure?
According to the Berkley Well-Being Institute, self-disclosure “is an aspect of communication that involves intentionally sharing personal information about ourselves with another person — information that others generally could not know without us sharing it.”
Why self-disclose?
Sharing about ourselves is a way for us to connect with others. The extent of what we share, however, could depend on the relationship and also help shape those relationships. For instance, we might share something less personal, say an interest we have, with someone we’re just getting to know but more personal (i.e., something we’re struggling with) with a close friend, family member, or mentor who we’ve grown to trust.
How much should someone self-disclose?
While it’s important to open up with others we want to get to know, and they us, we also want to keep in mind that self-disclosure is incremental in effective interpersonal relationships. Over-disclosing, and often, can be overwhelming or burdensome for the listener. The goal is to share the right amount of information. This speaks to the intention or purpose one has for sharing.
The bottom line
Overall, self-disclosure helps individuals form close, intimate social connections. There are also mental and physical health benefits of talking with others. It has been found that repressing emotions can have adverse health effects. Thus, being able to share information with individuals who will have a positive response to what is shared can be extremely impactful. And if we’re a listener, we want to be mindful of the significant role that we can play in supporting others in their sharing. Ultimately, we want to be someone that people can trust/confide in and respect.
The key to effective self-disclosure is sharing information intentionally.
Be other-centered when you disclose. Consider how what you share will affect the other person; don’t disclose just for the sake of disclosing.
Remember self-disclosure is incremental in effective interpersonal relationships. Be careful not to reveal too much too soon.
Decrease self-disclosure if you’re talking to someone and they are not reciprocating/responding.
Share stories, versus history, to invite the listener in/to respond.
What are your thoughts about self-disclosure? How comfortable are you with sharing about yourself with others? Are you someone that people feel safe disclosing information to?
I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to share a comment or reach out if you’d like to connect or receive support, have questions, or are interested in partnering.
Healthy Messages™ helps professionals, leaders, and business owners in human services improve, craft, and implement communication within and across systems.
Learn more about Healthy Messages™ mission, vision, and outcomes.
Growth & Messaging
For many people, the start of the New Year is an opportunity to think about what they want to achieve in their lives, personally and professionally. Helping people to grow personally and professionally through a focus on messaging is one goal/objective of Healthy Messages™. Thus, it seemed fitting to highlight areas of growth in this month’s writing. In particular, Healthy Messages™ is interested in the qualities/attributes that people possess and how they are able to incorporate them in the work that they do, as well as how much of the work that they do is a reflection of their values, mission or purpose, aspirations or goals, and overall messaging. This doesn’t just apply to paid employment or one’s career.
For many, their job is exactly aligned with their interests, skills, and life goals. For many others, they may be working to support themselves and their families while also pursuing what they feel is their true calling or passion, including investing time in a part-time business and/or volunteering for a particular cause. With this in mind, consider these areas of personal and professional growth and related questions:
Personal identity - what are your qualities, values, and/or interests?
Purpose/mission and/or goals - what would you like to do, support, or achieve?
Place of action - where will you utilize your qualities, pursue your interests, advocate for values, fulfill your mission or purpose, and/or achieve your goals, whether that’s at home, your place of employment, or local community, to name a few?
Your message - what do you want to convey through your words and actions in support of your values, purpose/mission, or goals and as a result of them? In other words, what’s the heart of the matter? Oftentimes we underestimate the power of communication (written, spoken, and lived out) in not only representing ourselves, organizations, or businesses, but in sharing the heart or importance of what we do, as well as in facilitating progress and clarifying our direction and next steps.
Considering areas of personal and professional growth through a focus on messaging, take some time to review the services that Healthy Messages™ offers:
Professional and Organizational Messaging Self-Service: Evaluate areas for growth and change and clarify professional and organizational messaging
Professional Development and Training: One on one or group support to navigate individual challenges around communication
Direct Communication Support: Assistance with producing content/communication
Strategic Consulting: Evaluating gaps/discrepancies between messaging and outcomes
Whole Leader Group™ - Where professionals can network, share ideas, & craft, implement, and improve healthy messages
How do you want to grow personally and professionally? What do you want to do or achieve? What messages do you want to convey? In this New Year Healthy Messages™ will be continuing to share content monthly while shifting priorities to work on more research and writing, in addition to providing supports around the services previously noted.
I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to share a comment or reach out if you’d like to connect, have questions, or are interested in partnering.
Healthy Messages™ helps professionals, leaders, and business owners in human services improve, craft, and implement communication within and across systems.
Learn more about Healthy Messages™ mission, vision, and outcomes.