I spent Friday evening and Saturday in the presence of a great man with a valuable message, in a program called “Claim Your Voice, Claim Your Life,” with Arthur and sponsored by The Abundance Network.

Arthur asserts, and lives, that vocal awareness gives us presence, and power, and authenticity.  After my short experience I concur and I saw it evolve in the room.

As Malcolm Gladwell points out in Outliers, 10,000 hours of practice are required for true, complete, in-your-bones mastery to occur.  That is so with Vocal Awareness as well.  Arthur’s work requires daily practice — seven minutes a day, to be exact.

If this concept is interesting to you and you want to know more, go to http://www.theabundancenetwork.com.   These several follow-up events with Arthur are occasional, spread out over time to allow practice.  It is not too late for you to join us!  Whether this is your path or you have another, and you are interested in mastery, I recommend the book Mastery, the Keys to Success and Long-Term Fullfillment by George Leonard.  It is small and mighty.  And, I recommend Arthur’s book, Vocal Power, Harnessing the Power Within and other products that can help you along that path.  Life is a journey, not a destination.

For me, I am on a journey to generate a conversation about trusting leaders, and leaders earning that trust.  That passion fires me up every day, and I am highly motivated to become more of myself, if that makes sense, so that I can illuminate the crying need, empassion and embolden leaders to be principled and to make choices that are not completely self-serving, but serve the whole of humanity and the earth as well.  That vision will take all I’ve got for the rest of my life, to make the difference I was put on this planet to make.  Not being a spring chicken, I’m in a bit of a hurry — but as Arthur pointed out, yocannot hurry the loving breath, which sources vocal awareness which sources authenticity.  The opportunity lies in the paradox — slowing down to accomplish more.  Oh, and by the way, being accountable for those choices!  Accountability pays!

We have a new friend, Kim DeMotte, whom we met at a fabulous conference last month for people who want to build on their success to expand the good they can bring to the world. At a dinner, Larry and Kim struck up a conversation about corporate governance, and Kim said some things that resonated with Larry and myself.

First, you have to trust people to do a good job, and in this instance we were speaking of someone holding the job of CEO. When a CEO reports to a board, how do you govern that CEO such that they are responsible AND allow them to do their job, their way.

In this video with Kim, you can get it straight from “the horse’s mouth,” (sorry Kim, not a literal translation)… Kim is an advisor to the corporate world. He lives in St. Louis. What you should know about Kim, in addition to his comments here on corporate governance, is that he authored a book called “The Power of No” in which Kim (and contributors) illustrate just that! Get the book, it’s excellent!  I particularly appreciate Kim’s straight talk.  No muss, no fuss, just straight talk.  We could use more of that today, with a sagging low in trust of leaders in this country (and elsewhere, we don’t on the corner on that malady).

In the name of mission (and I would say some think mission is vision, so I’m including vision here also), do the right thing. Clear communication enables a whole host of positive effects. Too many wus’s won’t take a hard stand, set a clear boundary, say no. Amazingly enough, some of the most mature, noble looking men fall into the trap of being too nice, and mucking it up for everyone from the top of an organization down to the last person to feel the effects of poor leadership.

To that I say, “Cut it out!” Get Kim’s book, read Susan Scott’s “Fierce Conversations,” and go back to the mission. Whatever doesn’t fit the vision and the mission, do not tolerate.

I recently had a fast-paced hour-long conversation with Robert Porter Lynch, author, teacher, speaker, champion of increasing the experience of trusting leaders.  He observed that if trust in our leaders isn’t repaired in the United States, we as a nation are threatened to our very core.   Here are the LynchPrinciples — please download the PDF file.

Robert is writing a book on trust and leadership — he is Building a System of Trust.  He spends his life on airplanes in academic and business contexts, talking about what causes trust, conversely what causes distrust, and the impacts on business and life.

I then attended a conference on social media where I learned a term, “crowd sourcing,” revolving around our need to go to our friends for advice, people, resources because authority as we have known it cannot be trusted.

Decisions are made based on assumptions, and sometimes those assumptions prove false.  Consider these recent, faulty assumptions.   Real estate values always go up.  Financial institutions hold your money safely while you don’t need it. Retirement funds are managed to out-maneuver real risks.

These  eight principles of collaborative trust from Robert’s book that is coming out in the fall of 2010 provides reminders of what is important.  We are all leaders of our own lives, and we could choose not only to embrace them, but speak about them, remind others about them — in other words, Share them!  Encourage them!

I have been looking at my history of choices and decisions this weekend, in light of the economy, the mood of the world, and the lack of integrity and trust that seems to abound.  I have noticed in my own circle of friends and family, people having to deal with defending themselves against unscrupulous and duplicitous behavior.   I won’t mention names, and fortunately I have not had the experience personally.  However, Larry and I noticed a truck all dressed up with a sign about loan modifications — let us save you from yourselves with government money (our money).  That whole business that has sprung up, to get people out of trouble financially who got themselves in trouble, troubles me.  The government is also saving businesses that are failed business models, which is equally troubling.  Where are the natural consequences that come from making poor choices?

I would like for all of us — no, I’ll say that differently — each of us, to answer a couple of questions that I have been dwelling in (and you’ll hear more about in future blogs).

1.  Who do you trust today?  I believe that leaders who are really leaders foster trust, and even when difficult decisions need to be made, even when people need to be let go or hours decreased, those actions are done kindly and with compassion.

2.  How trustworthy are you?  Normally, when one finger is pointing at another, there are three pointing back at — guess who!

3.  How is your integrity?  By that I mean, do you have people to whom you have promised things who are hanging out there, waiting on you?  Is your laundry put away?  I really mean it.  Is your car clean?  Is your checkbook balanced?  Is your desk clean?  Those are the LITTLE integrity  issues, and if we aren’t doing those, how much can we expect the big things to be done with integrity?  Really, how much can we count on you?  How much can you count on me?

4.  What are you tolerating?  In times like these, there is a good chance you’re looking around at what hasn’t worked, but you haven’t done anything about that — and now I’ll bet you are looking around and realizing that you are at the effect of having tolerated them.    I am referring to things like having an assistant that isn’t easy to deal with, and doesn’t seem happy either.  Or processes that were klunky, but you didn’t have time to fix them (the fixing of which would have saved MANY hours, by the way).

That’s probably enough to think about going into the second half of the year, and ending Memorial Day — in honor of all those who died so that we could be free to screw up, and then get responsible and fix it.  We are definitely in this human condition — never more visibly than in these times!

I love to read the NY Times on Sunday mornings over a cup of coffee with my favorite person in the world, my husband Larry.  This past Sunday we were sitting in a quite breakfast spot, big windows thrown wide open, in downtown San Diego, where we live, having brought our NY Times along.  I opened to my favorite business column, the Corner Office with Adam Bryant, to a significant article on Nell Minow.  I remarked to Larry because he knows Nell.  Larry characterized Nell as “One of the luminaries of corporate governance today.  She has been called by Fortune magazine the ‘Queen of Corporate Governance’ and by Forbes the CEO killer’ because she brings to everyone’s attention the best and the worst of corporate governance today.”  Larry is a well-known expert on corporate governance himself, which is how he knows Nell.  I will share about Larry another time.

In that moment I was interested to learn what Nell, co-funder of the Corporate Library, a provider of corporate governance research, would say about leading people, which is always the topic of Adam’s column.  If you are interested,  you can read the entire  section yourself.

What I liked was her “we” orientation, and her accountability orientation.   She parallels parenting with managing people.  She doesn’t like meetings, and she is very clear about the agenda and desired outcomes going into meetings.   Yea!

How she got into corporate governance, however, was fascinating to me.  It was sheer serendipity that she met Bob Monks and they have been business partners for 23 years.   Together they have accomplished amazing things.  I will steal an idea from her – well, maybe two ideas.  When she hires, she looks for humor in someone and she won’t hire anybody who can’t write.  She asks applicants for a writing sample that can sway her hiring decision either way.  Actually, now I’m a little nervous – what if she reads this blog?  I’m just starting to blog – perhaps she has a few tips for me!  Nell?  Are you reading?  I welcome any comments from Nell or from you about blogging, about being great leaders, and reminding ourselves to keep our sense of humor!