Alloy Solutions Leadership Blog

Our last installment in The Leadership Lab explored what was once meant to be white noise for labrador retrievers and how it can also be a great classroom for exploring leadership concepts – none other than professional golf on television.    

Last time, the lessons came from a golf glove. Confidence. Trust. Dominate. And how a 21-year-old Jackson Koivun used his mindset – his self-described superpower – to hold off the world’s #1 golfer and win the 3M Open in only his third professional tour event.  As John Maxwell asks, “Who’s the most important person you talk to all day?”  Koivun’s win loudly proclaimed the correct answer:  You, yes YOU, are the most important person you talk to all day.  How we think about, treat, and talk to ourselves absolutely matters. 

In this installment, our classroom stays on the course, but the focus shifts from the conversation between our ears to the one beside our shoulder.  Our last lesson came from a golf glove.  This one comes from a caddie.  Our l...

Our newest family member is unknowingly teaching us valuable lessons about leadership. Meet four-month-old Dottie – precocious younger sister to the wiser, calmer eight-year-old Denver.  We’re in the full-on teething phase where those razor-sharp teeth find themselves embedded in any and every available surface, including human arms, hands and feet.  Blood has been drawn and redirection and training is happening at every one of these painful learning opportunities.  Thankfully, we know this is just a phase and with proper attention and training she’ll be using that “soft mouth” and gentle spirit that Denver and other labradors are known for. I’m encouraged in these painful moments by watching Denver gently receive toys, treats, and any and all attention from his humans, including our toddler grandchildren.  In his presence, our fingers and toes are safe and none the worse for wear.   The remarkable thing that helps us in training Dottie isn’t that Denver has teeth. It's that Denver kno...

I own a 1976 Volkswagen Super Beetle Convertible, one of the limited-edition Triple White models. Whenever I drive it, people smile, wave, point, and occasionally stop me with questions when it’s parked.  Driving that car requires a different mindset – that of noticing and being open to the curiosity and joy expressed by others around me upon seeing it.   

Over time, I’ve learned something important: driving the Beetle isn’t just about enjoying the car. It’s about being present for the people who enjoy seeing it.  

That realization led me to several leadership lessons. 

1. Notice the People Who Notice You 

Leadership begins with awareness. It’s easy to become focused on where we’re going and miss the people around us. Great leaders pay attention to those who are paying attention to them.  As John C. Maxwell says, “Great leaders walk slowly through the crowd.”  Indeed.  But how often am I not only not walking slowly, but I’m not aware of the faces in the crowd.  Or that there’s even...

May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

Next year will be a special anniversary for me – 30 years since receiving my counseling degree. And having had a foot in the organizational space throughout that time in such roles as employee assistance professional and leadership consultant, the relationship between work and mental health is one of significance for me. One undeniably impacts the other.

Consequently, our understanding and belief about mental health can be a powerful thing, and I believe the actual term, “mental health,” comes up a bit short. What if we thought about our mental health differently – as something in which we can invest and grow, rather than just something we protect and hope for the best? Let’s talk about Mental Wealth.

Mental wealth is more than just the absence of mental illness. It is an individualized picture of emotional resilience, healthy relationships, and a sense of purpose, peace, and psychological strength. Mental health awareness and care is part of, b...

Got Denial about Denial? by Jamie Hansen

Most of us have likely entertained the wish that a problem or issue at home or work would go away if we just quietly avoided it long enough. It is true that avoidance can be a helpful
approach to dealing with conflict in the interest of gathering more information, allowing other parties to learn from an experience, or just giving the concern enough time to work itself out. This effective approach does come with a few important caveats. One, we may need to let other involved parties know why we’re not addressing the situation immediately, perhaps for one of the reasons above. And two, maintaining a mindset of avoiding for now, as opposed to avoiding forever is crucial in case the situation isn’t moving toward resolution. If we find ourselves in the avoiding forever lane with a particular issue, or if avoiding isn’t a proper response for the situation in the first place, that’s not effective conflict management, but rather its seductive and more d...

A Shift in Thinking: Focusing on Mental Fitness, by Jamie Hansen

Spring is here, and May is upon us! I’ve believed for a long time that this month gives December a run for its money in terms of manic demands and hectic family schedules. Thankfully, the days are growing longer, the air warmer, and the grass and trees greener, while the entries on the calendar are experiencing their own kind of exponential growth.

You may be aware that May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and bonus points if you’re also aware that it’s Global Employee Health and Fitness Month. These two topics are near and dear to my heart and their intersection has been on my mind of late. 

To delve a little deeper, Mental Health Awareness Month has been recognized for over 20 years by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) to provide education and reduce stigmas around mental illness and to highlight the effectiveness of treatment and celebrate recovery from mental illness. This is a...

Loving the Toughest to Lead by Jamie Hansen

Effective leadership arguably involves a certain amount of love. Not of the romantic variety so much, but certainly the type that involves showing respect, affirmation, and positive regard for others. Like the love of a coach for her players or the dedication of a staff sergeant to his squad. As Joel Manby, author of Love Works so aptly stated, "Treating someone with love regardless of how you feel about that person is a very powerful principle. It can make us great spouses, great parents, and great friends. Great leaders too." 

To his point, the more we separate our temporary feelings for someone (the noun version of love) from our decision to treat them with value and respect (the verb version of love), the more effective we can be in any of our relationships and roles, leadership included. And to be fair, many of us have experienced a relationship or two that has required an extra dose of intentionality for us to lean into the verb side ...

What If?? by Jamie Hansen

One of the things I find most magical about movies is that every once in a while, one comes along with a concept that stretches our thinking and makes us ask, "What If?" Whether it's a drama, romance, comedy, or action film -- the genre doesn't really matter to me -- I find myself captivated with the ability of these movies to help us see things that we didn't notice before, or envision things that haven't yet come to be. From a psychological perspective, I'm a true believer in, "once you see something, you can't un-see it." As for horror movies, they may have us seeing things we don't ever want to see or experience, so let's count that category out for the sake of discussion. Rather, it's those movies that take us on a two- to three-hour journey and leave us asking questions we've never asked before, or envisioning things we've never seen before, that I find particularly compelling.

​One movie that comes to mind (especially this month) with this captivating...

Peace on Earth. As 2021 draws to a close, I think of these three words as so much more than a phrase scripted across a beautiful holiday card. With all that's going on in the world, it's a more thought-provoking phrase for many than it was even a few years ago. Peace is certainly something our world could use much more of, and maybe even our own corners of the world. Many people are saying 2021 presented surprisingly more challenges than 2020. Here at Alloy, requests for support on the topics of resilience, healthy management of conflict, leading through change, and understanding the mental health impacts of a crisis were at an all-time high, and it doesn't appear that will be abating soon. Here we offer three year-end exercises to glean everything you need from 2021 to look forward to a more peaceful 2022 -- at least in your corner of the world:

Make Peace with Your Past Year. I have long loved to use the photos on my phone at the end of the year to make calendars, notecards, or othe...

Happy Fall, Y'all! How has yours been so far? For that matter, how was your summer? When I look back on mine, and when I inquire of friends and colleagues about theirs, the word that routinely comes up is, "Crazy." Unpredictable. Protracted. Exhausting. Demanding. Confusing. Irrational. Tentative. Mad. Unbalanced. Erratic. Just a few synonyms for this frequently used word. As I heard one commentator say recently, "Wow, this two weeks of shut down sure has felt like an eternity." Tounge in cheek, of course, but can't we all relate?

So how do you stay positive, energized, find the good, and lead well when it feels like you don't know what's coming next? Or where it's coming from? John Maxwell has a great teaching on how to maximize a positive situation. A meeting with a mentor, an opportunity, a new venture, or any situation that you want to make the most of. And in his simple but profound style, he exhorts us to 1) Prepare thoroughly before the event, and 2) Reflect deeply afterward. T...