Adapting Your Leadership for Today’s Challenges—GLS22 Session Notes

Based on the most recent survey from Edelman Trust Barometer, distrust is at an all-time high. Employees now trust you—their workplace leader—more than they trust government officials or media professionals! This makes the relationship with you incredibly important. With leaders now being thrust into this new role, the question remains, “do you have the capabilities to fulfill it?” Whether or not you are in an official leadership role, you have influence to help address today’s challenges. If you have ever questioned your ability to lead and respond during these unprecedented times, Stephanie Chung’s talk at GLS22 helped leaders explore the three core competencies it takes to navigate this new leadership space with confidence.

Enjoy these official session notes from Stephanie Chung’s talk at The Global Leadership Summit on August 4-5, 2022—Adapting Your Leadership for Today’s Challenges.

What’s the most important part of any relationship?

• • • Edelman Trust Barometer Study
      • • We’ve hit a new level of low when it comes to distrust in the world.
        • Businesses are now more trusted than the media or government; making the relationship between employer & employee incredibly important.
        • Employees are expecting their leaders to help shape conversation and policy on things like the economy, wage inequity, technology, global warming, diversity & inclusion.
        • Trust has become local—Employees are saying “I trust MY CEO, MY leader, MY co-workers, MY community.”

How do we level up our leadership so that we’re worthy of the trust that’s being bestowed on us? What is trust?

• • • Trust is an emotion. The brain controls all our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.
    • In her book SWAY, Behavioral Scientist & Professor Pragya Agarwal states “that when we’re asked to make quick decisions, we tend to rely on our instinctive stereotypes.”
    • A stereotype is defined by an unfair belief that all people with particular characteristics are the same.
    • We’re all biased. We judge, we exclude people, we stereotype.

Because of our bias, what damage could we unknowingly be doing to our company culture, our employees, our families, congregations? What talent didn’t we hire because of our bias, what friendships didn’t we cultivate, what soul didn’t we save?

• • • Pay attention. Our biases have been engrained in us over the years but that doesn’t let us off the hook. We must pay attention to them in order to decrease them.
    • 4 Levels of Attention:
      • • Selective
        • Sustained
        • Divided
        • Alternating

These various levels can affect our memory, our ability to recall information, our ability to stay focused on something for an extended period of time, and our ability to do multiple things at once.

3 Tips to Level Up in Your Leadership

• • • First, pay attention and acknowledge the fact that you do have biases. Unconscious bias is not a trend–it’s a real thing–and it has the ability to hurt real people.
    • Two, slow your roll. When it comes to important decisions, slow down your thinking so you don’t automatically jump to your instinctive stereotypes.
    • Three, learn to consciously visualize another person’s viewpoint. Let’s develop our abilities to see people for who they are, not who we’ve been programmed to think they are.

As leaders, the world is looking to us to bring stability to this emotional chaos we find ourselves in.

Leaders, we’ve been called for such a time as this. I do believe that we will be like the other courageous leaders before us, that during times of uncertainty, when trust was bestowed upon them—they rose up, they understood the call, they minimized their bias, and they made a difference for all.

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