Course 2: Becoming a 7 Cups Leader - (Discussion #1) Welcome to Course 2!
Please note: In order to successfully complete Course 2, you must respond to this post. Your comment/response should answer the questions/shows that you completed the given activity (if any). Read the post carefully and follow the instructions given. Save your responses to a document that you can later refer to. You will need to copy/paste your response in the course evaluation form at the end of each course to show that you have done the work and to refresh your memory.
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Congrats! You made it the second course in the LDP! In this course, we focus on the specific interpersonal skills needed to be a strong leader on 7 Cups, including mastery of communication skills, time management, conflict resolution, stress management and empowering new leaders.
I know if you are here, you have read our values and culture guide. I would like to start off by further emphasizing one value that's required for a leader to be successful here, and that is balancing High Expectations & High Warmth.
Work environments with high expectations and minimal warmth tend to result in companies that are very driven, rule-oriented and risk-averse. The people do not tend to grow as much personally or professionally. On the other hand, workplaces that are high in warmth, but have minimal expectations, tend to struggle. Everyone is happy and feels loved, but not a lot of effective or focused work gets done.
7 Cups is high expectations AND high warmth. We expect a lot from you. You might feel like we think you are more capable than other people have suggested or maybe even more capable than how you see yourself. That is okay. Every person on the team has outperformed and done better than they expected. This is largely because warmth, patience, and trust help people make much more progress than they have in other environments. We have high expectations, but we will provide plenty of encouragement and guidance to help you get there.
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Question: What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth? How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
Activity: Please reply to 3 of your peers in this thread with encouraging or supportive words!
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@Heather225
What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth?
I think having an imbalance of expectations and warmth would be a negative impact on me, others and the community. While it's impossible to be perfect, it's important to be willing to think well and high of yourself and others, to help encourage and motivate others to improve and to keep improving. If you're lacking warmth, you will struggle, as a leader, in building a strong bond with others in the community, warmth builds communities and without it, there's not much of a community. It's important to have high warmth community so people can feel supported, respected and welcomed, which is vital in building positive professional relationships with others which will create a positivite environment throughout
How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
Having low expectations will impact the community in many ways. Less people will be motivating and expecting highly of other people, this would result in people being unmotivated. Which would reduce the sense of belonging in the community. It would impact fellow leaders since they'll think that it's okay to have low expectations and may work just for 'good enough' when infact they could be reaching 'amazing' if they were surrounded by people who expected highly of them. Having too little warmth would damage the community bonds, people won't respect you as much if you have little warmth, being a leader and a listener it's important that you can use AL skills to portray warmth in building positive professional and supportive relationships with others in the community. It would impact fellow leaders since it may make others lower their expectations on other leaders because of the one Low Warmthed leader, then leaders will feel like they've been let down as a whole group because of someone else's lack of warmth.
@Heather225
Low Expectations:
1. Low motivation, individually, and weak relations with the team
2. Unproductive work ethic and environment
Little Warmth:
1. Lack of empathetic or altruistic behaviors among colleagues
2. Lack of bonding within the community, leading to an unproductive environment.
@Heather225 I believe if a 7 Cups leader has an imbalance of expectations and warmth that the team will reflect from this and also have the same energy. I think having too low of expections or too little warmth will impact the community by not achieving new goals or having engagement, the participants or team would most likely not try as hard or at all with communication or accomplishing their goals. This will also impact how you work with fellow leaders such as not being dependable or accountable for your own work, not helping the team improve, or not working as a team.
@KristinHelps
You said that well! I definitely agree. In order to have great communication, goals reached and well produced work, we need to have both high expectations and high warmth. Well done 😊
What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth? How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
I think that if you, as a 7 cups leader, had an imbalance of expectations and warmth the community would be impacted because if you have low expectations, the work will be done to a low standard and won't be beneficial. Having low expectations can also impact how we work with our fellow listeners, this can mean that we wouldn't care what gets done and what doesn't get done which can result in others feeling like they aren't doing good enough as we wouldn't be setting expectations to push them.
Having low warmth can impact the community as a whole because what you are feeling can spread onto others. Having low warmth can also make the community feel like a chore as we wouldn't be kind, friendly and open. Having low warmth can also impact our fellow listeners cause we wouldn't be a good person to hang around with and we might often make others feel bad too.
@Rhlexia520
Hello there! I like how you summed up the impact of having low warmth so clearly and concisely at the end! I especially agree with you on that first point about how your feelings can be spread onto others, affecting the whole community as a result.
@Heather225
The way an imbalance in warmth and expectations affects the community and our working with fellow leaders are as follows:
a. Having fewer expectations would hamper the growth of the community as a whole, circulate less motivation and positivity as well. In case of less warmth, the community won't be encouraged to work with one another in a friendly manner and it could prove fatal to certain aspects which require teamwork.
b. Having fewer expectations with the work we do with fellow leaders might result in bad quality work at the end of the day, a mistrust that is formed in between, and lack of communication along with the fact that it shows we aren't serious about the works assigned to us. Less warmth would eventually lead to a lack of friendliness which is vital if a good relationship is to be established with leaders and that they would be disturbed because of the workload when there is no one to encourage and lend them some kind words.
@Heather225
Question: What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth? How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
I think that if a 7 cups leader has an imbalance of expectations they will start to fall apart emotionally, slowly without realizing it.
Both, I think that if you are really part of the community everybody will feel an effect
What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of these?
I think there will be a lack of structure and order with the community
1. How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact the community
if no one knows what is expected of them or which part of the upbuilding of the community that they contribute to, things wont go okay
2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
I would let my leaders down by not knowing how to contribute
What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth? How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community, and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
1) if there will be a lack of high warmth in the community it'll not be able to grow and will be unstable and will not be able able to support other people
2) if there are no high expectations from us people will grow careless and will not follow up with thw roles they have taken up in here and they community will surely be affected buy it
@Heather225
as a 7 cups leader, lack of expectations would result in difficulty to achieve goals, less efficiency and productivity.
lack of warmth would make teamwork very difficult, as peers would not communicate properly with each other
@Heather225
If warmth is not high and expectation is high than might be the person feel pressurise and doing task would be like to do list instead of not something they enjoy and feel good about it. Warmth make supportive environment. It like though the employee is trained to do things but if not given right environment and support than they find difficult to apply the skills in job. This sound similar to it. Overall it will not be effective for the community.
impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
If I have low expectation than my belief in the fellow leaders would not be much or expecting they can do particular task well and maybe than finding support or help in particular area I would be struggling.
Low warmth than they would hesitate to open up and hesitate to ask for help or discuss anything. Nor I would be growing much nor my fellow leaders and teamwork don’t take place.
@blindHeart12
Heya You mentioned that warmth helps us create a supportive environment! That's so true because otherwise we'd just be working like robots It's awesome that you believe in the fact that we should do something we are both good at and feel interested in! Best of luck on your journey!