A long-awaited long weekend brings us to the doorstep of June. We’re taking action to end May with some intentional leadership, respect building, and some self-leadership topics too. Here’s to a short work week, everyone!
:: Image of the Week
In a recent
post by Martine Ellis, he reminds us:
Distractions are everywhere, but action is a choice we can actively make. Here are a few tools and strategies you might use to stay focused:
- Noise management: Loops earplugs, noise-cancelling headphones, or classical/lo-fi music—anything without words helps to tune out the world and tune into the work.
- Pomodoro sprints: 25 minutes of focused work and a short break (on repeat) keeps one productive.
- Reduce interruptions: Phones out of sight, notifications off, and clear boundaries with others about when you need focus time.
- Declutter: A clear desk or digital workspace means fewer reasons to wander off task.
These may seem simple, but they can make a big difference.
What works for you?
:: CSN’s Book of the Week Recommendation
The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life
Reject the default path, define your priorities, and achieve lasting happiness with this transformative guide to your dream life—a life centered around the five types of wealth.
Throughout your life, you’ve been slowly indoctrinated to believe that money is the only type of wealth. In reality, your wealthy life may involve money, but in the end, it will be defined by everything else.
After three years of research, personal experimentation, and thousands of interviews across the globe, Sahil Bloom has created a groundbreaking blueprint to build your life around five types of wealth: Time Wealth, Social Wealth, Mental Wealth, Physical Wealth, and Financial Wealth. A life of true fulfillment engages all five types—working dynamically, in concert across the seasons of your journey.
Through powerful storytelling, science-backed practices, and actionable insights, in The 5 Types of Wealth, you’ll learn:
• How to prioritize energy-creating tasks to unlock more time in your day
• How to create deeper bonds and build a powerful network
• How to engage your purpose to spark continuous growth
• How to maximize health and vitality through three simple principles
• How to achieve financial independence and define your version of “enough”
No matter where you are on your path—a recent graduate, new parent, midlife warrior, retiree, or anything in between—The 5 Types of Wealth will help you act on your priorities to create an instant positive impact in your daily life, make better decisions, and design the life you’ve always dreamed of.
https://a.co/d/hqagHF1
“Success is more permanent when you achieve it without destroying your principles.” – Walter Cronkite
:: Work Culture & Team Development
Beyond Luck: How Intentional Leadership and Recognition Create Thriving Teams
We see high-performing organizations and assume they got lucky with a naturally engaged team, a strong culture, or a leader who just happens to inspire. But thriving workplaces don’t happen by chance. They are built.
Great leadership isn’t about waiting for the right people to appear or hoping motivation stays high. It’s about intentionally creating an environment where people feel seen, valued, and empowered—and one of the most powerful ways to do that is through recognition.
When you walk into a workplace where people are energized, collaboration flows effortlessly, and culture seems unshakable, it’s tempting to believe they just got lucky. Maybe they hired all the right people. Maybe they stumbled upon an incredible formula for success. But behind every strong culture is something deeper: leaders who make people a priority.
These leaders don’t leave engagement, motivation, or retention to luck. They don’t assume a paycheck is enough to make people feel valued. Instead, they take deliberate action to create a workplace where people feel connected to their work, their colleagues, and the mission.
And at the heart of that effort? Recognition. Read more from this article by the People Forward Network, including some podcast episodes reinforcing the topics.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond-luck-how-intentional-leadership-recognition-chzmc/?trackingId=hR%2FQ%2Bl%2FfQIiPkdx59Q0MNg%3D%3D
:: Trust, Psychological Safety & Belonging
Leaders with Heart Ask the Right Questions to Understand the People They Lead
In this episode of the Employee Fanatix podcast, Heather Younger speaks with Peter Melby,
CEO of Greystone Technology, about his leadership style, the reason he likes to lead, and his unique way of ensuring consistent communication and conversation among the team and the manager. You will learn a ton from this one!
Key Takeaways:
- Growth comes from insisting on learning and adapting.
- It’s important to be able to bring mistakes forward to be able to bring great things to the market.
- Leaders need to connect with people to get to the problem they need to solve.
- Human nature is our common thread.
- In order to find out where people really are, leaders must ask the right questions.
- Remember, you don’t have to do it alone. You have a team.
- Setting up consistent, objective practices that produce positive emotions in those you lead.
- Don’t miss the opportunity to have camaraderie in your leadership. It’s easier to do it together.
Note: Heather’s new book The Art of Self-Leadership will be featured later this summer in CSN’s book club series!
https://employeefanatix.com/56-leaders-with-heart-ask-the-right-questions-to-understand-the-people-they-lead/
“The ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust is the key professional and personal competency of our time.” – Stephen M.R. Covey
:: Communication
How to Gain More Respect At Work
Gaining respect at work doesn’t have to feel like climbing Mount Everest in flip-flops! Whether you’re new to the team or trying to turn things around, earning respect starts with how you
show up daily. It’s not about barking orders or wielding your title like a weapon; it’s about caring leadership. When you listen to your colleagues, take their concerns seriously, and show a genuine interest in their success, they’ll start to see you as someone worth following. Spoiler alert: People respect people who respect them first!
Curious about how to bring more of that caring leadership into your day-to-day and finally ditch the workplace drama? In this video from author Heather Younger, she will break down practical, easy-to-implement tips that can help you build trust and respect with your team—without needing to be the loudest voice in the room. You might even find a surprising way to level up your self-leadership style. Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJm8lCXOxoI
“To believe in the things you can see and touch is no belief at all – but to believe in the unseen is a triumph and a blessing.” – Abraham Lincoln
Humor, Seriously
Trying something new requires you to disrupt your current thought patterns and one of the best ways to pattern interrupt while also lowering stress,
is humor. Laughing lowers stress – so much so – that simply the anticipation of laughter,
just thinking about it, decreases cortisol (stress hormone) and epinephrine (our flight hormone) by 39 and 70% respectively.
The guests on this episode of Disrupt Yourself, Dr. Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas, understand the benefits of humor better than most. The two teach “Humor: Serious Business”, at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. a course designed to help the business minded serious folk experience, through humor, more joy in their lives. Jennifer and Naomi have documented their insights and learnings in their latest book,
Humor, Seriously.
They share their scientific based discoveries regarding the reverberating impact of laughter on leadership, teams, health, relationships and overall wellness with host Whitney Johnson. Learn the different humor styles they uncovered through their research – Standup, Sweetheart, Magnet and Sniper – and discover how drawing upon each, can help us
show up better for one another.
https://thedisruptionadvisors.com/jenniferaaker-naomibagdonas/?_hsmi=356203551
:: Kindness in Leadership
The Power of “No”: How to Set Boundaries with Kindness and Confidence
Saying “no” doesn’t make you rude—it makes you real. In this episode of
The Kindness Advantage, Cindy Rowe explores how learning to decline with grace can actually be one of the kindest things you do for yourself and others.
Discover:
• Why “no” is a powerful form of self-kindness
• How to say no without guilt or people-pleasing
• Go-to phrases you can use in everyday situations
If you struggle with setting boundaries or worry that “no” means letting others down, this episode is your reminder that kindness and confidence can coexist.
**The Kindness Advantage with Cindy Rowe** is your go-to podcast for quick, powerful insights on making kindness a game-changer in both work and life. Hosted by speaker and kindness ambassador Cindy Rowe, each 10-minute episode delivers practical tips to boost collaboration, communication, and well-being. Whether you’re a leader, team member, or kindness enthusiast, you’ll walk away inspired and ready to take action. Hit subscribe and start leading with kindness today!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-power-of-no-how-to-set-boundaries/id1664260269?i=1000704335663
:: Self-Leadership Development
Recovering from a Mistake
We’ve all done it–sent that embarrassing email to the wrong person, missed an important deadline, or made a decision that backfired spectacularly. This reading list offers research-backed strategies for bouncing back after workplace mistakes, from owning your errors without over-apologizing to rebuilding damaged relationships. At this link, you’ll find articles and podcasts covering both sides–how to recover when you’ve dropped the ball, and what to do when a colleague’s error affects you. These resources include honest stories of professional missteps and practical tips, from author Amy Gallo. All links inside are to HBR articles she has written in the past around the topic of making and recovering from mistakes.
https://www.amyegallo.com/reading-list/recovering-from-a-mistake
:: Mental Health and Self-Care
Three psychologists on Mel Robbins’ viral Let Them Theory
The Let Them Theory is having a moment on social media. The theory, from motivational speaker and author Mel Robbins, is about letting go of the need to control others and instead focusing on your reactions. “When you ‘Let Them’ do whatever it is that they want to do, it creates more control and emotional peace for you and a better relationship with the people in your life,” writes Robbins.
She’s published a whole book on the subject, but many people are learning about the mindset tool in snippets from TikToks and Instagram reels.
The Let Them Theory is about recognizing the places where you are trying to control others’ behavior to align with “your values, your agenda, or what it is you need from them”. “Once we realize that, we allow ourselves to focus on the things we can control. Check out this article on more details into the Let Them theory.
https://amp.abc.net.au/article/105144954
“Self-reflection encourages great bravery. Rationalization is your greatest enemy.”– Awa Kenzo
:: TED Talks
Great leadership starts with self-leadership | Lars Sudmann | TEDxUCLouvain
At TEDxUtopia, the question was asked: What would leadership in Utopia look like? To start with, imagine the best leader you have ever worked with. How did he or she get to become this type of leader? Leadership lecturer and former corporate executive Lars Sudmann argues that it’s likely that they learned to overcome the “leadership formula of doom” and then developed themselves as a leader. In this funny and invigorating talk Lars walks us through the personal journeys of great leaders, shows lessons from the golden age of leadership and shares 3 strategies on self-leadership to develop yourself into a “Utopia leader”.
Lars is a leadership advisor and award-winning lecturer. He studies and researches what makes the most advanced organizations and leaders successful – and then he shares that knowledge with the world.
What does leadership in Utopia look like? How does leadership work in a future ultra-networked world? And is there one leadership ideal that we can all strive towards, and if yes, what is holding us back from achieving it? In this highly engaging talk, leadership expert Lars will dive into the past, present and future of excellent leadership.
https://youtu.be/vlpKyLklDDY?si=1yZKluY3GogcXRrf
:: Upcoming Events
Manage Myself – the habits that help you calibrate
To effectively manage others, we first need to manage ourselves. Typically, managing others involves a big jump in the volume of information to process, the complexity of problems to solve, the intensity of emotions to manage, and an ongoing need to motivate yourself.
Without the right strategies in place, it’s easy to fall into overwhelm, have difficulty solving problems, and lose your drive.
Join Mary Slaughter with the Neuro Leadership Institute for a conversation on the foundations of managing your own cognitive capacity and brain-based techniques for managing your emotions more effectively. With these tools, you stay in the optimal zone for peak decision-making amidst uncertainty.
“Manage Myself – The Habits That Help You Calibrate”, is the first webinar in a three-part series of leadership-focused events where you’ll leave with the understanding of how to:
- Increase your ability to perform at your best
- Enhance your team’s performance
- Drive results by strengthening accountability
Date: Thursday, May 29, 2025
Time: 9:00 – 10:00 am
Location: online
https://neuroleadership.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_M6C6HgT1QHWAyi7J91bxqg?_hsmi=362817063#/registration
Leading the Band (Scholar for Life)
Join us on June 5, 2025 at 6:00 PM at the Middleton Public Library. Registration is appreciated (not required) and is done online via the library’s event calendar at
midlibrary.org/events. This talk is a part of the library’s Ongoing ‘Scholar for Life’ lecture series, and is open to the public.
Dr. Corey Pompey talks about his experiences leading the famed UW-Marching Band, as well as what it is like to succeed the legendary Mike Leckrone. Dr. Pompey gives an inside look into the beloved organization that has been sharing music with the people of Wisconsin since 1885.
Corey Pompey serves as the Michael E. Leckrone Director of Athletic Bands and Associate Director of Bands at the University of Wisconsin Madison. His responsibilities include leading UW Marching Band, conducting the Concert Band and teaching classes in the Mead Witter School of Music.
Date: Thursday, June 5, 2025
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: Middleton Library Archer Room (Downstairs)
https://www.midlibrary.org/EventDetail?ID=24634
Save The Date! CSN 10 Year
Date: August 4, 2025
Time: 2:00 – 3:30 pm
Location: DeLuca Forum — Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery
***
Campus Supervisors Network is celebrating Ten Years of Leadership Learning this summer, with several events to focus on
You-W. We culminate with a great session on August 4
th, featuring a live visit with international speaker
Rachel Druckenmiller, a message from author and TEDx speaker
Heather Younger (featured in this summer’s book club The Art of Self-Leadership), some fun activities, and a look back at some of the successes CSN has experienced since starting out in 2015. We’ll also have light refreshments and snacks.
SO mark your calendars for Monday, August 4
th from 2:00-3:30 pm, with an after-session gathering too. More details to follow;
stay tuned!