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Loddie Foose shares an article designed to help you dial up your leadership skills to approach, deal with, and overcome seemingly insurmountable problems in both business and life.

Have you ever looked at a challenge head on and thought, “that’s huge… it’s going to knock me over”? In your mind, it may have held the power of a tsunami wave. But what if a shift in perspective allowed you to reframe that challenge? The wave hasn’t changed, but something has changed in you allowing you to see the power you could truly bring to the situation. What if that wave then felt like something gentle you could wade into and even have fun with?

In 2019, I started a group within the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) called Women in Healthcare (WIH) Give Back. What started as a local passion project became a global community working together to achieve positive outcomes with non-profit partners while developing bold and authentic women leaders. You can read more about that story here.

One of the lessons I saw demonstrated time and time again through that work was how cautious we tend to be as women leaders. “I don’t think I can…” “but I’ve never done this before…” or “what will they think of me…?” were common responses from women I coached when taking things on for the first time. Whether they were using LinkedIn for the first time to find and share their voice, taking on public speaking, or starting a people leadership role through our volunteer efforts, there was always a timidity and a resistance they each needed to confront and break through to reach their goals. And what gave them the courage to do so was the “Big Why” we all shared, i.e. the service goal we committed to together as part of that year’s WIH Give Back program.

And let’s not pretend I wasn’t plagued with the very same hesitance. I barely used LinkedIn before WIH Give Back (“what do I have to say?” “why would people care?”). And it took the “Big Why” of service to others and wanting to help all these great women leaders find their confidence and voice to help me find my very own. Ironic, isn’t it, how much we learn to coach ourselves simply through coaching or helping others?

What has been wonderful over the course of each annual program for WIH Give Back, is seeing the women evolve, willing to try new things in the face of delivering on the “Big Why”. The really magical leadership transformation happens when they start translating those learnings into their own career, like starting a conversation in their network to advocate for their own growth instead of only doing so to help a non-profit.

Key points include:

• Identifying the “big why”
• Changing perception
• Self-coaching

Read the full article, Leadership perspective: How to transform your tsunami into a toe tickler, on LinkedIn.