Course 2: Becoming a 7 Cups Leader - (Discussion #1) Welcome to Course 2!

@CheeryMango

true. By not making contributions to the team you won’t be helping them. Asking for guidance will be a good way to know how to help! Wish you the best!

@CheeryMango

I really enjoyed reading your response.  Theres no " I " in Team or Teamwork.   Being a part of the 7 cups community we all have a goal, a very similar goal to assist others, ensure members and rooms are safe and to build upon each other as well, leaders, mentors, listeners alike.  We need to hold ourselves accountable for our actions and respect guidelines and expectations of ourself and others, but. not put too much stress on that, keep a high standard but also achievable and maintainable.

@Heather225

1) Impact of low expectations
Impact on community: anarchic, lawless, volatile, ungrounded, unstable, unstructured, unreliable, inconsistent, stagnant
Impact on fellow leaders: inefficient, aimless, uncoordinated, lazy, careless, complacent, negligent

2) Impact of low warmth
General qualities: strict, harsh, authoritarian, unforgiving, impatient, punitive, stern, callous
Impact on community: impersonal, aloof, uncaring, inhospitable, hostile, resentful, conflictual, argumentative
Impact on fellow leaders: anxious, exhausted, stressed, unappreciated, alienated, isolated

@QuietMagic

I really love the way you listed the personality qualities Magic!!

@cocoakrispies121 Aw, thank you!

@QuietMagic I really loved the way you answered this!

@LittleBirdie30 Thank you 💜

@QuietMagic

Nice answer! It s great.

@Daf8 Aw, thank you.

@QuietMagic

Really, thank YOU

@QuietMagic

A very creative response! Very thought-out! :)

@SynSavory Thank you!

@QuietMagic I like how you answer it in words!

those are really good words to tell how. The. Community would. Be .@QuietMagic

@QuietMagic exactly! i totally agree with these statements

@QuietMagic

Love your answer ❤️ a thorough description of immediate impact that may happen in such conditions.

Cheers! 😊

@QuietMagic great answer!

Hi QuietMagic Love the way you have structured your response. I agree with you very much.

@QuietMagic

1) Impact of low expectations
Impact on community: anarchic, lawless, volatile, ungrounded, unstable, unstructured, unreliable, inconsistent, stagnant- these traits given to the community can cause members and others to feel neglected or unheard.  Each member needs a voice and guidelines to maintain safety.
Impact on fellow leaders: inefficient, aimless, uncoordinated, lazy, careless, complacent, negligent

2) Impact of low warmth
General qualities: strict, harsh, authoritarian, unforgiving, impatient, punitive, stern, callous- We need t remain respectful and if we are harsh or "too bossy or unforgiving" how can we help others or even forgive ourselves?  Members and co leaders might take us as a know it all or too stern with rules and we need to be flexible at times.

Impact on fellow leaders: anxious, exhausted, stressed, unappreciated, alienated, isolated- Self care is number one when it comes to 7cups and if we feel stress, exhausted, or if a member feels this way, we need to navigate ourselves and them to self care and take that time needed to find ourselves and build back who we are

@Heather225

What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of these?

As a leader, a person is on the higher levels of hierarchy. Just like a human pyramid, if the higher person is imbalanced, it will cause the whole pyramid to collapse.

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?

Expecting less from a person robs them of the opportunity to grow. Hence, it will either keep them steady, or worse, make them fall back. As a result, it may affect the following

Community: They might spread these low expectations on to others and then they on to others that they come into contact with. Hence, it could result into a corruption of moral integrity throughout a community.

Fellow leaders: It may lead to disrespect and other unforeseeable conflicts with the fellow leaders of the community.

@DonaldDraper

I loved reading through your response. So insightful!

@DonaldDraper Great answer! However, I think the leader should be the lowest of the pyramid so that the pyramid doesn't collapse, also the lowest part needs to give the upper part huge support and service

I really like how you put that .@DonaldDraper

Having an imbalance at 7 cups with too low expectations or too little warmth would impact the

1) the community - low motivational drive to adhere to the standards of 7 cups. The policies and procedures would be harder to manage and the outcomes would be more diifcult to create.

2) Impact How you work with your fellow leaders - There would be more misunderstandings and less team work with our fellow leaders. Less Cohesion and trust would create more conflicts.

@crystalclearnow I totally agree! I think that the expectations that 7 Cups has with all of us keeps us working hard, but they are encouraging and patient at the same time!!

@Heather225

1. Having low expectations or low warmth will impact the community negatively because 7 Cups is built on a foundation of trust and compassion. If we are not consistently able to provide a high level of confidence and empathy, members will no longer feel that the site is a legitmate place to seek support and will leave with a negative impression of the service that is provided. Taking it a step further, if negative experiences are reflected in online reviews about the site, creditiblity will most certainly be damaged and our hard work to create a warm, caring and consistent resource will be lost.

2. Having low expectations and/or warmth would have a negative impact on how I would work with fellow leaders here because again, there must be a high level of trust and support for each other. We have to expect that we can lean on each other in hard times and lift a hand out to our fellow-leaders to lift them up. Without this, our network as care-givers is broken.

@KindnessMatters2020

I really loved this response!! I think it explains what you were thinking really well.

@KindnessMatters2020

Agree with these, like your response!!

@KindnessMatters2020

Well-written, Kind!

@Heather225

What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of these? 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 an imbalance of these will impact the community in a way in which they will not receive the best support I am actually capable of giving them. They get the short end of the stick and feel they lost support.

Having in imbalance will impact my fellow leaders in a negative way as well. We are all trusting each other and pushing each other to greatness. If I were to give little warmth, leaders may not feel the support they need to keep pushing through the program and or 7 cups in general.

@shiningDay80

That s it! This is awesome.

@shiningDay80 I like how you pointed out they wouldn't get the best support we can give them in those situations of imbalance. It is important there is balance so we can support their needs as best as possible!

@Heather225

What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of these? 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?

If you have too little warmth, it impacts everyone. People don't feel welcome, it all seems too professional and our members feel like they're talking to robots.

If we have too low of expectations, it can make all of us less quality of listeners. It will affect our listening style and the roles we take up on the site. If we don't have high expectations we can see our true potential and work towards it.

So it's extremely important to have a good balance of these. It makes being on the site a lot nicer and being involved with other listeners and members more exciting and fun.

@smolecho

Woah, awesome response Echo!! I love the robots point :)

@smolecho

Good way to describe that too little warmth means a cold-seeming enviroment. Much warmth in 7 Cups is essential.

@Heather225

I personally believe that having too low expectations will affect the community in a sense that i will not realise my full potential and ultimately i wont be able to use my skills or tools effectively and which in turn will lead to low productivity for the community in regards of performance. Furthermore, theres also a fair chance that i will be getting my peers down or hinder the progress for my fellow leaders, which is not desirable.

Less warmth on the other hand will show my lack of dedication and will be unable to convey the true value and essence of 7cups that is being supportive. This both applies to the community as a whole and also my fellow course mates

@Yourstruly2000

Being able to use our skills effectively will not only benefit on 7 Cups but outside of it as well. I think working on leadership and caring for others and helping others carry over into other areas of our lives. So, putting our best foot forward and putting our best effort into our roles here will benefit everyone in the long run.

@Heather225

Question: What do you think happens if you a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of these? 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?

Imbalance of Warmth and Expectations

I do go in more detail in the next sections, but in general, as a leader, if we have an imbalance of these, we would either not get our work done the best way that we can or we would lack communication and, well, warmth.

Expectations

1. In our 7 cups community, if we were to have low expectations, our community would not be able to improve and support others the best way that we can. In most communities, each community hopes to become a better version of itself in order to adapt and also to, well, put it simply, become more than it already is. If our community already has low expectations for its members, by this I mean listeners, members, and everyone, we would go nowhere. Speaking of communities, I recently also read an article that was pretty inspiring. The basic idea is that if we aren't improving as time goes by, we are deteriorating, and though it may seem harsh, but it's essentially pretty much true. Therefore, setting high expectations in our community is just as important!

2. As a leader, if we have low expectations, our work would be incomplete, not the best that it can be, and the community or area we focus on would not be the best that it can be! Our low expectations of ourselves would mean that we would not be able to achieve a lot more had we have higher expectations. As a famous quote says, "it is better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit." Afterall, setting higher expectations not only increases the amount of work done, but it also let's us learn and develop in the process. In my culture, there's also a saying that if our expectations are 100%, we might only be able to achieve 80%, but if our expectations are already at 80%, we might only be able to achiev 50% (I might have gotten the percentages wrong, but that is the general idea). I personally really like that idea, and I would definitely say that having high expectations is very important in every aspect as a leader as we are also representing our community as well!

Warmth

1. In our community, while setting high expectations is importanting, having high warmth is just as important and needed. We want our community to feel inclusive, welcoming, encouraging, and supportive. However, if we have low warmth, many leaders might give up midway, causing our community to slowly fall apart. Members and listeners might leave because they feel discrouraged and unimportant. In order to keep our community going, finding a balance between expectations and warmth is therefore very important. (I feel like I used too many "important" but)

2. Warmth also has a high connection to communication and how well our teams can work together. By having low warmth, members of our teams might feel not needed and leave the team. Most importantly, by having low warmth, some may not communicate with other members of the team because of the loss of, well, feelings and warmth, causing the quality of our work to go down as communication is a key part of every successful team. Having low warmth also leads to teams feeling discouraged, which in turn, does also affect our expectations as a team. Therefore, finding a balance between expectations and warmth is critical for our growth.

General

Maintaining and emphasizing the balance between expectations and warmth is important as one affects the others. Having low expectations can sometimes cause some people to feel unneeded, lowering our community's warmth level. At the same time, having low warmth can sometimes cause problems with communication, resulting in poor work and poor expectations!

@DayDreamWithYou That's a really interesting point that low warmth can reduce work quality by causing people to communicate less (because if every time I talk to someone I feel more stressed/awful than before I'm less likely to talk to them ).

And I like what you've said about how by aiming higher, you get more done than you otherwise would even if you don't accomplish everything you aimed for. I know I've had the experience where sometimes I'll set an easy goal and just sort of coast/drift along or not really max out my potential, whereas if I have a harder goal it draws out more of my effort/energy and I'm more effective.

@DayDreamWithYou Ooh I really liked how you connected the warmth of the leader to the warmth of the entire community.