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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1) The community:
Low expectations I think would have a negative impact because no one would feel any push for improvement. HIgh expectations lead to pushing for excellence.
I think at 7cups, low warmth would lead to burnout and demotivation.. people wouldn't be getting enough on the "warm fuzzy" side to go with the high expectation pressure
2) I work really well in a high expectation high warmth environment. I need the push and I need the hug at the end. If one of those was low I think that I would have a hard time putting my time into 7cups. Part of why I like it here SO much!
@Harquinn909
At the end of the day, 7cups is all about the warmth. The expectations are what allows us to remain warm without being hurt <3
@Harquinn909
Words of truth. 7 cups is a place of high expectations and high warmth. So, i believe this is a place for improvement and excellence.
@Heather225
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?
Having too low expectations will make the community fall into chaos and lead to members and listeners being harmed. Having too low warmth will also harm members and listeners by not being compassionate to people who are already vulnerable. It will cause other leaders to have to bear the burden of your mistakes, which will add stress onto them and take away some of the fun of being a leader.
Yes! You are completely right. Being unempathetic could really harm our members. So you are on the right path in your analysis. Great work!
@Heather225
What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth?
I believe with an imbalance of expectation and warmth the community's quality might be reduced and the listeners might not be motivated enough. As both these components are interrelated, lack of either one of them would result in a negative impact to the community.
Reduced motivation might lead to reduced quality and vice versa. Leaders might even be exhausted if expectations become high while warmth becomes low. Overall I believe this will interlope with the community goals and vision.
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?
To community
Overall community quality might be reduced and it might prevent reaching the goals of the community. It might also prevent the community from working with great undiscovered talent towards great purpose due to lack of expectations and warmth.
To how we work with fellow listeners
As there's too low expectations and warmth, caring might become low and might interfere with the way everyone interacts with leaders. Leaders themselves might get demotivated due to lack of warmth and expectations.
@bubblingBreeze14
I understand you perfectly, I feel that we should give our best version and be warm
@Crystaldancer
@bubblingBreeze14
These are great points, Breeze! It's important to be productive both in communities and leadership positions, while also being supportive to others! Nice job! ❤️
@Nerdtastic01
Thank You ❤️
@Heather225
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 believe that as leaders we must be as stable as possible, because if we have bad energy, people will also lose their energy and that would affect an entire community, we must always renew our energies and be positive.
We must be an example for the people who work with us in 7 cups because as I said, being a leader takes a lot of energy and patience and above all a lot of responsibility, because we do not know how bad a person can take it, so we must be the best version of us to attend
@Crystaldancer
You're absolutely right! As leaders, stability and exemplary performance are very important because as a leader, we are supposed to be role models for other listeners and members!
Great work! ❤️
@Heather225
If I as a 7cups leader have an imbalance of expectations and warmth, would cause a bit of mismatch between me personally and the community ultimately leading me to go out of sync. But at the end of the day, I am responsible and accountable on this platform so I would make amends.
Effect of low expectations on
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Community- If I am not aware of my own strengths and do not put my best foot forward, the community will not be able to trust me, and will not receive the necessary support. Overall efficiency can be affected.
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My fellow leaders- Leaders might get a wrong idea that maybe I am not working up to the mark and thus they might also expect very low of me in the future. They might misguide me and will ultimately result in stunting my own growth.
Effect of low warmth on
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Community - low warmth will make me going by the book. I would be more concerned about the rules. And somewhere this would have a domino effect and affect the entire community
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My fellow leaders- They might think of me as someone who still lacks empathy and that would also affect my connection with them
@Prachi9876
These are great points to emphasize when it comes to the balance between high expectations and high warmth! Keep up the great work! ❤️
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) As a 7 Cups leader, if I have very low expectations, then the efficiency of the community will decrease drastically even if the environment is supportive and encouraging. On the other hand, if I have very little warmth, then the community would be less open to sharing the challenges they are facing and the interconnected bonding that's important for healing in this kind of community will degrade, even though the productivity level of the community is high.
2) If I have very low expectations, then it would be difficult for my fellow leaders to trust me, which would negatively impact our working relationships. On the other hand, if I have very low warmth, then my fellow leaders wouldn't feel motivated to do their work, and they would also express a low degree of understanding and support when they work with me.
@Nerdtastic01
Nicely explained! 😉
@Nerdtastic01
Hey Nerdtastic. You're totally right! I hadn't even thought of how other leaders would feel having low expectations. If i was a fellow leader and a leader had low expectations of me, I would feel like they thought I was incompetent. We should raise leader esteem with higher expectations and warmth!
@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?
Answer: As a 7 Cups leader, if I have an imbalance of expectations and warmth, I would not be able to enjoy the work I am doing here and my personal growth and development would be affected. I will be going on a path with no direction, in turn, making me feel lost and confused. Having too low of expectations or too little warmth will definitely impact the working of the entire community. The community would be fully work-oriented and having no guidance, support, or encouragement will make the community look like a typical organization that is concerned with reaching goals and not helping the people grow personally and professionally. Having too low of expectations or too little warmth will impact how I work with my fellow leaders. If I keep supporting them but set no expectations, it will become haphazard. If I just set high expectations for other fellow leaders and do not provide any support, everything will look rough and dry from the surface and there would not be any growth in the relationships.
@caringHope1976
Hi there Hope. I totally agree. It's not good for us leaders to be low on empathy. I do also believe we have to be very empathetic to help our members!
@caringHope1976
Yeah, I agree, the fact that 7 Cups is centred on helping people grow personally and develop is so important, and without that it would be so difficult to create a supportive and growing community. High expectations and warmth are really important so we can do this.
@Heather225
How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact
1.) the community, and
Given that 7-Cups is an emotional support website, having little warmth will cause members to feel distrustful of listeners, as well as not understood or validated. On the flip side, if our expectations are too high members will feel more stressed with having to meet more expectations, leading to a non-supportive environment.
2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
If warmth is too high, accountability cannot be strongly applied. Since team members will be more forgiving of each other's mistakes, even if they impact thousands of people. Additionally, if expectations are too high, other leaders may become stressed and drop out of roles that are too much work with no support
@LavenderFlower
Thank you for giving a flip side as well, that's really interesting. It would definitely affect the trust a lot, and I think this really shows how important having high expectations and high warmth are for a supportive and validating community that can still get things done to a high quality.
@LavenderFlower
Indeed. I agree, we have to prevent burnout and have balanced goals and a supportive environment for all in the community.
@Heather225
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 the imbalance will slowly destroy the community. Having such low expectations or warmth can make people feel badly about themselves and can create a toxic working environment. The community will lose trust in its listeners, and/or repeat the same behavior I have done out of anger. Working with leaders may become more difficult because if an inability to properly express emotions and thoughts.
@TheGoodHeartedBuddy
That's a really good way of putting it, creating a toxic working environment would be really bad for 7 Cups and negatively affect relationships between listeners and members as well as relationships between leadership teams. Having high warmth and expectations is so important :o.
@TheGoodHeartedBuddy
Well-said. It can cause adverse effects on the community if we stop following the set expectations and become intolerant, impatient, unsupportive to others.
What do you think happens if you, a 7 Cups leader, have an imbalance of expectations and warmth?
I think if a 7 Cups leader has an imbalance of expectations and warmth, they will not make the maximum progress they could make. You may experience burnout and find it hard to gain motivation to make progress and be the best you can be in your role. You might feel like you're not a good fit for the role, or that you're not doing a good job which can be really detrimental to your role and team. Also, it may cause you to lose interest in the roles you have, which can cause them to be unenjoyable and this will have a big impact on those around you as well.
How do you think having too low of expectations, or too little warmth, will impact 1.) the community,
If your expectations are too low, you may not produce the best quality work you could, or do the best you can for the tasks you have to complete. This means that in the community, people may not feel as well supported by 7 Cups. Also If you do not follow through with plans and ideas organised for the community, this will break their trust in you, and by association 7 Cups. If people begin to lose trust in 7 Cups, they may not be able to access valuable support and resources, and this could have a really negative affect on people.
If the warmth is too low, this will really come across in the way you interact with people on 7 Cups. It could appear like you don't really care about the people here for support within our community, if you are not showing empathy and being welcoming towards them. This would then mean some people might not feel supported or cared for, which is what a lot of people come to 7 Cups for, and this will have a very negative impact on people's experience of 7 Cups.
and 2.) impact how you work with your fellow leaders?
If your expectations are to low, it could cause tension between you and fellow leaders if you are not meeting targets and getting things done. This may mean they have a lot more work, or that they are put in difficult situations if your work is interconnected with theirs. It would decrease trust and rapport between members, and would decrease cohesiveness as a team, so the group of leaders would not be able to produce their best possible work.
If the warmth is too low, it may feel to other leaders like they are unappreciated, or that you don’t care for what they do. This can make them unmotivated to work with you on projects or help you in leading things, which means that some projects and ideas that could be amazing would not be able to happen. Again it would affect the team’s cohesiveness and rapport, which are vital in ensuring leaders can work together to constantly keep improving 7 Cups in a positive way.
@Izzy274
You are entirely right in saying that it will cause an imbalance, there will be no driving force or it will cause a lot of burnouts. We need to have high expectations and high warmth so that we can keep growing and improving.
