Leadership Lessons

September 15th is the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month. It’s a celebration of the achievements and contributions of the Hispanic community, and an opportunity to highlight the leaders who are lifting up those in the community. Listen to our conversation with Arizona leaders to learn more.

Researchers have documented nearly 200 different cognitive biases – decision-making shortcuts our brains employ to save much-needed energy. But, those energy-savings often come at a cost. Cognitive biases can lead us to make bad decisions.

Reflection is a critical tool for our growth – and something we ask those leading our Impact Maker work to do every time we meet. In particular, we ask them to reflect on when they’ve seen real-life examples of our Principles of Doing in action – and we wanted to share one of them with you. Acting with integrity is the first step in acting with those principles.

Wanting to tackle a challenging issue but not knowing where to start is understandably intimidating but top of mind for many Arizonans after the last year. We’re all capable of driving the impact we want to see in ourselves and our communities. With a commitment to exploration, goalsetting and collaboration, you can set yourself up to make a difference.

Valley Leadership Board Vice President Koran Hardimon has led the creation of VL’s Impact Maker Racial Justice Team, and he is the director of inclusion and diversity for Republic Services. He sat down with VL’s Leadership Development Manager Michelli Castaneda to discuss the idea of belonging, how he works to improve diversity, equity and inclusion at work and in the community, and how others can do the same.

As VL has launched new leadership development programming, our team has focused on shining a light on the interconnectivity of our greatest challenges – and understanding when and where we may not all be thriving – as a means for our leaders to explore how they can be more collaborative on and effective at tackling those challenges.

Stories help us make sense of the world. Having a good handle on your story – particularly how your journey has led you to connect to the issues or people you’re passionate about – is important. And, there are other behaviors you can practice that can help build perspective and connection that ultimately bring people together to make a difference.

January compels us to make commitments. And, as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about leadership development, I’m coming to realize that commitment is truly the core of adaptive leadership. Commitment is the through line that connects the pillars of adaptive leadership and transforms them into a roadmap that all of us can follow.