Courses for Leaders
Extraordinary vs Extravagant
Become a More Extraordinary Leader
academy
We all know individuals who seem to flaunt their extravagant lifestyles either in person or on social media. Those who embrace lavishness and overabundance may do so at the expense of truly becoming extraordinary. When that happens in a leader, it can drive a wedge between them and those they lead, getting in the way of an extraordinary team experience.
Through this course, you’ll be able to identify opportunities to personally be more “extraordinary” as a leader; communicate the framework of an “extraordinary” culture to team members; and create a team-based plan to build measurable, yet simple, “extraordinary” features into the team experience.
Lesson 1
INTRODUCTION
Learning Objectives
A leader’s goal is to embrace the extraordinary while shunning the extravagant. Extravagance is the celebration of an individual’s own hubris and creates resentment and dissatisfaction in others.
Being extraordinary is a framework built from a leader’s humility and extends to the entire team, creating a culture of engagement, satisfaction, and productivity.
Lesson 2
A Little Extra is All That's Needed
Just a Little Extra
Leaders may try to “win over” their employees by doing something extravagant. An alternative approach is to do something ordinary, but add something “extra,” making it extraordinary.
Effective leaders consciously seek opportunities for interaction with their teams. The “extra” may not happen every time, but the extraordinary isn’t going to happen unless the ordinary is a common occurrence.
reflection activity
A Little Extra is All That's Needed
How well do you take advantage of ordinary moments with your team and make them extraordinary? Would you say that you interact with your team frequently? That your team is well connected? On the other hand, do you overcompensate for gaps by going extravagant rather than going extra-ordinary?
Consider these questions in the activity below.
Activity: A Little Extra is All That's Needed
Lesson 3
The Age of Deprivation and Extravagance
The Age of Deprivation and Extravagance Part 1
The pursuit of extravagance can cause us to lose sight of important things, like managing resources, doing simple things to improve relationships, and setting attainable objectives.
Extraordinary leaders don’t let their vision become clouded by deprivation. Instead, they keep their focus on the goal while taking the daily, ordinary steps to get there.
reflection activity
Deprivation and Extravagance
As a leader, does deprivation cloud your view of what you and your team can achieve or do you focus on the resources and relationships you have? Do you take the skills and insights gained during periods of deprivation and use them when resources become more available?
Explore these questions in the activity below.
Activity: Deprivation and Extravagance
The Age of Deprivation and Extravagance Part 2
Extraordinary leaders have purpose and vision behind the goals they pursue. They reach these goals through ordinary efforts tied to that purpose and vision.
reflection activity
Extravagant Goals
Do you have a purpose behind the things you do as a leader? Where are you aiming and why? Extravagant leaders pursue goals that are ends unto themselves, wealth for wealth’s sake, notoriety for notoriety’s sake, or an important title in the company for the sake of having that title.
Explore your purpose as a leader in the activity below.
Activity: Extravagant Goals
The Age of Deprivation and Extravagance Part 3
Leaders and organizations experience both deprivation and extravagance. Sometimes it feels like a pendulum swinging back and forth between the two. Extraordinary leaders know how to rein it in, reduce the back and forth pendulum swing, and steady themselves and their teams—and they do it consistently.
reflection activity
Leading Amidst Changing Resources
Think about work and the teams you lead as if you were in the Roaring Twenties or the Great Depression. Deprivation and extravagance are constantly butting up against each other, but how do you prepare to deal with the shift when resources change?
Consider how to deal with those constraints in the activity below.
Activity: Leading Amidst Changing Resources
Lesson 4
Getting to Extraordinary
From Ordinary to Extraordinary
Every leader has the potential to engage and inspire their team, and every employee has the potential to achieve extraordinary outcomes. Most of us overestimate the extraordinariness of those who do. Sometimes it’s the most ordinary among us who see the greatest results.
reflection activity
Getting to Extraordinary
Take a moment and consider yourself and your team in the activity below. Have you fallen into the trap of underestimating your potential because of a sense of inhabiting the “ordinary” middle?
Activity: Getting to Extraordinary
Lesson 5
A Framework for Extraordinary Team Culture
Intrinsically Motivated
What motivates your team? What motivates you? Often, the focus is on accumulating: money, stuff, followers on social media. The things we pursue are often helpful things, but too much can often create stress.
A good gauge of what is “enough” is whether the things you are pursuing hold intrinsic or extrinsic value. Extrinsic motivators are useful and necessary, but in the long term, intrinsic motivators win out.
reflection activity
Are You More Intrinsically Motivated?
Extraordinary leaders know how to use both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to help themselves and their teams put their best efforts into things that are fulfilling and productive.
Consider how you motivate as a leader in the activity below.
Activity: Are You More Intrinsically Motivated?
Kindness
Extraordinary leaders understand that kindness plays an important role in the workplace. Kindness generates all sorts of benefits. How can you make kindness an ordinary part of your team’s culture?
reflection activity
How Do You View Kindness?
Whether you are working toward building energy, creating higher esteem between coworkers or reduced stress, kindness in the workplace can make an impact.
Explore kindness in your workplace in the activity below.
Activity: How Do You View Kindness?
Rein in Perfectionism
Extraordinary leaders seek significant results without being held hostage by perfection. They believe in improvement and see failure as an opportunity to learn.
reflection activity
How Perfectionistic Are You?
Are you a perfectionist? Does it hold you back? Remember that sustained effort and regular results are almost always more valuable than one–time “perfect” outcomes.
Explore your perfectionistic tendencies in the activity below.
Activity: How Perfectionistic Are You?
Connected
We all need to feel connected in order to thrive. Extraordinary leaders work purposefully to foster connections. Those important connections could be to relationships or even to resources.
reflection activity
Make and Maintain Connections
Making and maintaining strong connections with other people can lead to better health and productivity and open doors of opportunity.
In the activity below, consider how you have built connections in your team.
Activity: Make and Maintain Connections
Be Happy
Extraordinary leaders recognize the temptation we all face to compare ourselves with others and foster a culture to discourage unhealthy comparisons.
Extraordinary people make a choice to let themselves be happy with their own expertise and achievements, regardless of what others around them are doing.
reflection activity
Be Happy
Extraordinary leaders make active and ongoing efforts to build joy and engagement in their teams through individual recognition and acknowledgment of personal achievement.
In the activity below, explore your ability to build joy.
Activity: Be Happy
Lesson 6
Extraordinary Under Pressure
Doing the Extraordinary
Despite the chaos around them, extraordinary people can identify a need and respond quickly. How can you respond to the needs of your team members and help them reach beyond the barriers that hold them back?
reflection activity
Doing the Extraordinary
We can all be called upon to do extraordinary things, but that usually means we will have to leave our comfort zone and act despite outside pressure. When we leave our comfort zone, our intrinsic motivation is tested but extraordinary outcomes can result.
Explore how well you leave your comfort zone in the activity below.
Activity: Doing the Extraordinary
Lesson 7
Conclusion
Finding the Right Balance
Effective leaders find the right balance between extraordinary and extravagant. Being an extraordinary leader will boost your team’s engagement and lead to long-term results.
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