Practicing Connection
Improve your resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world.
Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch host this exploration of personal and collective practices that empower us to work together to help each other, our families, and our communities improve our resilience and readiness.
Practicing Connection
Leading Through Change: How to Stay Aligned and Present
Are you leading your team the way you truly want to? Or just reacting to the pressures of the moment?
Discover how a simple reflection can help you align your intentions with your actions and become the emotionally intelligent leader your team needs.
How we show up as leaders shapes our team’s experience, trust, and success.
In this episode of the Practicing Connection podcast, Coral and Jessica explore the power of alignment and presence in leadership. Jessica introduces the “Leadership Alignment Reflection,” a practical, step-by-step exercise that helps you examine how you’re currently leading versus how you aspire to lead.
Learn how regular reflection can boost your self-awareness, close the gap between intention and action, and help you lead with greater impact.
Tune in for actionable insights and a practice you can start using right now!
Practical links from this episode:
2025 Camp 1: Ocoee Whitewater Rafting and Outdoor Quest
Dates: July 11-14, 2025
Number of Participants: 80 (40 parent/teen teams)
2025 Camp 2: ACE Whitewater Rafting, Climbing, Rappelling and Outdoor Adventure
Dates: July 25-28, 2025
Number of Participants: 54 (27 parent/teen teams)
- Families from any state and branch are welcome to register.
Coral Owen: [00:00:00] Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Coral, my co-host Jessica is here today as well. We're going to be talking about how to remain aligned and present while leading teams through change, and Jessica's going to be sharing a practice with us. Jess, how are you today?
Jessica Beckendorf: I'm doing pretty good. I have finally had some nice weather and I've been getting out whenever I can and preparing my yard for summer, so getting the grill ready and even grilling, preparing my patio, you know, planning some new planting beds. And I looked over at the rock picking job that I started last year and I started to plan out how and when I'm going to finish picking all those rocks out of that landscape bed.
Coral Owen: That is just the best. Spring is one of my favorite times of year as well, and I know that I am in Florida, so our seasons are really just hot as heck and then not as hot. But my son, Kai, recently had a gardening day at his [00:01:00] preschool and poor kid, everybody showed up with like marigolds and tomatoes and you know, fun little, I'm gonna air quotes here, like, “normal plants,” and he got stuck with a small papaya tree, and a beach sand bucket from our compost pile.
Jessica Beckendorf: Well, I mean, as someone with a tomato allergy who lives in a northern climate and can't grow a papaya tree, I think papayas sound way more interesting. And I'm pretty sure that they're all going to be so excited to have more than just tomatoes to eat and marigolds to look at when everything is fully grown. So I think you did well, with your compost pile.
Coral Owen: That’s very generous of you (both laugh). Oh boy. Well, we would love to hear what's inspiring our listeners, so please share what's inspiring you by clicking on the Send us a text message button at the top of the description of this episode. When you click the link, your text messaging app will open, and then you're gonna see a seven digit number in the words "Do not remove.”
Type your message after that and click send. Don't [00:02:00] remove that number. We won't receive your message. To protect your privacy, we won't see your phone number and we can't unfortunately text you back, but we'll share your feedback on a future episode. And if you're listening on the computer, you can just email us at practicing connection@oneop.org.
So let us know what's inspiring you right now.
- break -
Coral Owen: All right. Let's learn more about leading through change and how to stay aligned and present through the process. Jess, can you tell us a little bit more about the practice you're going to be sharing today and why you chose it?
Jessica Beckendorf: Yeah, absolutely. Today I'm sharing what I'm calling the Leadership Alignment Reflection. I got this from a combination of sources, but primarily from a book I reference frequently called The Art of Coaching Teams, by Elena Aguilar. The Leadership Alignment Reflection is a simple way to check in with yourself as a leader and see if you're showing up the way you really want to for your team.
And I chose [00:03:00] this activity because how a leader shows up in spaces with their team is really important, especially during times of change. Your team depends on you to set the standard, including the emotional standard. They look to you for cues. It can actually be quite difficult when a meeting is tense, for example, to regulate ourselves in a way that honors our values or how we wanna show up for others. And also to be present in a way that's cognizant of our position as the leader in the room. So, take a few moments before a meeting to check in with how you wanna show up for your team. Then checking in with yourself after the meeting to reflect on how it went.
It's a really great way to start aligning our actions with how we wanna show up. Especially when there are changes occurring within the organization, and you know, Coral, both the big and small changes, this can really affect both.
Coral Owen: Absolutely. So Jess, can you get us started and just [00:04:00] walk us through the steps of how to do that?
Yeah, there are a lot of different ways to implement your own leadership alignment reflection. I'm just providing one way, but you can change up the questions to suit your situation. So first, before a meeting, write out your responses to the following questions: “How do I want to show up in this meeting? If I'm showing up the way I want to, what will it look like and sound like?” And, “How do I want to feel during and after this meeting?”
And then after the meeting, write your responses to the following: “How do I think I showed up, and what was the evidence of that?” How do I feel now?” And, “How did I respond in the tough moments?
Now I specifically said you should write out your responses, but I'm going to go a step further and add that you may want to consider keeping these notes in a place where you can [00:05:00] refer to them and learn from them. Keep them as long as they serve you, and get rid of them when they stop serving you.
Coral Owen: Well, that sure seems simple enough, and I look forward to trying this in the near future. So thanks for guiding us through.
Jessica Beckendorf: Yeah, you're so welcome. And we will have a downloadable version of those questions that are linked in the show notes, so you can just download them and use those as your notes.
Coral Owen: Good deal. Alright, well that is it for today's episode. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend.
We'll be back next week with a new practice, so stay tuned. Until then, keep practicing.
CREDITS: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, U. S. Department of Defense, under award number 2023-48770-41333.
