Boundaries, love, and leadership... What I learned this year

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THE ART & SCIENCE OF LEADING SELF
The Power of Birthday Reflections

My friend, this week I'm celebrating another trip around the sun. As milestones often do, this birthday has invited deep reflection on the journey of the past year.

While too much has unfolded to share in one email, 3 lessons have been central to my growth. Each offers powerful insights for your leadership journey too.

Lesson 1: Boundaries are a Form of Respect 🛡️

Effective self-leadership cannot exist without self-respect. This past year deepened my understanding that boundaries aren't selfish barriers. They're expressions of profound respect, both for yourself and others.

When you set clear boundaries around your time, energy, and priorities, you communicate what you value. You demonstrate respect for your own capacity and needs while honoring others with clarity and consistency.

In practice, I've observed extraordinary leaders embody this principle by:

• Communicating clearly when they won't be available, without apology or justification (anecdotally, women executives offer apologies and justifications more than men)

• Declining meeting invitations that don't align with their priorities, offering alternative solutions when appropriate

• Setting explicit expectations about response times for different communication channels

Each boundary becomes a statement: "I respect myself enough to protect what matters, and I respect you enough to be honest about it."

When I find myself teetering on boundaries, I draw on the evergreen wisdom of Shonda Rhimes who wisely said, “No is a complete sentence.” I just say no. I don’t offer an explanation or a justification. If the urge to explain is strong, I repeat “No is a complete sentence” in my head until it passes.

Lesson 2: Genuine Connection > Transactional Relationships 🤝

Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy sounded the alarm years ago on America's epidemic of loneliness. Then, the pandemic pushed much of our interaction into virtual spaces, leaving many feeling more disconnected than ever.

This past year taught me the danger of allowing capitalist models to seep into how I approach relationships. When every connection becomes a transaction, focused only on what this person can do for you, you rob yourself of the deeper nourishment that genuine connection provides.

Knowing this, I've committed myself to actively building the world I want to live in. In practice, this looks like:

• Organizing and hosting events in my community that create space for meaningful conversation and deeper connections

• Engaging in the slow, deliberate labor of building IRL relationships founded on mutual investment, reciprocity, care, and trust

• Valuing depth over breadth in my connections

As a leader (because everyone is), I want to cultivate genuine connections in my community that foster trust, resilience, and innovation. So, I’ve been busy rolling up my sleeves. I hope you are too.

Lesson 3: Love is the Most Powerful, Indestructible Source 💙

The more you cultivate your contemplative practices, the more you increase your capacity to connect to the indomitable source that is love. This isn't abstract sentimentality, it's practical leadership wisdom.

You cannot extend to others what you cannot practice with yourself. Strengthening your capacity for self-love strengthens your ability to practice love as an ethic of care when leading others.

What does this look like in executive leadership? Earlier in my career, I benefited from a leader who embodied love by consistently investing in team members' growth and providing honest feedback (while offering unwavering support). The environment he created fostered psychological safety that was pivotal for productive collaboration on several key initiatives. Leaders who lead with love as an ethic of care don't just drive results. They nurture the human beings behind those results.

When you approach leadership from this foundation, you access a wellspring of resilience that mere strategy cannot provide.

Boundaries, genuine connections, and love: this last year was filled with growth and development. Thank you for allowing me to share my reflections with you. The writing process for this was incredibly enriching. I hope it offers you some value.

And, in the spirit of flipping the script a bit on how we tend to approach birthdays, I want to offer you a gift. Rather than sharing a developmental practice, I want to share something else. 👇🏽

DEEPENING YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Birthday Bookshelf

I'd like to share 15 books that have profoundly shaped my thinking. I hope you find something that piques your interest and expands your thinking.

🔄 The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest: 365 daily meditations designed to help you embrace change, build emotional clarity, and align your life with your deeper purpose.

🧘‍♀️ Real Happiness by Sharon Salzberg: Practical wisdom for developing a sustainable meditation practice.

❤️ All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks: Revolutionary insights on love as a practice and ethic of care.

🧩 Mind Map Mastery by Tony Buzan: Powerful techniques for visual thinking and problem-solving.

👑 CEO Excellence by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller & Vikram Malhotra: Research-backed mindsets that separate extraordinary leaders.

🤝 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni: Timeless wisdom on building truly cohesive leadership teams.

🤔 The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J. Sandel: A challenging examination of how merit-based thinking shapes our society.

💰 Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth: 7 key ways to fundamentally reframe our understanding of what economics is and does.

💡The Value of Everything: Making & Taking in the Global Economy by Mariana Mazzucato: A call to rethink capitalism, the role of public policy and the importance of the public sector, and redefine how we measure value in our society.

🎯 The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey: Insights on mental performance that translate perfectly to leadership.

🛡️ The Character Edge by Robert L. Caslen & Michael D. Matthews: How character-based leadership transforms results.

⭐️ Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro: a quiet exploration of what it means to live with integrity (and what you risk leaving behind when you silence your own longings in the name of service and tradition). [I first read this book when I was 17 years old and still ponder its lessons.]

🧠 The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander: A transformative approach to leadership through possibility-centered thinking.

💭 Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl: A powerful reflection on how purpose and meaning—not comfort—are what enable you to endure life’s greatest suffering.

🥇 A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger: An insightful look at the secret catalyst for breakthrough thinking.

EXCELLENCE UNBOUNDED
How I Can Help You

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Book a call to learn more about The Executive Alignment Playbook 🚀, an immersive, experiential leadership program.

Realign your leadership team. Accelerate execution. Drive measurable results.

🎤 Speaking Engagements: My mom can attest to the fact that I LOVE to talk. 😂 Now, I put that talent to work delivering talks on Mindset, Courage, Resilience, & Innovation.

A few past clients include KraftHeinz, Amazon Women @ Payments, PAHEi, & the Panamá Chapter of the International Coaching Federation (I delivered this talk in Spanish).

If you are interested in having me speak at your event, please fill out this form.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD 📢

Until next Sunday,

Shawnette