The Role of Humour in Leadership and Development

Laughter is one of the great unifiers and levellers of humanity.  Although different people and different cultures may find very different things to be amusing, the fact is that every society understands the concept of laughter and its therapeutic benefits.

The difficulty for leaders is that while the benefits of laughter and high morale, both personal and collective on the part of the team, is recognized, the use of humour still needs to be carefully controlled.

Occasionally laughing at oneself and encouraging others to do likewise is highly beneficial. It is great for stress relief and allows people to occasionally stand outside of themselves and take a broader perspective of their activities in a much wider and more human context. For that reason, humour and light-heartedness typically play a significant part in certain elements of australian aboriginal culture development program.

 However, there is a danger with the misuse of humour.
What one person may find to be amusing and human, another may find to be insulting, mocking or patronising etc. The problem is that it can be extremely difficult to predict, with any degree of certainty, just how a different person or group of people will react to even the best-intentioned joke or witticism.

Another problem for the leader as far as humour is concerned arises from it possibly being misconstrued as flippancy. By definition, someone leading an activity or a group of others needs to be seen, on the whole, to be taking the matter seriously and allocating it a degree of gravitas.

The leader who is seen to be constantly ‘horsing around’ and apparently more intent on having a good laugh than achieving their objectives, can sow unease and concern into others around them. So, the aspiring leader needs to understand the place of humour in a shared enterprise and use it appropriately - but also in moderation and be on guard against it being misinterpreted as a failure to be acting responsibly.

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Leadership From the Front or in Splendid Isolation?

Some of us may have experienced what is sometimes derisorily referred to as ‘distance leadership’.


In the old days, this was manifest by the letter that was delivered from the boss or head office, effectively telling you what you had to do for the period ahead.

In more recent times that may have been replaced by the telegram, telephone, E mail and SMS but the same basic frustrations arise.  How can anyone you barely know and rarely see, possibly be trying to offer you leadership on a day-to-day basis through remote distant communications?

Of course, accusing a leader of being ‘out of touch’ is a comforting cop-out to sometimes help us avoid having to make decisions of our own.  Even so, it is widely accepted today as being a highly inefficient way of getting things done.

Modern leadership is all about participatory endeavor.  It’s about being part of a team and demonstrating leadership qualities through that team in terms of your personal behaviors and communication skills rather than through directives and orders.

In modern models, leadership isn’t about rank and hierarchy.  It’s all about your behaviors and the values you communicate through those.

This is an area that we at the Stars Institute of Learning and Leadership push hard.  It is particularly important for what some still call Aboriginal tribes’ development,as visible behaviors on a day-to-day basis are the best ways of promulgating increased confidence within the First Nations communities.

This is important because reading about leadership success in your community is one thing but it’s nowhere near as effective as being able to see real-life examples of it in practice.  Yes, theory and motivational techniques are important but personal example is even more so.

We don’t apologies for believing that the old models of leadership are now largely, though perhaps not exclusively, outmoded and inappropriate for present day Aboriginal peoples or indeed anybody else.

It isn’t easy to change views in this area because from birth many of us have it had drilled into us that we need to see leadership as being synonymous with parental, school, religious or legal system authority etc.

Our goal is to help you think differently and more broadly about what leadership is and how you can demonstrate it.

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Top Tips for Restoring Someone’s Confidence

One of our primary objectives at the Stars Institute is to try and improve the self-confidence of the people who attend our various courses and sessions.

 Obviously, space doesn’t permit us here to go into a lot of detail but we will pick out a few key themes.

• Identifying the cause(s) of low self-esteem. Some people simply walk through life believing they are not capable of effective leadership and motivation. It’s not easy but it’s important to try and understand what is causing that. Generic tendencies are a useful clue but they are not always the final answer, as sometimes specifics are required. 

• Showing, by example and exercise, that they are not alone. Low self-confidence is endemic within many sections of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities. Yet one of the classic symptoms of a lack of self-confidence is to assume that you are the only one struggling with the problem and that everybody else seems to be fine. By proving that not to be the case, the challenges can be seen to be part of a much wider cultural context.

• Encouraging positive actions to deal with some causes of low self-esteem. Knowing that an aspect of your life is badly damaging your self-confidence is one thing but the effect may be unlikely to go away unless you take positive steps to address the cause. In some cases, that may not be possible but in others, with a little willpower and some appropriate help, it may be.

• Allow the individual to demonstrate success. It’s an old and valid saying that “nothing improves self-confidence better than success”. Completing a range of exercises and group activities where the individual is empowered to achievement, can boost self-esteem immeasurably. 

• Developing a regime to monitor and continually improve your confidence. The benefits of any training course, seminar or education program, needs to be maintained and rolled-out long after it is finished. That means that self-confidence improvement activities will need to be continued by the individual as part of their everyday life. 

 Nobody is pretending that it is easy to address this fundamental problem but it can be done providing you have appropriate and skilled individuals assisting. That’s where we come in!

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Do you cut-and-run?

There is an age-old expression along the lines of it being useless to "flog a dead horse".

Few expressions are quite so evocative. The idea that a dead horse is going to run faster if you hit it harder with a crop is self-evidently ludicrous.

The expression is meant to convey the wisdom that all of us need to sometimes accept that something we have been trying to achieve just isn’t going to happen.  It’s meant to stop us investing further time, effort, emotion and possibly money, in something that is by definition doomed to failure.

Of course, like so many other old sayings, while there is some wisdom here, there are also some dangers.

Clearly all of us need to recognize when something is, to all intents and purposes, effectively dead in the water. Trying to constantly make a success of something that is doomed is a waste of your time and effort.

Yet, there is a flip side to this. Sometimes going that extra mile and making that extra bit of effort can make all the difference between success and failure.  This leads us into the domain of equally famous sayings such as “perseverance wins” or “try, try and try again”.

So, how do you know when something simply doesn’t justify any more effort being put into it and can be legitimately described as being a failure and that activity where a little more persistence may yield fruit?

As you might have guessed by now, there is no easy answer to this.  This is largely to do with experience of life coupled with the application of certain analytical techniques which we at the Stars Institute will teach you to think about.

However, what is important is not to pull the plug on any of your endeavors or enterprises due to a lack of self-confidence.  On balance, when speaking of leadership development and training within Aboriginal communities, there is probably a much greater pre-disposition towards a lack of confidence leading to a too-quick jump to assuming failure rather than a stubborn and irrational refusal to accept defeat.

Like so many things in life, differentiating between failure and a further challenge is difficult and something that can stretch our judgmental capabilities.  We are here to help you think about these things and show you how to do it. 

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WE ALL HAVE A STORY TO TELL

Yurra Yurra!

There are many interesting STROIES being spoken about by Fist Nations peoples leading up to the National conversation and deliberation on Constitutional Recognition. 

I have to wonder if White Australia is really aware of, let alone ready
to make a decision on this? I have noticed a space of silence around Constitutional Recognition by Mainstreamers and it is quite unsettling I must say...

Is the future of my Great Grannies in the hands of todays voting public?

Now White Australia might say they're willing to, and welcome the recognition of First Nations peoples within the Constitution. BUT are they able to collectively make the Mind Shift that interrupts the status quo? Are they capable of and prepared to take fair, appropriate and just ACTIONS which gives voice to a NEW Australian Story and Identity?

So far much attention again has been focused on the Indigenous peoples of Australia as a problem....it is a model of deficit that has been applied to us throughout history and continues to follow us around like a naughty lost puppy looking for a home and a good feed. Sure everyone knows it's there, it may get a few scraps from the table to fill its belly and the occasional pat on the head, but no one wants to own it really...its like everyone expects that someone else will take pity on it and either take it home, put it in the pound or if it's neglected long enough - for its own good it may die...

We as First Nations people need to talk Constitutional Recognition up with each other - no matter if we support it or not - it needs to be talked about! We also need to begin talking to our Non-Indigenous families and friends and communities....

Don't wait hoping someone else will do it...The future of your Great Grannies depends on the decisions and actions you take today.

Yurra Yurra
Wendy

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What is success - Leadership Development and Training

A very famous and very successful public figure in business once said, with not a trace of irony, that he had pushed his business to the very top having started with absolutely nothing – apart from the first “half million his father had given him to get his business going in the first place”.

Okay, that’s an amusing story but it does call into question quite how we all define success.

What does success mean to you?

At the Stars Institute's Youth Leadership Development, we wouldn’t presume to tell you what success should mean in your particular circumstances.  That is something that each of us as individuals must define for ourselves.

Even so, there are a few things that we think need to be thought of in this context.

·         Is someone who has a business worth $1,000,000 a success?  It may sound as though that is a no-brainer but what if their business was worth five million dollars a year ago?

·         Would you describe someone who has a team working for them of 50 people as an important and successful leader?  Maybe so but what if that person is loathed and detested by their team? 

·         Is the person who is phenomenally busy and with a reasonable income successful?  What about if that means that they never see their family?

Ultimately, there can be no universal definition of success.

At the Stars Institute, we’d like to see this in terms of the extent to which you as an individual are content and happy that you are utilising your potential to the maximum amount possible.   Leadership development and training in this context transcends ideas of status and income.

What this means is that it is important to define personal success criteria that are meaningful to you.  Surprisingly, not everyone who is a self-made millionaire is happy and content and some, by their own admission, will tell you that they do not consider themselves to be successful.

So, the question at the outset repeats itself - what do you think of as success in your context?

Frankly, we haven’t a clue to that in isolation and we can only help you to think about it further if you join us on one of our development sessions.

We’d love to see you there! 

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Leadership for Indigenous People of Australia

BEING, BELIEVING, BELONGING...BECOMING!
Yarra Yarra...

This is a bit of a long post but I hope you will stay with it until the end it could be the game changer in your life and in your leadership?

My Spirit is so renewed after an empowering and deadly weekend walking on Country, eating my traditional foods, sharing stories and educating my sons Lawson and Archie about our lore. Even in the 21st Century I know there are basic principles and rituals we can practice daily which gives us who we are as First Nations peoples.

Walking my Ancestral Grounds powers me up to continue the work needed to de-colonizing my own mindset. It amazes me how quickly I am able to tap into the sacred knowledge that is encoded within my DNA...

And I got to tell you it is sooooo darn liberating to be able to think free from the constraints of the colonial fog & clutter which has invaded my mind.

Now I want to share with you that STARS Instituted is about to call for applications for 2nd Annual: DADA GANA NATIONAL INDIGENOUS WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP PROGRAM...

One of the many things which makes Dada Gana unique from other Indigenous Leadership programs and courses, is that we get that in order to have SUSTAINABILITY of any kind be it our own long term employment, career aspirations, workplace results, building healthy family's and strong community well-being and economic capacities...IT is dependent on us;

1. Recognizing that we are all continually impacted by inter-generational trauma, and institutional oppression. If trauma is left unresolved it becomes even more complex and wounds our DNA...make no mistake we are physically passing this trauma onto our children even whilst they are in the womb...

Now you might say "yeh I know all that!" BUT do you know how to begin really healing from the past so that it is out of your body, mind and spirit? 
Do you know how to run your own brain, decolonize your thinking, reduce your stress, build your wellbeing, and build up all your SUSTAINABILTY leadership muscles???

YOU are sure going to need them in this new political climate. 

You see nothing is sustainable if the very FOUNDATION of who you are is built on ROCKY grounds. Half the time we don't even know we are on rocky grounds until IT hits the fan...and then we still try and push on and EXHAUST ourselves rotten. Sound familiar!

If you're filled up with unconscious beliefs of "not being good enough," "you cant trust people," "white people are out to get you," "I am a hopeless..." AND the mother of them all "Blackfullas aren't as good as Whitefellas," then these are the toxic energies running your life and impacting your leadership.

Dada Gana is not like any other program or course you will experience on Leadership...as Dr Jackie Huggins said
"There is no other leadership organization in the country like STARS Institute doing this kind of work with our Mob, it's amazing...."

If we want a different result we have to start thinking and doing things differently...the future of our kids depend on the courage we have today to make the decisions which we know in our hearts and spirits need to be made.

So keep a close eye on our Website www.starsleadershipinstitute.com for the Application release dates,.

Please help us connect with Mob from right across the Nation and share this message around your networks, families, and communities.

In Unity and Spirit
Wendy

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Make a Difference to the Aboriginal Community

"Life Can Be Really Confusing Sometimes" OR Can It?

Don't let illusions of confusion get in the way of listening to your inner wisdoms and doing what you know in your heart is true and right!

I stopped listening to my inner wisdoms once and as a result I shut down my heart and my capacity to connect with people...to be honest it literally almost killed me. 

As the acting deputy principal of a big school in Cairns at the time this had huge impact on the staff, the students and my family. Not to mention it crushed my self-esteem and bruised my "Being."

I was so confused and felt stuck...

I learnt that I was responsible for creating my own confusion so that I would not have to be 100% responsible for the direction my life was going in and the reckless decision I was making at the time.

I had to wake up and get real with myself..

If I can be that responsible and powerful for creating a life that sucked, then I can also be responsible and powerful for creating a life that thrived...

Don't use confusion as an excuse for staying stuck. 

Do what you know you are here to do...you were born to make a difference.

Have fun today.
Wendy and Vicki

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STARS - the only leadership organisation who does it right!

Consider that our minds have become entangled within inter-generational colonial belief systems which have us perpetuate variation of the past...

This is happening at the speed of light and off the radar of our consciousness...It does not empower us, rather it keeps or minds and our capacity to lead fully in a dormant state of crisis...

It has enabled Australia to not recognize the impacts of racisms and the Silent National Lie that continues to bubble and shape our National identity...

"Out of the Box Thinking on Indigenous Leadership" takes you on a personal journey on how to begin recognizing where you are blocked up by rubbish from the past, how to begin decolonizing your mind, taking back your spirit and determining your identity and the direction of your life and your leadership ...and much, much more....

STARS Institute is the only leadership organisation in the country doing this level of work...it is needed now ore than ever before!

Go to our website and PRE-ORDER "Out of the Box Thinking on Indigenous Leadership" and take advantage of the discount prices.

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Procrastination - What is it?

Hi Peoples

How often do you Procrastinate? Did you know that it can cause serious illness and stress.

Here is our take on it. eg: Procrastination = Fear most of the time. 

You are scared of what people think of you so you avoid making decisions.

You are scared of failing, scared of succeeding, scared, scared, scared.

Have you noticed that often you make decisions based around making other people happy while you suffer in silence.

Delaying the action to make a decision can make you ill. There are many studies out there that back us up on this. 

Breathe deeply and just do it. You can always make another decision and take a different action.

So take a leaf out of Richard Bransons Book. Weigh up all the pros and cons on a piece of paper, and then take action. In other woords "Screw it ,just do it.!"

Just believe in yourself, seek advice and then take massive action. 

Happy Days
Wendy & Vicki

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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS and FAILURE?

"Life if a game of inches!" Al Pacino

This statement has helped me so much as a leader. You see, leadership is not about hitting a home run and instantly becoming successful. It is a game of Inches...

It is about pulling each small success towards you, finding that right team member, training your team, making hard decisions, putting yourself in the firing line, in the knowledge that every hour, every day, every week, you are incrementally better than the day before. And when you look back over your shoulder, you will say to yourself "WOW, did I really do that?"

Is leadership in the 21st Century easy? 

Lets be honest, at times it can feel like we are in hell. But as leaders we also know that we can climb out of hell and bring ourselves and others back into the light, one inch at a time.

If you do not give up, if you believe in yourself, keep good company, and you keep moving inch, after inch taking small steps towards improvement, your life and your leadership will come "ALIVE"... you will receive the rewards and the results you can only dream about.

When you play the game of life and leadership inch by inch, failure is not an option...

What do you reckon?

See Ya on the playing field...

Wendy and Vicki

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Muckaty Community Leadership is an Example for Us All...

I was enlivened by the news of victory for the Muckaty Community near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Finally after 8 long years of battling with the Australian Government their Ancestral Lands will no longer be consider as the location for a nuclear waste dump. What is going to be the communities next biggest challenge is healing the family & community divisions & trauma that has now become the emotional & social legacy of this battle...it makes me weak that in spite of the empowerment experienced by Muckaty people they are also now left to deal with a now fractured community. I wonder how & if the Australian government is going to support the Muckaty people through this???

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Empowerment

I got a new understanding about self-empowerment that I wanted to share with you. 

When I can say to myself that I am willing to be 100% responsible for my life and the choices and decisions I make then I experience being empowered. I am not waiting on others to do it to me or for me I am my own go to self-empowerment person...

I used to think to myself when my 4 year old and 13 year old sons stop stirring each other up then I'll show calmness and patience...let me tell you that approaching wasn't working too well for me or the boys.

But the moment I choose to BE calm and loving with the boys even when part of me wanted to scream at them "stop fighting" a sense of peace occurred within me and within them...I was still able to say to them "stop fighting" but it was coming from me being centred and calm rather then being from a place of anger and resentment. What I have found is that when I am being this way with them, their battles are fewer and they are now usually able to sort their power struggles out between themselves very quickly.

Choosing to be 100% responsible for how I Be in any given situation is one essence of self-empowerment. And what I love is that when I Be self-empowerment on a stick it gives my boys permission to Be the same.

Many a great leadership lesson has come from allowing my children to grow me up...
Wendy     

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