Volume 4.4 April 2009

1. Click the Edit tab on the left of the Captivate screen.
2. Click View from the menu at the top of the screen and select Show Library, or press Ctrl + Alt + L on your keyboard.
3. In the Library panel, click the Select Unused Items icon.
4. Click the Delete icon or press the Delete key on your keyboard.
5. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the selected items.

Be sure to save your file!

From Crisis to Clarity
How do we learn from the current economic crisis? Too many departments are struggling to survive and have to do more with less. When you are in a critical leadership role, how do you manage to do the transformational work when you only have the budget for the transactional? Crisis provides an opportunity to be creative in our approach and in the ways we work with others.

Consider the following quote from JFK, "When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters—one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity." Are you focused on the danger or the opportunity? At EPI we refer to this as crisis consciousness versus opportunity consciousness. To truly move from crisis to clarity requires a mind flip from what is comfortable and familiar in stressful times (crisis consciousness) to opportunity consciousness.

When faced with a crisis, be honest and ask yourself the following:

• What opportunities is this crisis providing me that might not be readily apparent?
• Am I fighting against the crisis or am I ready to leverage it as an opportunity and flourish and grow?
• If I had clarity on this crisis right now, what would that look like? (Focus on the positive and desired outcome.)
• Are my actions contributing or hindering the movement to clarity?

Become committed to making the shift from crisis consciousness to opportunity consciousness. When you do this, you open the door for incentive, motivation, innovation, and inspiration, rather than feeling confused, unsure, unclear, disoriented, and bewildered.

Good luck, we’d love to hear how it goes!


Michelle Kelly, President/CEO

Transformational Leadership

By Stacy Dvergsdal, Performance Consultant

The recent CEO scandals of AIG, Enron, WorldCom, and Qwest are good examples of leadership without an ethical or moral foundation. Many of these leaders did not identify or live their values. It is likely, in fact, that they didn’t have a vision that even incorporated their values. As a result, greed, gluttony, power and privilege deterred these executives from ethical and moral behavior.

Unlike these CEOs, transformational leaders engage the hearts and minds of people and transform them through visionary and inspirational messages that steer the organization or others toward pursuing the “right” goals. These leaders demonstrate vision, values, trust and integrity. They have a clear vision of where they and the organization/department ought to be going. Their vision in hand, they communicate those values to the people they lead with the intent that those people adopt those same values as their own. Their behavior, when consistent with the articulated vision and values, evokes trust in the people they lead. They motivate others by inspiring them to believe that the collaborative pursuit of this vision is intrinsically more important than personal, short-term benefits that might be gained. In addition, these leaders are change agents and bring about innovation.

Transformational leaders can be developed through training and coaching programs that focus on behavior modification through action planning. The model below presents the process for becoming a transformational leader. In the model, transformational leaders have certain characteristics, carry out required tasks, and as a result, have outcomes that engage and change followers. By applying this model and supporting it with training and coaching, you can turn the managers in your company into transformational leaders and avoid the pitfalls of the scandalized CEOs.

Transformational Leadership Model