Post-Traumatic Growth: Increasing Use of Self with Lisa J. Koss

Are you finding it hard to navigate your way into a man-dominated business world? Do you want to know how you can use your own authentic self to rise to the top? Do you want to know how you can grow and increase your use of self through the power of groundedness and reflection? Are you ready to find your authenticity and bring it into your workplace to inspire and grow as a better woman leader? 

Fears, problems, and traumas never make us, but the lessons and growth it holds do. What makes you authentic, different? How can you take your opportunities to grow, inspire, and lead others by what you believe in? Your surroundings, your past, or the people around you cannot define who you truly are. Your internal being, choices, beliefs, and history builds up to make you authentic, and beautifully different from others. With this, you are able to grow and increase your use of self. You are able to lead, inspire, and motivate others. So, are you ready to dive deeper into your inner self and grow in order to be a more authentic, present, and grounded woman leader? 

Lisa J. Koss is the co-founder and a partner at Ontos Global. She has 25 years of experience in global leadership, team development, talent management, executive coaching, and design and organizational change initiatives. Her proprietary coaching model has been taught in 9 different languages across the globe. Her clients include Kaiser Permanente, ITT, Xylem, British Petroleum, Honeywell, Hewlett Packard, General Electric, Ernst & Young, and many more. Her new book is Leading for Learning: How Managers Can Get Business Results through Developmental Coaching and Inspire Deep Employee Commitment. 

In this episode, Lisa talks about the use of self and how we can use it to understand and maximize ourselves more in our workplace. She shares tips on how to find our own authenticity and increase our use of self through reflection and growth from our past traumas and problems. 

 

What you will learn from this episode:

Discover the mistakes women leaders make in finding their authenticity  Learn more about the power of self and how it is a key to internal growth  Find out why groundedness and authenticity is needed by female leaders in the workplace 

 

“Use of self is an intentional decision about moment to moment, how do you want to use yourself at the moment to have the impact that you'd like to have? And so, it comes from an authentic place. And it is about your presence.” 

- Lisa J. Koss 

 

Valuable Free Resource: 

How you can be more authentic and grounded as a woman leader in your workplace: Have a chat with Lisa through her LinkedIn or Website 

 

Topics Covered: 

01:39 - Challenge is identifying what your use of self is and understanding and increasing your authentic presence in the workplace 

10:35 - Not working on other skills or being limited to certain strategies only: one of the common mistakes business women leaders make when working on themselves 

12:33 - One free and actionable tip you can do to understand your use of self more: One thing that comes to mind is this concept of hanging out with yourself in a reflective mode. For me, it's first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee. But that is on how you feel, what you've accomplished, what's working for you, and battling those societal expectations that there's always more to do, that you're never done, that it's never good enough.  

14:49 - One valuable resource to help you be more authentic and grounded as a woman leader in your workplace: Have a chat with Lisa through her LinkedIn or Website 

15:57 - Q: What is the relationship between resilience and presence, and this groundedness I've been talking about, authenticity? A: I don't believe that resilience, or grit, as it sometimes called, or all of the names that are coming up around this area of trauma and post-traumatic, PTSD, whatever- however you relate to this topic, I don't think this is something we need to manufacture, that we need to like, go take a class in resilience. I think that when we feel traumatized, we, as humans, tend to have all kinds of emotional reactions. And in some cases, we tend to disconnect from our previously held goals.  

 

Key Takeaways: 

“Use of self is an intentional decision about moment to moment, how do you want to use yourself at the moment to have the impact that you'd like to have? And so, it comes from an authentic place. And it is about your presence.” - Lisa J. Koss 

“Presence is one of the most beautiful concepts that exists and correlates with where I think the world is moving right now. And so, your use of self is kind of how well do you use your range of abilities and your range of presence in order to have an intended impact.” - Lisa J. Koss 

“When you present yourself in a grounded way, and in a confident way, because of the interior work that you've done, it is so compelling, and it is the one thing that we can work on as leaders that really makes a difference in every single context in every single moment.”  

- Lisa J. Koss 

“It's just being aware and deliberate about what we are doing, and understanding that there is a boundary between me and the rest of the world and managing that boundary, but doing it intentionally.” - Lisa J. Koss 

“Capacity building is about doing more in every moment so that you accelerate trust-building, you know how to accelerate trust-building that is by being present.” - Lisa J. Koss 

“It's really just taking time out to become connected with yourself so that as you move into the day, and have your zoom calls, and your call after call and your business topics, you always stay grounded in who you are and what you believe in. And without those times where we slow ourselves down and get connected to ourselves, it's very difficult to develop your use of self.” - Lisa J. Koss 

“When we feel traumatized, we, as humans, tend to have all kinds of emotional reactions. And in some cases, we tend to disconnect from our previously held goals. We actually tend to start questioning our values, what we care about, what's important, maybe even where we work, how we're spending our time.” - Lisa J. Koss 

“I'm making what's possible bigger for everyone, as I demonstrate who I am through my use of self.” - Lisa J. Koss 

 

Ways to Connect with Lisa J. Koss: 

Website: https://ontosglobal.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisakoss/ 

 

Ways to Connect with Sarah E. Brown:  

Website: https://www.sarahebrown.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/knowguides?lang=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahebrownphd/