#93: The Essence of Agency and Impact with Mandolen Mull

Lead the People

Dr. Mandolen Mull is the Founder of MullMentum Consulting, a bespoke leadership development firm. Having held leadership roles in healthcare, property preservation, logistical distribution, and higher education prior to founding her consulting firm and authoring several books, Mandolen brings her hybridised background to personalised leadership development training. Heavily mentored by a stonemason entrepreneur father, and as the (favourite) granddaughter of a USAF Col. and Base Commander, her customised approach resonates with leadership audiences across front-line manufacturing, real-estate developers, entrepreneurs, union Ironworkers, education administration, healthcare executives, private equity board members, and other industries in between. Pint-sized, she packs a powerful array of humor, humility, and heart. Having relearned to walk and talk while earning her Ph.D. in Organisational Development and Change, her resilience is her relatability.

True to her robust, polymath background, she also holds an MBA in International Business and a BS in Political Science and Psychology.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. Keep score. Depending on your work, you may not be able to see tangible results of all you do throughout your days and weeks. Get creative and find a way to make your wins more visible.
2. Share the love. Rather than contribute to the isolation and separation that naturally accompanies modern work and life, offer kudos early and often. Recognition draws us together.
3. Get in line. As leaders, we’re part of a lineage that stretches backward through all our mentors and their mentors, as well. Now it’s our turn to invest in those coming up behind us.

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From the Source

“We have employee fatigue happening, so we've got all these different variables happening. And what I fundamentally think it comes down to is that it's really a transactional world that needs to be more transformative.”

“I hear so many people say that they feel like they're doing so much but feel like they're not doing enough in the sense of they just aren't collecting their wins.”

“I think sadly we've got a lot of isolationist environments. We've got a lot of environments focused on competition and comparison. We reward our employee of the year versus a department of the year or something like that. Our value says ‘We're all about teamwork’, but we reward individualism.”

“First and foremost, as leaders, we’ve got to go in and really level with our people letting them know the top three priorities that we're focused on and how to allocate their time on that—making that very demarcated for them—to understand where their efforts need to go. Because that eliminates that role ambiguity, gives them that sense of accomplishment.”

“The antidote to these competitive comparison environments is collaboration and championing each other, ाnd I don't think we get to champion each other. I don't think we do that enough. And I think we've got to get so much better about giving each other kudos.”

“We're in a finite role, but we're making an infinite impact. Understanding that’s our goal is something that I call ‘generational mentorship’. If we can sit there and think about how ur job is to develop leaders who go on to develop other leaders. Someone took a chance on us, gave us opportunities, where are we then passing that torch forward?”

“I really believe my purpose on this earth is to develop leaders who go on to develop other leaders.”

Connect with Mandolen

LinkedIn: http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/Mandolen

Website: https://www.mullmentum.com

“Grit for the Pearl” (book): https://amzn.to/3YkuYX1