Patience and Urgency - Part 1

I received an interesting email from a leader last week asking me if I take requests for blog topics. I wrote back to her and let her know, YES I love it when folks engage and are looking for tips or tricks to enhance their leadership life. The question was so well-formed that I asked her for permission to quote it. 

I love leaders who care about their organizations! I really get the sense that this leader both wants to personally be brought into what senior leadership is seeing and cares enough to wrestle with such difficult questions.  

As a leader, if someone in your organization wants to go to lunch or grab a virtual coffee and ask a question like this, I think you should find a way to give them a raise. I have worked alongside too many folks who would just throw their hands up in the air and cast blame on the organization for the lack of productivity. What I love about this question is that there is no blame here, just a leader seeking to contribute. 

The Question

Her question was:

“If you're taking requests, how about something on patience with organizational readiness during times of change?

Lately, we have received several calls to action from senior leadership that incremental changes are not enough...we must make big changes (and in a relatively short time frame).

Oh, and all of this is supposed to occur in a matrix organization devoid of hierarchy.   I find that I struggle to find patience when we identify high-impact opportunities (to do things better, faster, more cost-effectively) that, in reality, will still take 6-18 months to persuade all the affected stakeholders to even START.  No tears or anger, just a lack of productivity.”

I am going to dissect the question as a series, a multi-week post. I am particularly intrigued by this question because at its core, the organization seems to be asking for two different things. Not only are there multiple requests, but they also seem like they are polar opposites.

Patience…………………………….and…………………………………….Urgency

How can we have patience and urgency at the same time? 

On the surface, these attributes seem to be time responses to the same trigger. And in some sense they are. 

When faced with dilemmas like this, I like to separate out the attributes and see if they really are on the same linear plane. Are they really polar opposites?  If we separate the attributes and put each on its own line, can we find any new or interesting ways to look at the problem?

My good friend and organizational change expert Dr. Drew Boyd, writer of Inside the Box Thinking would probably call this “division”. You see, Drew maintains that innovation does not come from what we do not know, but from what we do. So if we give our problem a new definition, we might learn from it. So I did the following:

Patience…………….

And 

Urgency……………

As soon as I wrote the problem on two different lines, the thought came to me that we are likely talking about two different things entirely.  I went back and read the email that my leader friend wrote to me and saw the problem anew. Here is what I am now seeing:

Individual Patience

And

Organizational Urgency

If we put each of these on some sort of linear graphic it could look something like this:

Individual Patience……….and…….Individual Impulsiveness

Organizational Urgency…and……Organizational Stagnation

What this graphic representation does for me is it helps me see how I need strategies for both myself and the organization. The problem with leaving the attributes on the same line is that my brain sees them as the same thing and if I have emotion about them, one will spill over into the other.

By separating out the issues, I can gain clarity and formulate a plan. So now that the question is clearer I can search for better answers to both of these problems.

How can I be more patient?

How can I help the organization gain a sense of urgency?

Next week, in part two, I am going to answer both of these questions and give some tips and strategies that leaders can use in their everyday practice. 

Until next week, I have an assignment for you:

Sit for 15 minutes each day with your journal and reflect on how you can be more patient. 

I really want you to try this. Don’t do anything else while you do this exercise (well maybe have a cup of coffee or hot tea). Just sit quietly with no radio or distractions on and write what it feels like for you to be patient.

If you do this exercise for a day or two, I would love it if you would write a comment below and let me know what the experience was like for you.

To Be a Wise Leader You Need...

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been sharing some thoughts on connecting wisdom and leadership. If you missed those blog posts you can read them here and here. 

King Solomon, said to be the wisest person to ever live, has been the main character we’ve used as an example of what it means to be a wise leader.

One of the cautions that we as leaders need to recognize is that we can start to get full of ourselves. If we are not careful, we start to believe the press that is written about us: 

• Hard worker

• Smart

• Excellent with people

• Good salary with nice bonus checks

• Dedicated and loyal

These things may actually be true, but when you get this kind of feedback it can start to go to your head.

Queen of the South

King Solomon had this same experience. Things were going really well for him:

• He gave orders to build the temple on Mount Moriah

• He had been blessed by God with wisdom

• People liked him

• He was very rich

• He was dedicated to the people he served

Then one day, Solomon had a visitor, the Queen of Sheba. She had heard about Solomon’s fame and wanted to test him to see if he was as great of a leader as she had heard.  They scheduled a meeting and talked; Solomon answered all her questions and she got to observe firsthand the wisdom he had obtained. 

The Queen says to Solomon,

“The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw it with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half of the greatness of your wisdom was told to me. You have far exceeded the report I heard.”

-2 Chronicles 9:5

Can we just sit in that feedback for a minute? How cool would it be if someone from another company requested a meeting with you because they had heard of your reputation, and after you met they say that you are even twice as good as they had expected? Wouldn’t you walk out of that room feeling like Muhammad Ali or Tom Brady…some of the “Greatest of All Time” athletes?

Solomon Knew the Danger

So what is the danger of this kind of recognition from others? You are the greatest, you are the smartest, you are the fastest, you are the best, you are all that and a bag of chips (as my daddy used to say)?

I think the real danger is that you may start to believe it! 

Solomon knew this too because he penned a proverb cautioning against believing all of this about yourself:

“It is not good to eat too much honey, Nor is it honorable to search out one's own honor.”

- Proverbs 25:27

I wonder if it is because of his interaction with the Queen of Sheba that he doesn’t pen different words. I could see Solomon after his meeting with the queen, sitting with his journal at the end of a long day writing something like:

“Honey sure tastes good. And I have heard from the doctors around town that it is good for you. However, if you eat too much of it, it is not so good for you. In fact, instead of being delicious, it can make you really sick. Giving yourself too much credit is a lot like this. It is ok to have a little bit, but if you spend all your time thinking about and telling others how great you are, that makes others sick and it isn’t good for you either.”

Solomon says that searching for one's own honor is like eating too much honey. In the long run, it isn’t good for you.  In other words, too much of a good thing just might make you sick. 

Honor is something that naturally follows a job well done. I am in no way saying that as a leader you should not recognize others for a job well done. I personally believe that leaders who do a great job will get all of the honor they need and deserve. 

Just be careful that you are not seeking this honor out for yourself. Focusing on this honor can take a leader into a bad place. One leader I know put it this way,

“I have a person on my team who I am surprised that he does not break his own arm patting himself on the back.” 

Remedy for the Danger of Self-Promotion

While we all want to work with very confident leaders, too much of a good thing, like self-confidence, can start to rub people the wrong way. Humility, according to Dr. Edgar Schein in its most general sense, refers to granting someone else a higher status than one claims for oneself. 

This idea of basic humility is really all about granting status to others. It is about recognizing the innate value that other people bring to the table. This basic humility allows a leader to recognize others for who they are and what they do.

There is another deeper level of humility that is good for leaders to consider. This is the concept of epistemic humility. This is where a leader is able to recognize their own personal limits in knowledge, reflect analytically on social problems, have an understanding of the limitations of human experience, preserve in wrestling with intellectual challenges, and take the perspective of others. 

The idea of epistemic humility goes beyond the recognition of others into the realm of self-examination, self-truth telling, and being able to see others' perspectives. This kind of humility calls on a leader to self-regulate, self-depreciate, and truly value what others are seeing.

I am curious how you might see yourself in relation to the story of Solomon? Most of you that read these posts are very successful. You could easily fall into the trap of asking yourself “What about me?”. Think now, how do you use humility as a counterbalance to keep your own self-confidence from running out of control?

Would You Choose Wisdom?

In last week's post, I mentioned an opportunity that King Solomon was presented with as a leader. If you missed it, you can read that post here. In short, the story from the book of Ecclesiastes describes how God shows up in Solomon's dream and tells him to ask for any one thing and God will give it to him.

Fully acknowledging this is happening to Solomon in a dream, I find the story to be one of gripping drama, and the choice that King Solomon was faced with is fascinating. Here is a quick recap:

God shows up to a sleeping Solomon and says, “Ask for anything and I will give it to you.”

I think Solomon has to be thinking along the lines of: 

“This is cool! I have to get this one right! This is big. Maybe I should create a list of options…”

• I need a new chariot

• My marriage isn't going so great

• I have just seen the doctor and the news wasn't so good

• My kids have lost all respect for me

• My kingdom has a history of revolting against its leadership

• I have enemies on every side of my land

• My army is a lot smaller compared to all my enemies

• My land is prone to drought, and there are a lot of people to feed

Let’s stop there for a moment and put ourselves in Solomon's place. Pretend that God, who by definition is all-knowing, all-powerful, is always everywhere, and can do whatever is desired, is saying to you, "Ask me for anything and I will give it to you."

While you ruminate on that question, I have some additional thoughts for you to ponder.

Why Wisdom?

As you consider King Solomon’s list of options, you can begin to understand the gravity of the question he faced. I am sure as you are thinking about your own request of God, you might be thinking, “This IS big.”

It is very big. Especially if you are a leader. And most of you who read this lead others. 

Some of you lead organizations, others of you lead teams, others lead churches, and some of you have the responsibility of a family. No matter what your leadership level is, this can be a difficult question to answer, "If I could have one thing in my life, what would it be?"

I think somehow Solomon must have realized that how he answered this question would likely impact the rest of his life on earth and maybe even impact him beyond his earthly life. I don't mean to over dramatize the point,...but how can I not?

I can almost feel the tension Solomon may have had in his dream..."Think, think! before God changes his mind, what should I ask for?"

It is possible that Solomon wasn’t quite as confused as I am  while contemplating that question. Perhaps Solomon was a more reflective leader and had read a lot of blog posts on leadership, so he had spent some time thinking about questions like this. Or maybe he even worked with an Executive Coach who asked him similar questions to prepare him for this very moment. Who knows?

What we do know is that no matter the level of drama associated with the decision, Solomon asks for wisdom.

On the surface, this is a curious choice. 

Most of us have  some concept of what wisdom is, but if we are honest, it is not something we think as much about these days. Prior to reading these recent blog posts, when was the last time you even thought about the concept of wisdom?

While there is not one agreed-upon definition for wisdom in any of the scholarly leadership literature I have read, I do think there are some thoughts that are quite insightful as we begin our thinking about this important leadership attribute:

Most perspectives on wisdom view it as an expert knowledge system that concerns the fundamental pragmatics of life. (Baltes)

• Another perspective is that wisdom is a skillful application of the practical truth to ordinary facets of life that extend beyond information and knowledge. (Dr. Ken Boa)

• Yet another view is that wisdom is perceived as exhibiting two categories of attributes: exceptional understanding and attributes of judgment and communication. (Holiday 7 Chandler)

• Wisdom is a capacity to put into action the most appropriate behavior by considering what is known and what does the most good. (Rowley)

• Recently an affective component to wisdom has been added that includes Emotional Management as a key to leaders being able to display wisdom.

Is there anything we can glean from these 5 perspectives that might inform us on how we see wisdom? It entails some level of expertise:

• The skillful application of practical truth

• Often what is needed is beyond our own level of information and knowledge

• Leaders are faced everyday with not only what needs to be decided and communicated, but HOW this needs to be done

• Some level of emotional management and tolerance of stress is indicated for good judgment and decision-making

• As leaders, our judgments impact not only ourselves but many others in our organizations.

So, why wisdom? 

Why then as a leader did Solomon choose wisdom over anything else?

Perhaps there are two reasons, one a bit self-centered and the other focused on more of a greater good:

1. My dissertation chair, Dr. Very Ludden, was famous for saying that leaders require wisdom in decision-making to avoid taking foolish actions. No one wants to look foolish. No leader I know wants to take their team down a path of wasteful folly.

2. A leader's actions are all about the sound judgment that without wisdom, are filled with distractions and temptations.

I think that somehow, Solomon had the ability to look at his list of options and see a connection. Solomon had many problems and issues he faced. Some personal, some organizational, some from external forces. I think Solomon knew that what he needed was an attribute that would help him across all facets of his life.

He knew that it was wisdom that would give him the ability to help reconcile his need to be seen as a leader by others with the external needs of creating followership by those in his kingdom and respect from those outside his kingdom.

How about you? Now that you have had some time to reflect on the question, what would you ask for if you could have just one thing? 

Success? Power? Influence? Riches? Love? Respect?

Wisdom?

I hope you will ponder this question for yourself. And, as long as you are pondering, why not ask? You never know what might happen…

If You Could Have One Thing…

As we begin a new year I have been thinking about something. More specifically, I have been asking myself a question that is not an easy one to answer.

Here is the question:

“If I could have one thing now that I either don’t currently possess or that I do possess but would like to have more of, what would it be?”

I know some of you are saying right now, “Scott, you really need to spend your time thinking about deeper things.”

I agree.

And after you judge me for thinking this, you will likely sit back and think to yourself, “What do I want more of”? 

Here are some things I consider as I ponder the question myself:

1. More clients to grow my business

2. More money to buy and do more things

3. More peace so my stress level would be lower

4. More impulse control so I won’t crave Chex Mix at 9 pm

5. More time to do what I love when I want to do it - like play more golf

A Little Irony

Most of you who know me know that I am a fairly spiritual person. I often start my day around 7 am with some reflection time that includes a few things: 

• A 21-day prayer journal that our church is working through.

• A Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr called “Yes, And…”.

• Reading some scriptures from my Leadership Bible and writing a reflection in my journal on what I am learning.

Interestingly enough, as I have this question rolling around in my head, “what do I want / more of,” I sat down one morning this week to the following:

• The prayer journal lesson was about the places Jesus went in his few short ministry years. There was a collision between the realities of his heavenly kingdom and the brokenness of our fallen world.

• Rohr wrote, “It’s all about seeing…moving from dualistic to non-dualistic thinking at the highest levels.”

• My scripture reading was from 1 Kings - the place where God appeared to King Solomon and said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

• My journaling brought these three big ideas together: a) the brokenness of the world, b) being open and patient with ambiguity, and c) that God asked Solomon the same thing I was asking myself.

Pretty interesting, right? I have this question rolling around in my head, then wake up and my reading for the day is God asking King Solomon the very same question.

Now I am feeling better about my question not being silly or trite. I mean… if God asked it of Solomon it has to be a good question…right?

What Would Solomon Do?

As I continued in my journaling reflection, I began to notice that all three of these topics have something in common. 

To answer any of them, brings in the unknown.

• What to do about the brokenness of our world?

• How to be open and patient with that which is ambiguous in my life?

• If I could ask God for one thing, what should it be?

This realm of the unknown to me is like a big dark cave. It brings feelings of both anxiety and fear. I just really don’t like not knowing. I would much rather be in control and know. Give me certainty all day long over the unknown.

I guess this is what impresses me the most with this part of the story about King Solomon. He could have been selfish and asked for his kingdom to grow, he could have asked for money to buy more stuff for the palace. He could have even asked for impulse control so his tummy doesn’t hurt at night after he eats his favorite snack. Shoot, he doesn’t even ask to live a long life free of problems.

Think about this with me for a minute. 

God shows up to Solomon in a dream and says “Ask me for anything and I will give it to you.” Solomon, now in the driver's seat to be granted anything he wants….

Can you feel the drama building…. ?

He asks for wisdom.

Wisdom to be able to make good decisions and distinguish between right and wrong on behalf of his kingdom. 

What an interesting request!

Wisdom. This pinnacle of human development. 

Next week I will begin to unpack this idea of wisdom and leadership a bit more. I don’t think anyone would argue that in our world today, wisdom is something that is needed by leaders everywhere. 

Perhaps this is a good question for all of us to ponder, after all.

If God showed up to you in a dream and told you to ask Him for anything, what would it be for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

3-Step Recipe for a Productivity Reset

Question: When is the last time you experienced a productivity reset?

I read recently that in a knowledge-working society the work we do is really about creativity.  Now, when I hear the word creativity my mind immediately goes to the painters and sculptors of the world. The work they do is creative. 

Before those of us who are scientists, technologists, and managers or leaders abdicate the world of creativity to the artists, we probably should step back for a moment and make sure we are not leaving the best part of us behind.

The Story

I had a conversation with one of my former graduate students who said she was completely burned out and didn’t know how she was going to get her research project finished on time.  She was definitely in need of a productivity reset.

Here is a part of our conversation:

“..By the time I finish my commute to and from work, I am logging 60 hours or more a week. In addition, I have a family and my church that are both important to me. I just don’t have any energy left for creativity to get this research project finished.”

I could just sense the frustration and disappointment in her voice as she was trying to figure out how to be more productive. Then almost without taking a breath, she said,

“…You know, perhaps I could be more efficient in the morning. If I got up an hour earlier I could get more done because I am at my most creative in the morning.”  

The Point

As knowledge-workers, we are all going to have to realize that more time, more effort, more energy doesn’t equal creativity or effectiveness.  It just equals more time and more effort. That's it.  If you are playing a game of who-works-hardest, then keep going, but if you want to be creative and innovative, then maybe work as hard as you can while you're working and then stop and do something else.

I think there is a reason that athletes work really hard in times of peak performance and then rest their bodies.

There is a reason writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, William Stafford, and Victor Hugo would work for a while in the morning and then go for long walks in the afternoon.  

Both high performing athletes and creative writers alike see the value of both hard work and the regenerative process of the productivity reset.  There is only so much a knowledge-worker can do to be productive before they need to recharge their brain.

According to Margaret Moussa, Maria-Estella Varua, and Matthew Wright’s work on knowledge-workers, what has been left out of the discussion up until now are issues of self-efficacy and well-being.  

The question we need to ask ourselves as leader is:

Can we leaders continue to treat our knowledge-workers the same way we treated productivity-workers of ages gone by?

And…

Can we as knowledge-workers continue to try and cram more stuff into our day and expect quality outputs?

3 Step Rest Process

Here are three things that I try to do when I am in need of a productivity reset.

1. Read. There is nothing like reading to stimulate productivity. If I ever have writer's block, reading is one of the best ways I know to get the juices flowing again. I have found that there is nothing like poetry and fiction to really get my juices flowing again. In fact, I just finished a chapter of Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman.
   

2. Walk. I love to exercise but when I work out I am really focused on pushing my body, so I don’t get many creative thoughts going when my heart rate is above 140. But when I am just out for a walk, and the sun is shining, and I can sense the beauty all around me, my creative energy just seems to flow.
   

3. Phone a Friend. For me, there is nothing like community and conversation to spur creativity. I always feel better when I get off the phone with my coach, my coaching group, or a conversation with Kevin or Joanne. There is just something about talking to others that will spur on my creative process.

As leaders, when we think about ourselves or those who are in our care, perhaps we need to be thinking less about how productive we can be and more about how we are practicing self-care. It is elements like reading, taking a walk, and engaging in a community that are the real ways we gain wisdom. 

Could it be that as knowledge-workers we are really seeking things like wisdom, and as we do we actually become more productive as a by-product?

I had many more things to say about this topic, but I am feeling a bit confused and convoluted right now….

I think I will go for a walk.

2 Minute Read to Improve Your 2022 Vision

When I was a kid my mom would tell me I needed to eat more carrots to improve my vision. If I wanted to be able to see with clarity, her wisdom of the time was for me to crunch on a few orange root sticks. Mom’s advice, while heartfelt and well-meaning, did not ultimately keep me from becoming farsighted and needing sight correction to be able to see clearly.

Many of us will get well-meaning advice as we approach the new year, reading and listening to experts drone on and on about goal setting and how you must have a goal if you want to accomplish anything.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with setting a goal, it can be a bit meaningless if not aligned with the vision of who you want to be as a leader. 

Envision Your Future You As A Leader

As the calendar changes from 2021 many of us will begin tithing about what we want to accomplish in 2022. Most of us will make some kind of resolution to make a change as the new year rolls in.

A resolution is “a firm decision to do or not do something”.

Like you, In the past I have made many types of New Year’s Resolutions:

• Personal: Eat right, exercise more, and lose 10 pounds

• Professional: Increase sales by 20% by becoming more customer-centric

• Family: Become a better listener when talking with my wife

• Spiritual: Read through the Bible in a year

All good stuff. I am sure many of you are making resolutions and talking with your friends and family about them over the next few days.

I thought I might challenge you to add a category this year. In addition to your personal, professional, family, and spiritual resolutions, think about a resolution to improve your leadership. Envision yourself becoming the leader you want to be in the future.

Leadership

Here are 10 ideas to get your thinking started on what you could resolve to do or not do in 2022 when it comes to your leadership.  I pulled this list from some of our more popular blog posts we have done over the years.

1. Reflect on being a great leader and what is keeping you from being great.  Who among us doesn’t want to be seen as a great leader? And yet, so many of us have some barrier that we just don’t want to see or do anything about. 

2. Work on your values before your vision.

3. Spend less time working and more time thinking. This idea runs counter culture to our “doing” mentality. Perhaps you need to work less and think more to enhance your ability to lead. 

4. If you were a brand (like Kleenex or Toyota), what would your value proposition be?

5. Who in your organization do you need to network with. 

6. What piece of FeedForward advice do you need to seek out? In our organizations we are so good at feedback. We just love telling people what we observed them doing.  Why not start a culture of FeedForward? Perhaps we could all get a little better at offering some solutions in addition to what we see in others that we don’t like. 

7. What cycle of negative thinking will you break this year?

8. How are you resting in the middle of your work day? Studies are showing how important rest is for leaders to maintain their effectiveness. How are you cycling your work to maximize your performance?

9. Take your emotional intelligence temperature. Are you able to choose how you react or are you “slave” to your knee jerk reactions?

10. Whatever change you make, put a plan in place to sustain it and get some coaching to keep you accountable.

I am looking forward to being with you on your leadership journey. If there are subjects you would like tackled on these pages just drop me a line. i am happy to do the research and write about what interests you.

My prayer for you is that you have a productive and effective leadership year.

Blessings to you and your families.

PS. If you know someone who might be interested in growing as a leader, why not forward them this blog and have them sign up? It’s free and easy and we guarantee they will gets tons of value.

Do You Share These Observations Regarding Leadership Momentum?

There are not many folks from about mid-December through mid-January who are wanting to engage in new coaching or training opportunities, so each year I use those weeks for reflection and planning. 

In addition to the clients I am currently working with, I am regularly adding new coaching clients into my practice throughout the year. With that in mind, an important area to reflect on as one year ends and a new one begins is the future of my coaching practice. How many new clients will I engage with this year? Who will they be? What will my coaching practice look like in the coming months? It is important to thoughtfully reflect on these questions in order to determine how I can proactively plan for a successful year for both myself and my clients.

Another area of my professional life that I reflect on is the work my clients have asked me to do with them. I begin by looking at my calendar to observe all the work I did in the past 12 months. I look at all the times I spent teaching, training, facilitating, coaching, creating content, etc. Then, I ask myself a really hard question: Is the work I am doing still relevant? Is it meaningful for those who call on me to work with leaders in their organization?

Finally, I spend time in personal reflection and journaling. Perhaps most importantly, reflecting on how I spend my time, then comparing this data with what I really enjoy doing in my work life.

Momentum

One way to look at whether or not I am relevant is by using the idea of momentum. This is a concept that I borrow from the world of personal investing and finance.

One of the personal-finance newsletters I read on a very regular basis is called Sound Mind Investing. (You can learn more about them at www.soundmindinvesting.com.)

In the January 2019 newsletter, Matt Bell wrote about the concept of momentum. According to Matt:

“A fundamental mistake many investors make is to move too quickly in choosing investments. They read about a hot stock or this year’s best-performing mutual fund and jump in. It’s all very ad hoc and reactive.”

Matt goes on to write that:

“Momentum is the idea that the recent past performance tends to persist-that is, it tends to continue, at least into the near term future.”

This means that what has happened in the recent past is likely to continue into the near future. It is what we know to be true from the world of physics; that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, while an object at rest stays at rest.

Momentum in the financial world becomes an objective measure of what is going on in the marketplace so that the investor can build a strategy based on real data and not just turn on the TV and be moved to buy a stock by some talking head at the moment.

Momentum Analysis

As I analyzed my journaling from the past years, here are 4 things I noticed:

1. Emotional Intelligence remains an important leadership construct. This is true for both the training work I do as well as the coaching. Most of the time when leaders hire me there is some growth desired in this area. I think Dan Goleman got it right when he wrote, “What really matters for success, character, happiness, and life long achievements is a definite set of emotional skills - your EQ - not just purely cognitive abilities…” Organizations put so much emphasis on how smart and skillful people are that they often miss this other very important dynamic of the “how” they work with others.

2. Relational empathy. I don’t know if this is a symptom of our political climate or not, but people have become so polar. They have an idea or a framework for how the world should be and they stick to it no matter how silly it makes them look. Maybe this is a natural outcome of divisions of labor, where those trained in finance wear finance glasses and only see the world through finance. Or, how those who are trained and educated in marketing only see the world through a marketing lens.  As leaders we seem to have lost the skill of trying to understand where the other person is coming from, and, even more important, what it is like to be them. We are so concerned with our own selfish ambition and desires that we have lost sight of the perspective of other ways of seeing and doing.

3. Being flexible in ambiguous times. I was on a call with a potential client toward the end of the year whose organization has been turned upside down. Half of the people have either been laid off or reassigned new roles. There is a tremendous amount of ambiguity about what certain jobs actually are and what people are supposed to do everyday. I was asked to talk with the team about the impact of emotions during times of tension and what to watch for as leaders when working with others. I was interrupted with a question in the middle of my presentation when one well meaning soul said, “Dr. Livingston, enough already about helping people process the loss they have experienced, can you just help us get to a place where things are normal and we can all just get back to work?” My response? “This is your new normal. Learning to be emotionally flexible and helping people deal with where they are in the moment is a new calling for leaders.”

4. Connecting with talent. The December stock market slide, not withstanding the economic outlook and, more specifically, the jobs outlook, is really robust. Senior leaders need to make sure they are connecting with talent, because my sense is that talent is itching for new opportunities. I think senior leaders need to get much better at proactively scheduling time to connect and care about the talent in the organization. Take them for coffee. Schedule a lunch. Learn what is on their mind. You do not need to do another ROI calculation on some process. What you really need to do is ensure you have the talent on your team to turn the future you are planning for into a reality.

How about you? Do you agree with these 4 observations? Leave a comment or send an email. I would love to connect with you to talk about these observations, or your unique observations regarding your organization.

Best hopes for the coming year,

Scott

Think Differently as You Set Goals for Next Year

I’d like to share a story about an inexperienced leader named Charlie. He shows up to work early and stays late. He’s motivated to move from an individual contributor into his first front-line leader role, but he’s not sure how to make that happen. He’s getting grief from his wife for working weekends, and his heavy workload doesn’t ever seem to ease up. How can he move into a leadership role if he’s buried in his current role?

Charlie’s organization is offering a course on Leading with Emotional Intelligence and his boss is encouraging him to attend the class. Charlie feels conflicted. According to his research, if Charlie puts this training in the form of a goal that has a useful future orientation, he is more likely to get the results he is looking for, rather than to put the goal in some prevention connotation.

Research published in the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies (Sadler, T., Gibson, S., Reysen, S. (2017), reports the effect of a leadership training program on consideration of future consequences. (Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 10(4), 35-42.)

To operationalize this a bit, let’s say that you have a team of leaders who are all functional experts; Human Resources, Engineering, Information Technology, Sales, Manufacturing, Marketing, Finance and so on. This team, in the past, while getting along personally, has conformed to operating in silos. Each person does a great job of representing their own function to the face of the organization, but as a team, they struggle to get the synergy that will propel them to the next level.

The sales leader was always trying to maximize sales and didn’t understand why Marketing couldn’t supply the customer segmentation data fast enough. And why did it take Engineering so long to get the prototype built and delivered to the client? Engineering, on the other hand, was frustrated with Supply Chain who just couldn’t get realistic estimates on how much materials were actually going to cost.

The president of the organization, realizing the leaders were all doing a great job of representing their individual role, needed to function better as a team. She was encouraged by a colleague to explore the idea of a training program that would focus on team building.

But would it be successful? Would the organization get synergy from the team development so that the return on the investment would be positive for shareholders?

A good question. A fair question.

Turns out the data is a little mixed on what should be expected.

A Little Background

It is no secret that organizations spend billions of dollars every year on training people in their organizations. Everything from skill-based training, like how to weld two pieces of metal together, or how to write computer code. Then, from more leadership-oriented topics like Leading with Emotional Intelligence or Writing Your Own Leadership Story, to team building events.

Whether the training is skill-based or cultivating leadership in our organizations, the question always surfaces as to what is the return on investment.  There is research that can help us determine if leadership type training is effective in helping leaders meet their goals. But it depends…

Goal Type

It turns out that when it comes to goals, leaders pursue attainment using one of two strategies:

1. Promotion: concentrating the efforts of achievement on positive proactive and productive results.

2. Prevention: targeting efforts on avoiding negative outcomes.

Let’s revisit our friend, Charlie. If his orientation is more to prevent something bad from happening or toward thwarting a negative future response, then his success in the training and as a future leader is in question.

How can Charlie (or his boss) orientate the training as to get a more successful outcome for him as a leader? If Charlie says to himself, “I want to take this leadership training because it will help me be a better coach and mentor to others in the organization someday,” then the aspect to his goal attainment has shifted.

Charlie is moving from individual contributor to organizational leader, and that is what is going to help him get what he wants.

How are you orienting the goals of folks in your organization?  Are you creating a positive, futuristic orientation of hope for the future, or are you trying to prevent failure?

The orientation of our thinking matters!

Oh, Those One-On-One Meetings….

Recently, I have been rereading CS Lewis’s autobiography, “Surprised by Joy.” If you have not tackled this one, I highly recommend spending some time with it. Lewis has a unique way of really opening my eyes to some fascinating ideas and contrasts. One that struck me was his approach to European poetry. For a long time, there was an order that the greats were to be read, like the Iliad and Sohrab (in that order). Lewis approached the reading of these classics and made this observation:

“It does not matter at what point you first break into the system of European poetry. Only keep your ears open and your mouth shut and everything will lead you to everything else in the end.”

I thought, what a powerful message for leaders. Keep your ears open, have some empathy, keep your mouth shut, display some impulse control, and everything will work out for you in the end. 

How many times do we not do that? We get mad, spout off, stop listening, have no impulse control, and then make bad decisions and are filled with regret. 

Sometimes leadership is about patience, humility, and relationships. Maybe MOST of the time leadership is about these things. 

Linking Lewis to Leadership

As I was reading the above section in Lewis’s autobiography, I was wondering where leaders could work to apply the lesson of “keeping your ears open and your mouth shut”. I had even done some journaling around this and nothing was coming to me.

Then I had a call with one of my coaching clients, who wanted to discuss his approach to one-on-one meetings with people on his team. 

When I probed him about the genesis of his question, he lamented that he and his direct reports just didn’t have that much to discuss. Especially to warrant an hour every week or two.  He felt up-to-date on their progress by the emails he received. And he felt the meetings were a bit forced and awkward.

As we continued our discussion, it became apparent to me that this leader was focused very much on the tactical outcome of his one-on-ones. This is the “what” conversation is all about. In this part of the conversation, the person on the team focuses specifically on the tasks they are working on, “what” they are doing.

What I noticed might be missing in the conversation were some of the weightier opportunities for “how” his leaders were acting, “how” they were making choices, and “how” they were motivating and inspiring the teams that report to them. Then second after “how” is “why” they were doing what they were doing. “Why” did they make a certain decision, and “why” did they think a particular action was motivational or inspirational?

These more strategic elements of a conversation take some curiosity on the part of the leader. If the leader has a good question around “what” the associate is doing, then they can implement Lewis’s idea of opening your ears and shutting your mouth. 

One on One Philosophies

After we finished this discussion on having productive one-on-one conversations he asked if I had any philosophies on the one-on-one meeting. 

 I do indeed have some philosophies on one-on-ones. Every good philosophy should have a pillar or two on which it is built. So let me offer this as the anchor to my take on the one-on-one meeting.

Philosophical Pillar: People need to feel connected to their supervisors.

The one-on-one meeting is the opportunity for you to connect the associate to yourself and the organization. This is where you build your relational trust. So your focus and undivided attention are necessary for the associate to feel heard and understood. 

Rules of Engagement

I think to build trust, you need to have some rules or boundaries. These need to be communicated to the associate. 

You can set your own rules, just keep in mind the philosophical pillar and ensure the rules you set along with your philosophy.

Here are my 4 rules for engagement in one-on-one meetings:

• Associate sets the agenda. If the supervisor has a need they should set up a separate meeting.

• If the subordinate has nothing to update, then they cancel the meeting. The supervisor never cancels the meeting, they can only reschedule and it has to be within 1 working day. Too many canceled meetings mean that I am not building the kind of trust I need to be effective as a leader.

• For the subordinate, I suggest 4 types of one-on-one meetings. Alternating between these types helps to prevent the meetings from being monotonous. 

• I like a weekly meeting cadence, alternating between the 4 types. 

4 Types of one-on-one meetings

1. Project updates- Usually occur biweekly

2. Professional Development- Occurs monthly or every other month

3. People update- Occurs monthly or every other month

4. Strategic Vision-Quarterly

So it might look something like this as it is implemented:

Week 1- Project update

Week 2- People update

Week 3-Professional Development

Week 4- Strategic Vision

Week 5-Project update

Week 6-People update

Week 7-Professional Development

Week 8-Project Update

Week 9-People Update

Week 10-Professional Development

Week 11-Project Update

Week 12-Strategic Vision

The Leader sets the expectation

I think the most important thing to remember is that you as a leader need to set the expectation for what these meetings need to look like. Then turn the implementation of the meeting over to your associate. If you give them the big picture and the framework, you then have the capacity to open your ears and really listen to the associate. Helping them feel valued and heard is a big part of what your leadership is all about.

Three Ways to Improve Communication in a Hybrid Work World

Omicron.

Like it or not we are all either learning the Greek alphabet for the first time or being reminded of a time when we first tried to master the 24 letters.

Whether Omicron wreaks havoc on society or fizzles out as fast as it came, our virtual work world seems to be here to stay. One thing the Coronavirus pandemic has caused organizations to rethink is how work is done. What people do has remained pretty consistent, but how they get it done has made some seismic shifts, causing in part what some are calling a “talent migration.” 

From my vantage point, an overwhelming part of the great talent migration has to do with workplace flexibility. I also think that this movement is away from what we all knew as a traditional flex model to hybrid work. In the traditional flex model, an employee could work (wink, wink) a day or so from home when needed. Some organizations even went as far as to declare a specified ‘work from home’ day. The shift that employees are asking for, or perhaps even requiring, is that they want to work from home indefinitely, or want to only come into an office only when absolutely necessary.

This shift is only in its infancy as workers reprioritize what is important in their lives. Organizations need to brace themselves for new levels of competition and not having as much talent around to compete. 

At the end of the day, what will win this tug of war is the culture of the organization. Those organizations with great cultures will have much less migration than those that merely think they have a great culture. 

There will always be a story of a person who leaves and triples his/her salary. I think we all tip our hat to them and say “good for you.” However, as leaders, let's not be fooled into thinking that people always leave for money. 

Employees want to be fairly compensated for what they do. The leadership and cultural battle is going to be waged not on what the associate is asked to do, but on how they can do it.

I think the call for us as leaders is to engage strategic thinking around flexible, hybrid work. In leadership, the future belongs to the curious and flexible. Those who can engage a growth mindset, be curious about what the talent is looking for, and be agile with the changing business landscape will evolve and win. 

Those with a fixed mindset may get their way. The question is for how long. 

Like it or not, hybrid work is here to stay, in some form or fashion. Even long after all the Greek SARs viruses have mutated away or herd immunity is achieved, some mix of working from home for knowledge workers is a new reality.

Like many of you, I have had to learn to adapt to this new business reality. Everything from virtual doctor appointments, to picking out tile for a remodeled bathroom, to individual and group coaching sessions have gone from face-to-face interactions to a virtual environment. I am realizing that no matter how much I want work to go back to the way it was before COVID, it will not.

Since I am imploring leaders to have a growth mindset around hybrid work, I have been challenging myself to see what encouragement I could offer to enhance the skills of leaders to retain talent. This has led me to observe how people are interacting virtually. 

Most of us have gotten past some of the initial communication disruptions like dogs barking in the background, or cats climbing on keyboards, or people walking in the background of a video chat. The struggle has become about being more effective with people when you are not in the same room.

Three Ways to Improve Communication in a Hybrid Work World

1. Focus on Energy. Judith Glaser in her book "Conversational Intelligence" encourages leaders to make communication about the exchange of energy and not information. She calls this Transformational Communication and it is a Share-Discover model versus an Ask-Tell dynamic. When you focus on the energy in the conversation, you create space by exploring others' perspectives, innovating, and creating. As a leader, you move from listening to the other person to protect yourself and your idea to instead listening to ensure you connect with the other person and they feel heard. The skill to develop here as a leader is for you to ask questions you don’t have answers to and to help the other person feel heard.
   

2. Principle of Physicality. This is a term I coined some years ago when working with sales professionals who had to be ready at a moment's notice to communicate with a customer. Pay attention to your physical environment. Get some good feedback from others on what your physical environment looks like on a video call.

   1. What is your background? It doesn’t have to be perfect; it should be professional.

   2. How is your camera positioned; are you looking at it or is it pointing down at the top of your head? 

   3. What kind of lighting do you have? If you are not well lit, people can't see you and it is hard to develop the energy needed.

   4. How are you connecting with audio? Can you maintain a consistent audio connection for an entire call?
      

3. Give Trust. Many of us, with a new hybrid model, are going to have to rethink what trust means to us. The employment agreement we have had with folks has always been built on trust. The difference is we thought as long as we were coming into an office and could see them that they were working. With the knowledge workers of today, leaders need to learn to set clear expectations for what and how work is to be approached and then trust that people are doing it. If there is a problem or a gap, then create psychological safety to address the gap. Don’t fall into the trap that the performance gap is the hybrid work model. You don’t know this gap would not have existed if the person was coming into an office every day. Remember, the employment agreement is still built on trust. As leaders, we may need to spend some time thinking about what this means for us. If assumptions in how people work are changing, what do we need to change to accommodate?

Flexibility is a significant part of a leader's emotional intelligence. Understanding and being flexible with how you feel about things prevents you from developing a fixed mindset. Stay open. Stay curious. If people are migrating away from your organization, work hard to find the real reason why.

Vacationing Well & Returning Better

I hope you enjoyed your time away over the Thanksgiving holiday!

Please enjoy this rerun from a couple of years ago when I intended to take a vacation, but instead worked the entire time. Maybe some of you can relate…

If there is one thing I am known for as an executive coach, it is ensuring my clients hear this clear message: when you are on vacation, you are resting.

There has been a lot of work done to show that we are actually able to perform better when we are practicing good self-care. Part of good self-care is that we learn how to rest.

I really love how Parker Palmer puts it, “Self-care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give it the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves but for the many others whose lives we touch.”

OUCH.  That one hurts me personally. So much so that I think I need to apologize to all of you who trust me as a coach and in the work of developing the leaders in your organization.

Why?

Because I just had a “vacation” and instead of resting, I worked.

Usually, when I am on vacation I will catch up on a lot of reading, reflecting, and journaling. Mostly how I rest is that I will have fun with my wife and my friends and family, we play golf, go out for dinner, and play games.

This last vacation I took, I did the second thing; spent time with friends and family playing golf and board games.

What I did not do was spend any time reflecting or reading or journaling.

Instead, I had client calls, and planning meetings, and workshop preparation. 

DANG! Why did I do that?

In his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazzero calls this out as the importance of silence and solitude. He found in his own leadership journey how important this was, not only when taking chunks of time out, like a vacation, but integrating silence and solitude as part of his daily routine. Scazzero writes that he slowed the pace of his life down from working six days a week (about 70 hours) to five days and 40 hours. Over the years, this slowing down has given him time for solitude and reflection.  

The counter-intuitive aspect of this is not always obvious - that this slowing down is actually something that can help us go faster. It can clear our minds. It can refresh us. 

The parallel for me is sleep. When I get a good night’s sleep of 8 hours, I am ready to take on my day. If for some reason I only sleep 4 hours, I am groggy and sluggish the rest of the day. 

While that is an example of a 24-hour cycle; when we put our weeks and months together the logic is the same. 

Rest And Emotional Regulation

By now most of you know the story of the part of our brain called the amygdala. It is the sight of emotional learning and emotional memory. It is the part of the brain’s fear circuit and can trigger things like anger and aggression. When you do not rest enough, or well, this part of your brain doesn’t get the reset it needs from all the day’s activity.

Research has shown that sleep-deprived people show a 60 percent greater activation of the amygdala during waking hours than those who are not sleep-deprived. In his book, Successful Aging, Daniel Levitin writes that “when your mom told you that you were crabby when you didn’t get enough sleep, she was probably right.” (As a side note, Levitin states that sleep deprivation is strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease.)

The same kind of rest we need every night is needed in more of a yearly pattern as well. As leaders, we need to be able to disengage, to be silent, to think, to become distracted. There is energy in this when we reengage. It is like waking up from a good night’s rest and having your Mom say, “Wow! Look at you! You sure on in a good mood. You must have had a good night’s sleep!”

Remedy

Edgar Schein, in his book Humble Inqury, makes a most salient point in this area when it comes to the real problem. All of this busyness affects our ability to regulate emotion and gets us into a state of mindless hurrying. Schein writes, “If I hurry I do not pay enough attention to what is going on, and that makes mistakes more likely.”

DANG!

Why didn’t I just take my vacation and disengage so I could be in a frame to reduce mistakes? It all seems so simple.

More importantly, perhaps, then not paying attention is that I may miss new opportunities that are right in front of me. Because I am not rested, I mindlessly hurry by them.

For me, I agree with Schein in that learning how to run faster is not where I need to be in my life, but that I need to slow down in order to make sure I have my full thinking and observational mind available to me and can take “full stock of reality.”

My next vacation is scheduled over the Christmas holiday. Please know I will not be available. But also know that when I come back in January, you will get a better version of me. 

Beyond Thanks-Giving

A few weeks ago my wife and I decided to watch A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood on Amazon Prime Video. I don’t have a lot of specific childhood memories about watching the show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, that the movie is based on. I find this sort of strange because I watched a significant amount of television as a youngster. I just don’t have the memories of the show like I do when watching, say, Ferguson Jenkins throw the first pitch for the Chicago Cubs at 1:05 pm on a specific day. I probably should have some impactful memories because Mr. Rogers Neighborhood launched nationally in the US in 1968, and I was 7 years old, but I do not. 

My wife, on the other hand, has very vivid memories of the show. She loved the puppet characters Fred developed in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe and the messages delivered to kids on how to be kind, how to respect others, and how to be grateful. 

So, when we watched Tom Hanks portray Mr. Rogers in the movie, I was captivated by Fred Rogers' kindness. If I did have a memory of Fred Rogers before that, if I am honest, I would have said he was weak. 

I was so wrong.

There is a scene in the movie where the filming of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is being produced. After the shot, Fred walks backstage to see the video. “That's good,” he says. And then he thanks everyone for their work. It just struck me that these folks were all just doing their jobs and yet he took the time to thank them and I got the sense he meant it to the point that they felt valued. In another scene, he thanks a guy who has a different perspective than his. He does not argue with the guy, does not try to convince him to see it his way, but he just thanks him for sharing his perspective.  

As someone who works with leaders on emotional intelligence, this was riveting theater!

Put this genuine kindness (which is displayed throughout the entire movie) Fred exudes, with this scene in a diner where Fred is having lunch with a guy who has lots of problems. The guy describes himself as “broken.”

The guy says to Fred, “You love people like me.”

Fred: “What are people like you? I’ve never met anyone like you in my entire life?”

Guy: “Broken people.”

Fred: “I don’t think you are broken. I know you are a man of conviction. A man who knows the difference between what is wrong and what is right….”

What strikes me about all of this is that, at least as Tom Hanks portrays him, Fred Rogers had this genuine empathic perspective for people. For individual people. It seems to me his goal was not to be right, or to be powerful, or to be famous. It seems that Fred Rogers just wanted to understand where others were coming from.

What I noticed as I watched this movie was that Fred Rogers was more than just thankful. Instead, he had a spirit of gratitude. While we often use these words interchangeably in our lexicon, I have started to see them differently. Very much like I am understanding there to be a difference between happiness and joy. 

Happiness is contextual and can change moment by moment. Joy is an attitude, a state of mind. 

Shawn Taylor, in his chapter in the book titled The Gratitude Project summed up quite well how I am coming to see the difference between thankfulness and gratitude:

“A ‘thanks’ is about courtesy. It is acknowledging that someone has done something for you. I also feel like thankfulness is outwardly focused. I experience it as being transactional. On the other hand, gratitude is simultaneously inwardly and outwardly focused. You appreciate what’s been done to or for you, you appreciate the person or thing for providing you with the assistance or experience, and you recognize how they have made your life better, even if it is just for a moment.”

Giving thanks is contextual and transactional. Gratitude is an attitude of the heart and a state of mind. 

You can give thanks and not be grateful. If you are grateful, you are always finding ways to give thanks. Perhaps this is something to reflect on for the Thanksgiving tradition this year?

Around our Thanksgiving tables this year, what if rather than focusing on what we feel is right, or what we believe, we instead tried to understand where others were coming from? Don’t defend yourself. Don’t argue. Resist being proud or smart or right. Just try to understand the other person and be grateful they are in the room with you. 

For many of us, me included, this takes a change in what we think AND how we act.

As I reflect on this I am reminded of what C.S. Lewis writes,

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird. It would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

The choice for us as leaders is to grow or go bad. Trying to fly as an egg or hatch into a bird seems to be the choice Lewis is saying we have.

Richard Rohr writes,

"You do not think yourself into a new way of living as much as you live yourself into a new way of thinking.” As leaders, if we want to learn to have a heart of gratitude we must start living that way. You can think, and plan, and strategize all you want. It will do you no earthly good in going from an egg to a bird. Nor will it help you grow wings on your shell. You have to crack open the shell and fly.”

Are you curious about how to do this - how to act so you learn how to think?

I might suggest a model for you to consider. What about Fred Rogers? Why not make watching A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood part of your Thanksgiving tradition? I know you will be blessed. I also guarantee it will motivate you to have a heart of gratitude. 

If anything, it has to do more for your development as a human than watching the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day. 

4 Proven Ways to Get Out of a Rut

As a professional coach, I have been on the receiving end of many questions throughout the years. One that I’ve heard over, and over, and over, sounds something like this: “Scott, I am in such a rut right now. Any ideas on how to get out?"

The idea of being in a rut is an interesting one.

Wagon-Stuck-Road-Bad

What is a rut?

The phrase "stuck in a rut" is said to have originated in the early 1800’s as settlers in America were moving west. The wooden wheels of the wagons they were pulling would get caught in holes or very deep grooves that were carved in the common path being traveled. If your wagon got stuck in a rut, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to pull out and continue the journey.

Today the phrase “stuck in a rut” has a different meaning but similar feeling to it. The feeling of being buried, bored, not motivated, stagnant, or even monotony.  I would estimate that 25% of the coaching I do is with clients who feel like they are in this deep pit and cannot seem to find a way out.

How Do Leaders get Out of a Rut?

Here are four strategies you can use to get out of a rut. I would recommend picking one and see if it works for you. As with all the recommendations we make, there are no guarantees. If something is not working for you try a different approach or a new strategy.

Rest

It is possible for us to feel like we are in a rut when really what we are is tired. In our 24/7 world, where things are constantly coming at us, it is very easy to feel paralyzed and not know which direction to turn. It is like you have eight ropes tied around you and each one is pulling you a different direction. They all have the same amount of tension on them, so you cannot move. You are stuck and what really needs to happen is to release the tension.

Here are three things you can do to rest and relieve the tension so you can move again:

• Serious Play. Often times we think of play as being for children. However, research has shown that play for adults stimulates higher-order thinking. Play, in this sense, is a voluntary activity involving physical engagement of some type that is pleasurable for its own sake. Take a day and just go play. Do something you get a lot of pleasure out of. Resist feeling guilty or childish and just enjoy it. Reflect at the end of the day on how good you really feel. I find the feeling freeing, and a great way to release the tension.

• Sleep. You may flat out not be getting enough. Turn off the TV, iPad, or phone, and get 7 to 8 hours of sleep. If you are in a rut, track the amount of sleep you are getting. If you find you are not getting enough, take a nap. Close your door, schedule a meeting with yourself, and close your eyes for 20 or 30 minutes. It can be refreshing.

• Nature Walk. The walking part is relaxing in itself, and doing it in the woods, on a mountain, or on a beach can be an excellent way to relax. This practice will also help to use pent up energy and help you to sleep better at night.

Reflection

• Get Clear. Make a list of your priorities. Put them in order and start crossing them off. The physical aspect of seeing things crossed off will give you the sense that you are making progress out of the rut.

• Find a Friend. Support them. Focus on them. Don’t focus on yourself and your problem. I find that focusing on others and their problems, then trying to help them solve their issues, often helps me. Being an entrepreneur can at times be scary. Then I go serve a community meal at our local Care Center for people who literally don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and I realize that I really have nothing to fear.

• Start journaling. Then buy Shery Russ’s book The Journaling Life. Seriously, journaling is one of the single best things that leaders can do to keep themselves headed in the right direction. I would encourage you to not only journal what you think, and facts that have happened to you, but also to journal your feelings. Getting emotion out on the table is critical for releasing the stuck feeling.

Retreat

The idea of a retreat comes from an old French word meaning "a step backward."  The word took on a military connotation in the 14th century as an act of withdrawing from action. The reason for withdrawal was to regroup so you can re-engage the enemy again more powerfully than before. Many people I run into see retreat as weakness. Retreat is actually a way for the leader to regain their thoughts and engage their work again more powerfully.

• Personal Leadership Retreat. This idea is for you to get away by yourself for 2 to 4 hours to just think about where you have been, where you are now, and where you are heading in the future. I took a Personal Leadership Retreat in the past, and created a video chronicle of my experience and what I learned. You can view it here. If you don't know how to do a retreat this video will give you some ideas on how you could do your own Leadership Retreat.

• Read Your Bible. One way to retreat when you don't have time to get away for four hours is to take a 20- minute retreat with an inspiring book. The book I turn to most often for inspiration is the Bible. The Bible is, year in and year out, the best-selling book in the world. However, most people just do not spend enough time gleaning inspiration from this masterpiece. One of the verses I turn to most often is Colossians 3:23.

• Try Fiction. Reading or watching a TV series can be a great way to step back, relax, and prepare to re-engage. My wife and I like to take a retreat of sorts. In the evenings, we watch the series Alias on Netflix. The show stars Jennifer Garner and has a spy theme with interesting twists and turns. We call it "mindless", but it helps sometimes to just relax and be mindless so that the next day I am more prepared to engage my world.

Reprogram

You got into this rut by a certain path. If you are going to get out, you may need to do something different that will reposition your perspective. This reframing can be difficult for a couple of reasons: First, leaders may believe that the path they were traveling is right, ergo the rut is on the right path. Second, even when leaders acknowledge they are on the wrong path, being in the rut feels safer than any change they may need to make to get on the right path.

Here are three things you can do to reprogram yourself out of the rut:

• Get on a new path. Start innovating. Don’t worry about success or failure. Develop an attitude to let go of the outcome and just focus on the quality of the input.

• Stick your hand up. Let others help pull you out. Start collaborating. Collaboration is an intentional sharing of ideas, which requires give and take, and at times some real humility. Just talking about what path you want to be on can be of great value and begin to extract you from the hole. Walter Isaacson, in his excellent chronicle of how the digital age came to be, made this observation, “Brilliant individuals who could not collaborate tend to fail." Don’t fail. You are smart enough! Reach out, collaborate, and do it with some intentional frequency.

• Take a risk. Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith is famous for saying “fail forward fast." I am really enjoying a book right now titled Fail Fast, Fail Often. In it the authors provide some very practical advice on how to break free from habitual behaviors that may have you in a rut, and to trust your enthusiasm for a new venture. I know I have said it before, but I do think it is worth repeating: as leaders, we need to let go of outcomes and focus on quality inputs.

Homework: Get out of your rut by trying one of the suggested methods of Rest, Reflection, Retreat, or Reprogram.  Let us know which one you try this week in the comments below.

What To Do When Your Business Vision Is Stuck

Years ago, I worked with a business leader who had an incredible vision for his organization. He was a passionate leader with excellent communication skills and energy for his mission. He was intellectually and morally solid and cared deeply for the people in his organization.

But he was stuck.

His organization just couldn’t grow the business past a certain industry-standard metric. However, the stagnation issue became evident as we looked over some feedback provided by his peers. One of the interview questions I ask the peers of my clients (as a routine part of my data gathering) was, "What is the vision this leader has for the organization?" After several interviews, the collective response was, “The vision is very clear, but we have no idea what steps we need to take to get started. It is like he has been dreaming of this his entire life and we are catching it for the first time."

As I presented this feedback to the leader and we processed the data together, his knee-jerk reaction was “We don’t have time to wait for them to process this. The time is now! They need to get on board or get out of the way. We are going to miss our opportunity. The timing is just right!"

So I asked,“Is it their lack of urgency, or could it be something else?”

After processing with him for a while, we discovered there was not a lack of urgency on the part of the organization. There was, however, a lack of emotional connection between the leader and his team. The urgency that the leader was feeling for vision implementation and change was being offset by his lack of emotional connection competency of patience. People in the organization need the time to absorb, process, and own the vision themselves.

Patience is devoting the appropriate time and attention to others in ways that enhance meaningful interaction.

Patience is suspending your personal need for satisfaction and action.

Patience seeks to slow down those fast-paced exchanges with others in order to facilitate better decision-making.

Patience is not racing ahead in thought process while missing information that others are endeavoring to share.

Patience is not wasting the opportunities to encourage, inspire, and motivate others.

In leader development, it is always important to keep perspective on a leader who is not connecting emotionally with his team. Without this emotional connection, it is virtually impossible to have the social intelligence needed to achieve organizational effectiveness.

There are a number of reasons a follower may choose to align with a leader. Fully committing to the vision of the leader is a quintessential desire that followers have. What they receive in return for committing to the vision of the leader is an emotional connection with that leader.

In our case study above, the leader has a choice. He can either move forward with his urgency and risk losing his entire vision. Or he can proactively slow down and take the time to encourage, inspire, and motivate his people. By embracing patience and connecting emotionally with his team, he can catapult the vision to the next level with everyone on board.

How are you connecting emotionally with your team? I’d love to hear your comments.

How Does Risk Affect Your Team’s Performance?

Do you think risk and reward go together? Or is the reward is an outcome of risk, not a partner in the dynamic interplay of teams? Let's say someone on your team is driven by risk and we suppose they are carefree. Someone else on the team is risk-averse and we categorize them as wary. Now the team has to make a decision on a product or how to put a presentation together. The carefree person wants to go for it. The wary person wants to hold back. Depending on team dynamics, the team may find themselves out of balance or even stuck. As a result, emotions rise, people stop understanding each other and often begin looking for blame.

The stuck feeling the team is experiencing has nothing to do with talent or skill. The team is not performing in the moment because they all have a different tolerance for risk. Risk brings with it, as change does, a certain emotional tone and tenor. We each have a tolerance for risk. As that tolerance becomes challenged, our emotion, anxiety, and fear can all increase. The we feel the less risky something is to us.

There are 8 different types of risk profiles. As a leader, understanding these risk types will help you navigate team dynamics and maximize the risk profiles of each member on your team.

8 RISK TYPES

Excitable

At the root of this is impulsivity and an attraction to risk, combined with distress and regret if things go wrong. This type tends to be passionate and fluctuates between excited-enthusiasm and pessimistic-negativity. Such people are both frightened and excited by their impulsiveness. They are likely to respond emotionally to events and react strongly to disappointment or unexpected moments.

Intense

Those who fall into this dimension tend to be anxious and worrisome. People in this risk type expect the worst, they are high-strung and alert to any risk or threat to their wellbeing. They are emotionally invested in their decisions and commitments and take it personally when things don’t work out. They tend to be very passionate about things, but their mood can swing drastically from day to day.

Wary

Characterized by a combination of self-discipline and concern about risk, these are cautious, organized people who highly prioritize security. They are likely to be alert to the risk aspect of any investment opportunity before pressing into any potential benefits. These people have a strong desire to know exactly what to expect, and, as a result, may find it difficult to make decisions.

Prudent

Those in the prudent risk type have a high-level of self-control. This type is organized, systematic, and conforming. Conservative and conventional in their approach, such people prefer continuity to variety and are most comfortable operating within established and familiar procedures. They are generally very cautious and suspicious of any new ventures and may find reassurance in sticking with what they know.

Deliberate

These individuals have high-levels of calm self-confidence combined with caution. This type tends to be unusually low-key, even in situations where most people would panic. At times, they seem almost too accepting of risk and uncertainty. However, they are often well balanced by a desire to do things in a planned and systematic way. Because they are highly organized, compliant, and like to be fully informed about what is going on, they are unlikely to walk into anything unprepared.

Composed

This type is cool-headed, calm, and unemotional, but at the extreme may seem almost oblivious to risk. Their outlook will always be optimistic. These people take everything in stride and appear to manage stress very well. They are not particularly impulsive but are also not overly organized or systematic.

Adventurous

At the root of this risk type is a combination of impulsiveness and fearlessness. Extreme examples of this type are people who have a disregard for custom, tradition, or convention. They are seemingly oblivious to risk. Their decision-making is likely to be influenced by both their lack of anxiety and their impulsiveness.

Carefree

Those in this category dislike repetitive routine and do not like being told what to do. Such people may seem excitement-seeking and, in extreme cases, reckless. Lack of attention to detail and preparation may cause their intentions and objectives to seem vague. Their impatience, impulsivity, and distractibility sometimes leave them exposed to hasty decisions.

These risk types all come from an assessment that is published by Multi-Health Systems called Compass Risk Type. The tool is designed to assess the individual risk type of each person on a team and then give the team a picture as a whole. As we design workshops around this Compass Risk Type Indicator it is always interesting for a team to look at a current issue they face, and each other’s Risk Type, and work through possible solutions.

There is potential for risk in almost everything we do, and there are many different factors that influence a person’s readiness to take a risk at any particular moment. As leaders, we must be aware of the way those on our team interpret and respond to risk, beginning with ourselves.

The next time your team is stuck in making a decision, look at the list of risk-types and ask if the source of the stall could be attributed to a different approach to risk.

Leaders, Avoid These 5 Coaching Mistakes

As an executive coach, a common question I have to work through at the beginning of a new coaching engagement is

“Am I working with the right person?”

There are two reasons I find myself asking this question:

1. The person I am working with seems to be just as talented as their supervisor.

2. The people I coach are really good at what they do. They are technical experts in their field.

It doesn’t take me long to answer my own question. Yes, I am working with the right person. The higher you go in organizations, everyone is talented (for the most part) and the people are experts in their field. However, this does not mean they are experts in leadership.

Most of my coaching is helping to groom people for higher levels of leadership. Often there is some tactical, behavioral development that needs to occur.

It is the idea that Marshall Goldsmith writes about in his book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

I have had over 750 hours of coaching experience in the last 3 years and I have noticed something very interesting.

We all make mistakes.

Not a revelation, I know, but to me it is an interesting observation. Why? Because I wonder where organizations might be if not for the common mistakes I see them making in regard to coaching their leaders.

• Would turnover decrease?

• Would we unleash talent?

• Would customers have more delight?

• Would we ensure a solid foundation for future generations?

Enough Philosophy

Here are 5 coaching mistakes I observe. As you reflect on these mistakes, ask yourself what traps you might be falling into.

1. Confusing your needs with the needs of the person being coached
   
   Depending on your level of leadership, you are responsible for coaching your team to make one or more of the following connections:
   

   1. The mission of the organization to the vision

   2. The purpose of the organization to the mission

   3. The values you aspire to the purpose

   4. The guiding principles to the values

   5. The strategy to the guiding principles

   6. The tactics to the strategy

   7. Individual behaviors that implement tactics
      

   Let’s be honest, most of our coaching focuses on the last one. We are so in the weeds trying to control others that we often lose sight of what the person really needs.
   
   Rather than focusing always on whether or not they are “doing” things exactly as you want them, perhaps you need to go back and connect them to something that has more depth and meaning.
   
   I believe that most people get up in the morning and really want to do a good job for the company. Too many of us as leaders can not get out of our own way. We feel if we are not “doing,” we are not working.
   
   Before you coach someone, step back and ask yourself “What is really going on here? What does this person need from me today?"
   

2. You say it (or yell it) and they produce
   
   I wrote about this one in my book a few years back 7 Secrets of an Emotionally Intelligent Coach.
   
   We live in such a fast paced world that we lose our sense of time. We have instant access to so many things today that 10 or 20 years ago might have taken weeks or months. I no longer have to go through an administrative assistant or send a letter to see if someone can meet with me. I knock out an email or send a text and have a response, often 5 minutes after I sent it.
   
   I heard best selling author, John Townsend, (author of Boundaries, and other great books) give a great analogy the other day. He said it is like standing in front of an apple tree and yelling at the fruit to grow faster; all because the leader wants bigger or more fruit.
   
   Some things just don’t work this way. Some things take time to grow, develop, and mature, no matter how fast you want them.
   
   I recommend you spend some time doing what psychologists call “attuning” with your folks. The idea is to bring into harmony; to tune. The skill required is to connect with others at a deeper and more vulnerable level. This goes beyond being nice or friendly to really be able to listen well and understand the emotions and motivations that are the foundations for behavior.
   
   People will do amazing things for leaders they feel connected with.
   

3. This is their personality so they will always behave this way
   
   I have just about had it with personality profiling. All of them. From Myers-Briggs, to Insights, to the Enneagram, PDI, Horoscopes.
   
   What we are learning about human personality is that it is contextual. No one person is one way all the time.
   
   Those of you who love personality tests, especially those who are certified on them, will say that your model talks about how we need to be flexible and that this is an important aspect.
   
   Right. And if we need to flex, then we are not one way all the time.
   
   The problem is, as leaders, we put people in boxes. We create implicit biases around what people can and can not do based upon their level of introversion or extroversion. We judge, we label, we categorize, and way too often, we are dead wrong.

   
   According to Adam Grant, a leader in the psychology field out of the University of Pennsylvania, the statistical reliability and validity data around these assessments are just not strong enough to do with them the kinds of things organizations do.
   
   As coaches, we need to stop making judgments on personality and understand the context the person is. None of us is always a certain way. Let’s get in and coach people to understand more of what is at the root of what they are doing, not doing, or more likely doing, just not the way you want them too.
   

4. The person being coached is a robot
   
   Just because you run 24/7/365 and are always on, doesn’t mean everyone else is or that it is healthy. We have to start thinking more about corporate health, or better yet, the health of the people who work for us.
   
   How are you coaching your team to take better care of themselves?
   
   How are you modeling this behavior?
   
   If you give someone who already has a full place more to do, how are you helping them prioritize the work? They can not begin to know what is in your mind regarding how they should plan to deliver without your coaching and insights.
   
   Let’s remember that the people we are working with are just that: people.
   
   They have families and other communities outside of work. They have spouses, parents, and kids. They have all kinds of relationships they care about and care for. So, if someone on your team has a family member pass away, they are going to need time to mourn this loss. Just because they are back at work in 3 days (which is a travesty) doesn’t mean they are all the way back. If someone just got a diagnosis of liver cancer, for crying out loud, they are really not thinking about when they will have that report on your desk.
   
   Sure, you have a job to do. I get it. A lot of people are depending on you to drive results. But really, come on…just have a heart.
   

5. Your way is always the best way
   
   This one is a real mindset shift. It takes:
   

   1. Self-Awareness - Realize you don’t know what you don’t know. You might be really far removed from reality.

   2. Self-Regulation - Allow yourself the ability to think and not emotionally react.

   3. Humility - You don’t know everything so how can you get curious with others and develop a learn as we go frame of mind.

   4. Trust - Let them experiment with new and different ways and approaches.
      

   This really is about how you can create a learning organization, one that inspires people to creativity and innovation. At the very least, if there is a prescriptive way for them to work, be open to hearing other ideas on how the work could be done. People they will be more engaged if they know you want to hear their ideas.

As I reflect on this list, I realize it is very relationally focused.

That is because most of the time we hire smart, talented, skilled people who want to do a good job.

Therefore, it is the relationship with the leader that inhibits performance.

Humble thought.

Maintaining Emotional Balance, Even When Things Go Bad

In every organization, there are sometimes big changes and it can be hard to maintain emotional balance through each situation. You may be thinking, “Sure, it is easy to use the tools you mention when things are going well, but what happens when things go bad?” Just because there are changes that may affect your position, it does NOT require that it affects your emotions in a negative way.

Several situations could be categorized as difficult for leaders to work through: downsizing, merging, restructuring, relocating, new leadership, project failure, ethical and moral failure, just to name a few. Basically, any situation involving a change that does not give you a positive feeling. These situations don't have to be awful, but they encompass any kind of change that takes you out of your normal routine, which can make them difficult.

When there has been a breakdown in your company, it doesn’t feel good. Tensions are high and people are on edge emotionally. Realizing the emotion exists and not allowing the negativity to drag you down is the skill. This is emotional resilience. Bad things are going to happen.

How can you as a leader work on your own resilience to be able to lead others to see a brighter day ahead?

The first step in being a resilient leader in times of tension and complexity is to be aware of and manage your emotion. In an issue of Leadership Quarterly, Laura Little, Janaki Gooty, and Michelle Williams take on the topic of "the role of leader emotional management." The authors studied 163 leaders and their followers and concluded that when followers perceive that the leader was managing emotion, focusing on meeting expectations, and creating a future, followers felt better about the leadership being provided. Conversely, when followers perceive that leaders modulate or suppress their emotion, there is a lack of leadership and job satisfaction on the part of the follower.

What can you do as a leader to create better leadership in times of tension and complexity? How can you focus on meeting expectations while creating hope and a future for your followers when times are tough?

Here is a simple acronym that can help you stay in CHECK during difficult situations:

Consider the Situation

Take note of what's going on and how it is affecting you, your relationships, and your team. Can you describe the situation clearly and objectively, then identify the emotion it brings up and why? Are your emotions creating false expectations that need to be managed?

Hear from Others

Who are two or three people you trust that can speak into the situation? Identify individuals inside and outside of what's going on that can help you think and act productively as you figure out what to do. Don't spend too much time doing this, or else you become subject to the opinions of too many people and fall into a pit of gossip and negativity, which brings us to our “E."

Eliminate Negativity

This is easier said than done but necessary. Pessimism indicates that there's absolutely no hope or no solution to what's going on, and that's just simply not true. Whether it's coming from yourself or from others, be sure that what you are hearing and thinking will be constructive and productive. Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Association tells us we need to develop a “positive explanatory style." This is not “The Power of Positive Thinking” we all have heard about. It is much deeper than this. Seligman says, “What you think when you fail is crucial.“ How you explain things to yourself when they don’t go your way is the difference between helplessness and being energized.

Create a Plan - Organize and Carry Out

You've thought about it and talked about it, now it's time to decide what you will do about it. Start with the outcome you hope to have and work backward, documenting the steps you need to take to reach that outcome. The key here is to describe what success looks like to you before you implement the plan.

Keep Your Head Up - Stay Consistent, Present, and Motivated

We know it's not going to be easy, but no matter what happens you have the ability to take a deep breath, stay positive, and keep going. What are some things you can do to remove yourself from what's going on, clear your head, and rejuvenate yourself to stay in the game?

HOMEWORK

Think about this acronym and how you can apply to a difficult situation you are facing. Write CHECK on a note and stick it somewhere you can see it as a reminder of this process. When you see it, think about how you can apply it to the things causing tension for you and your organization.

Six Critical Ways To Develop Self-Awareness

We all know people who are mostly well meaning, but every once in a while they just seem to not be on the same planet as you. Here is what I mean…

My travel has picked back up a bit and I stayed last night at a Courtyard by Marriott. I like Courtyard okay, but the one thing about this hotel brand is they do not do self-serve coffee. At Courtyard, you have to order from a barista and they serve Starbucks, which is not my favorite coffee. My usual tactic is to order a Cafe Americano, which is a shot of espresso and hot water. Pretty simple.

I am next in line just about to give my order when over my left shoulder comes the person who is the point of this entire post. She doesn’t quite yell, but uses a rather loud and quite needy voice to wail, “Where is the self-service coffee?”

I had a few minutes to kill so I stepped aside, moving two steps to my right and giving her full access to the barista. The young girl serving the coffee explains to her that they do not have self-serve coffee, and I can sense the lady’s frustration growing.

She turns to me and says, “I know I am being rude, but I haven’t had any coffee yet.” (Like I hadn’t already figured that out..) “And I don’t like Starbucks, and the stuff they have in the room isn’t fit for human consumption.” As I stood trying to catch up on what had just happened, she turned on her heel and walked away.

On another planet, to say the least.

The line in the story I want to focus on is her statement, “I know I am being rude, but…”

My guess is that our villain in this story is probably a very nice person. That said, I do have to take a pause and ask myself this question: If we know we are being rude, why would we do it in the first place?

I boiled it down to three options:

1. Her needs at the moment outweigh mine.

2. She makes so much money per hour that waiting in line is literally costing her thousands of dollars.

3. She lacks self-awareness. Even though she acknowledged her rudeness, she doesn’t realize the impact of it.

Self-Awareness

Of my three options above, I’d like to focus on the third choice, because I think we see this in the organizations we work in all the time.

This is the person who knows they walk all over other people, but excuses it as “this is just who I am.” This person may have a strong sense of reality, but just doesn’t have the patience to be empathetic with others on the team. It is not that they don’t have a good idea or desire to hold someone accountable, it is that they see this as the entire mandate without having any care or concern for the other person.

The idea of self-awareness goes beyond knowing what you are doing in the moment and extends to what your leadership impact is in the future.

As a leader, how you show up and what you do in the present moment ought to be considered through the lens of how you want those who follow to respond to you now AND in the future. While the present is important, we cannot forget we will be leading in the future as well.

6 Long-term Self-Awareness Skills

Identifying your emotions and their impact on your actions.

It is not enough to know how you feel. You have to think about the impact on your actions. When someone drops a bomb on you, you must consider not only how you feel, but how those feelings are impacting your behaviors. Your behaviors in the moment are impacting your followers in the future.

Confidently expressing how you feel without relying on others.

As a leader you need to be confident in expressing your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. You also need to be aware of how your expressions will impact others beyond this present moment.

Creating vulnerability in your relationships.

People under your leadership need to know you are real. They need to know who you are. Research shows that for most people, trust is a slow-building, iterative, and layered process that happens over time. According to Dr. Brene Brown, vulnerability involves risk. This is exactly what the people who want to follow you are looking for.

Realizing how your emotions impact your decisions.

We are not always as rational as we desire to be. Stop and think for a moment about the last few decisions you had to make. Now think about the emotions that were involved in them. Did your emotions impact your decisions? Of course they did! But that is not the point. The point is for you to consider their impact on your decision making.

Recognizing your primary coping mechanisms.

Every leader needs coping mechanisms. We need ways to deal with the stress that naturally comes with our role. If you don’t have specific plans to deal with stress when it comes your way, you need one. Leaders who are self-aware can do more than just say they can cope with stress, they can communicate their plan for putting it into motion.

Prioritizing what gives you joy.

Do you know what you love? Do you know what brings you joy? Do you know what makes you happy? Good! Now, do you prioritize it? Before you say yes, take a moment to check your calendar or talk to those loved ones around you. Now, can you say you prioritize what brings you joy?

Metabolizing Negative Reality Like Defensiveness

Nobody likes bad news. Especially when the reality of what you are trying to process just does not line up with how you see things.

In my executive coaching practice, I am able to observe the above reality quite often through one of the tools that I use; the Interview 360.

When a new client signs up with me, one of the primary things they are trying to understand is how they are viewed in their organization by other folks. The second thing they are trying to gain awareness around is how the perceptions of others line up how they see themselves.

The Interview 360 is a tool that is meant to bring some clarity to the self-awareness of the leader.

The closer the leader’s self-awareness is to the perceptions of others, then we say there is a higher likelihood that how that leader thinks they show up is in fact what others are experiencing.

Leaders whose self-awareness is aligned with those in the organization have a pretty good idea of what their strengths are and they also have a keen idea of what their opportunities for growth might be.

Not all leaders I work with experience this level of alignment!

In collecting feedback for a leader, it becomes fairly easy to tell when a leader has made a mistake, or not treated others in a professional manner, or maybe they just don’t listen very well. The issues for misalignment can be vast and quite varied. Often they are contextual to certain types of organization relationships, like with direct reports or with peers.

When this misalignment occurs, the thing I hear most from the client I am working with is, “That was not my intention!”

This statement is then followed by some type of rationalization:

• I sure didn’t mean to react that way.

• I actually thought I had a mandate from leadership to do what I did.

• I am being penalized for my boss not showing up and leaving me exposed.

• My action was totally taken out of context, that is not who I am.

Defensiveness

Leaders often get charged with being defensive when situations like this occur. Defensiveness is a very typical immediate type of reaction. I never fault a client for being defensive initially.

The problem with a defensive posture in the long-run is that it inhibits the leader from being able to learn and grow from the precipitating event.

Likely, this defensiveness over the long term is a leader’s inability to metabolize negative reality.

At times, people struggle to completely understand the feedback they have received. Best selling author, John Townsend, says leaders who struggle in this area are really struggling with their ability to accept imperfection.

Leaders who maintain long-term defensives might be struggling with issues of embarrassment, shame, and even deep-seated narcissism. This defensiveness can wreak havoc with a leader’s self-confidence, their ability to tolerate stress, and even cause them to be much less trusting in previously trusted relationships.

Thermostat or Thermometer

As I am working with clients who are defensive in processing negative realities, an analogy that has worked for me is to challenge the leader to see themselves as a thermostat instead of a thermometer.

Leaders who act like thermometers allow their emotions to rise and fall based upon what they are feeling in the moment. When any of us receives feedback that creates a negative reality for us, this is a common occurrence. No one likes to be called out as an adult for behavior that is not valued by the organization, especially if this behavior has been rewarded in the past (If not overtly rewarded, at least not recognized and overlooked).

For most of us, these negative realities will fade a bit from our current memory, we become almost numb to the event. Compartmentalizing it as an isolated issue and covering it up with an “it really doesn’t bother me that much” band-aide.

Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere something will happen and the entire experience of the negative reality will come back to light. Perhaps someone gets a promotion that you were in line for, until the negative reality event. Or maybe you get passed over for a bonus you otherwise would have fully deserved! Then it is like a fire-cracker has been lit off inside you and your emotional temperature just skyrockets.

A very high-risk place for a leader to be.

The coaching I do with leaders who have experienced negative realities is to help them see themselves more as a thermostat rather than a thermometer. The goal here is for them to take an accurate account of the entire environment around them and then control the environment.

Thermometers measure the temperature in only one place and are a reflection of their environment. A thermostat has a much broader perspective of what is going on and can see a much bigger picture and then be more in control of the narrative.

How About You

Have you experienced any negative realities lately? Something not go your way? Did you get some feedback that maybe you didn’t agree with or that really set you back?

You have a choice in terms of how you respond. I think initially we are all a bit like thermometers. So give yourself some grace here. Then, as time goes on, the real challenge for you is are you going to stay a thermometer or are you going to grow into a thermostat? What is the upside if you grow? Also, what is the downside if you stay a thermometer?

Patience: A Strategy for Getting Unstuck

Years ago, I worked with a business leader who had an incredible vision for his organization. He was a passionate leader with excellent communication skills and energy for his mission. He was intellectually and morally solid and cared deeply for the people in his organization.

But he was stuck.

His organization just couldn’t grow the business past a certain industry-standard metric. However, the stagnation issue became evident as we looked over some feedback provided by his peers. One of the interview questions I ask the peers of my clients (as a routine part of my data gathering) was, "What is the vision this leader has for the organization?" After several interviews, the collective response was, “The vision is very clear, but we have no idea what steps we need to take to get started. It is like he has been dreaming of this his entire life and we are catching it for the first time."

As I presented this feedback to the leader and we processed the data together, his knee-jerk reaction was “We don’t have time to wait for them to process this. The time is now! They need to get on board or get out of the way. We are going to miss our opportunity. The timing is just right!"

So I asked,“Is it their lack of urgency, or could it be something else?”

After processing with him for a while, we discovered there was not a lack of urgency on the part of the organization. There was, however, a lack of emotional connection between the leader and his team. The urgency that the leader was feeling for vision implementation and change was being offset by his lack of emotional connection competency of patience. People in the organization need the time to absorb, process, and own the vision themselves.

Patience is devoting the appropriate time and attention to others in ways that enhance meaningful interaction.

Patience is suspending your personal need for satisfaction and action.

Patience seeks to slow down those fast-paced exchanges with others in order to facilitate better decision-making.

Patience is not racing ahead in thought process while missing information that others are endeavoring to share.

Patience is not wasting the opportunities to encourage, inspire, and motivate others.

In leader development, it is always important to keep perspective on a leader who is not connecting emotionally with his team. Without this emotional connection, it is virtually impossible to have the social intelligence needed to achieve organizational effectiveness.

There are a number of reasons a follower may choose to align with a leader. Fully committing to the vision of the leader is a quintessential desire that followers have. What they receive in return for committing to the vision of the leader is an emotional connection with that leader.

In our case study above, the leader has a choice. He can either move forward with his urgency and risk losing his entire vision. Or he can proactively slow down and take the time to encourage, inspire, and motivate his people. By embracing patience and connecting emotionally with his team, he can catapult the vision to the next level with everyone on board.

How are you connecting emotionally with your team? I’d love to hear your comments.