This article is reposted from Te Mahau – click here to read the original.

When Greg Sharland took the reins as acting principal, he set out to explore the question: What are the key requirements for being responsive to the needs of students and staff at that particular period of time? His thoughts were: ‘if I can get staff into a really good place and get them functioning well, everything is going to flow from that’.  Rather than just focusing on the desired staff behaviours, Greg and the Senior Leadership Team decided to concentrate on supporting the emotions that drive good behaviours.  “If you get the emotions right and you get the emotional culture right, then the behaviour will flow from that,” says Greg.

The team examined the work of Jeremy Dean who promotes emotional leadership that has an awareness of the importance of emotions and the need to understand people and where they are emotionally. They applied Jeremy Dean’s...

This article was written by Claire Marriott and originally posted on LinkedIn here.

As we continue to try and navigate these unprecedented times, we can firmly hold onto strategies such as the setting of smart goals. This gives the organisation, its respective individuals, and teams something concrete to work towards and help them steer through. When it comes to goal setting though how might we do this better? we talk about SMART and motivating goals yet how often do we really connect in with our emotions and how we feel about our goals.  

Setting the right goals may seem like an easy thing to do, but in practice while it’s a goal and it follows all of the SMART measures, an emphasis on targets and challenges that people need to work towards, we can often find is there is no energy towards actually achieving these. For goals to help us learn and grow we have to be motivated by them.  When it comes to motivation our emotions act as the guide, they...

There is no one way to exercise leadership.

But emotion is critical.

Because emotion helps you understand who you are working with. It also helps you build relationships with your people based on who they are – not who you are.

Emotional leadership involves:

Awareness of the importance of emotions - yours and others - and their impact on individuals and the team as a whole. Then using that emotional awareness and understanding to shape the culture of the team positively

Understanding your people, where they are emotionally and being able to help them manage their unpleasant feelings and express pleasant feelings

Sharing your vulnerability and leading by permitting people to bring their whole selves to work

Creating an environment where people's feelings matter and it's safe to express themselves fully.
You - the leaders - set the tone.

You must bring your whole self to work. Separating yourself from leadership is not an option. Separating yourself from your emotions is not an...

It was invigorating and #inspiring being part of the world’s first #ElephantRider Chapter Meetup last night.

The Auckland event was the first ever Chapter Meetup to be run independently from riders&elephants and without Jeremy Dean's direct involvement (but with his endorsement and support ). It was a real privilege to co-host with the fabulous Jo van der Walle, and a massive shout out to Jakub Jurkiewicz for crafting such powerful World Cafe conversation starters .

Thank you to everyone for generously sharing their stories, tools, tips and suggestions .

I’m looking forward to our next event, and encourage Elephant Riders in other locations around the globe to #connect with your ECD #community and facilitate your own  #emotionalculturedeck Chapter Meetup!

– Erika Barden

Click here to join an Elephant Rider Chapter Meetup near you >

Once a month our team get together for breakfast and share the most inspiring and impactful stories from within our ECD community.

This ritual helps us look at the big picture. Get out of the weeds. It gives us perspective and grounds us. Here are some of the latest Bright Spots from around our ECD Community.

We feel extremely humbled, grateful and inspired that people are so generous in sharing their ECD stories with us.

The impact of The #emotionalculturedeck continues to blow my mind. It is so much more than a deck of cards. The stories we hear and see fill me with hope and optimism that we are doing good work. That we are on the right track. Helping people in ways I never imagined. #ridersandelephants

Learn from Tim Corbett, CEO Sir John Kirwan Foundation about how he's used The ECD (and Customer Experience Deck and Wellbeing Decks) as part of their journey to uncover what makes their organisation and people thrive, from the ‘inside, out’ and then used that to shape the wairua and ‘glue’ of their team.

"Yesterday [I] caught up with our Lead Coach who has taken the feedback and insights generated during the ECD work and implemented it in how she communicates and connects with her team. She’s noticing a huge difference for her and the coaches – that’s awesome."

Here's what else Tim had to say about using The Emotional Culture Deck:

"The decks from R&E are gems. We used them to uncover what makes us thrive, from the ‘inside, out’ and then used that to shape the wairua and ‘glue’ of our team. The ECD was a great process to peel back the layers and then rebuild what works for us, adding on the Wellness Deck then...

This episode of the ECD Conversation Series with Steve & Lotty is all about fear. The fears and worries we have when using The ECD and facilitating ECD workshops. 

Lotty and Steve discuss the things they feel fearful about when introducing and using the ECD in workshops and how can we manage these fears and regulate our responses to them.

They acknowledged that fears are normal, natural, powerful and a basic human emotion. Fear alerts us to the presence of danger or the threat of harm, whether that danger is physical or psychological and whilst fear can stem from real threats, it can also originate from imagined dangers that never come to pass.

The fears that might arise from using the ECD are highly unlikely to come to pass and knowing that is important so we can acknowledge our fears, walk alongside them for a while, and learn what they have to teach us, whilst at the same time ensuring they do not paralyse us and lead us astray.

Questions we explore in...

Check out the highlights of our first ever #ecd F-Word Conversation featuring James Roberts, Chief Digital Officer, at Wellington City Council.

In these F-Word Conversations with Lotty Roberts, we will explore the topic of emotions at work, the role they play in culture and how we can help people express themselves fully at work.

Our first episode is with James Roberts. This was an amazing conversation where we learned about how he's used The ECD to set the culture of a new team as they've navigated the delivery of a digital transformation programme. 

"It's incredibly effective and powerful in the change it can influence and it's so easy to use and so accessible and because of that kind of a little bit of gamification around the card deck"

A huge congratulations to Denise Hartley-Wilkins CFHRNZ, ICF ACC, MCIPD for completing the ECD Pro Elephant Rider Programme and officially becoming our latest ECD Certified Consultant!

It was such a pleasure to work with Denise over the last four months. he's an absolute inspiration to us all.

Denise designed two brand new ways to use The ECD! She's designed an ECD Exploring Change Workshop to help teams navigate change. Plus she designed a way to approach relationship conflict using The ECD which helps brings two people in conflict together to learn from each other and map a way forwards.

We're blown away by Deinsie creativity and courage to tackle discomfort and the unknown with our game.

We asked Denise what would you say to someone who was considering applying to become a Pro Elephant Rider. She said...

"Do it. Talk to a Pro Elephant Rider to understand what is involved. Be clear around your 'why' of why you want to do the programme. This is not a tick box exercise. There is...