5 Ways to Face What You’d Like to Avoid
The problems you’d love to avoid make leadership relevant.
While facing difficulties, successful leaders demonstrate:
- Emotional stability. Adding drama doubles every problem. Lower your voice and calm your spirit. Take a breath and smile.
- Compassion. Self-absorbed leaders ascribe negative motives to people who are simply struggling to find their place or make meaning of the future. Avoid labeling the behaviors of others. Observe, acknowledge, and where necessary, confront behaviors that undermine organizational success.
- Clarity. Confusion is the result of giving equal weight to everything. Focus energy on activities that matter most. Engage in essentials.
- Inclusion. Reject temptations to go it alone. The times you’re most tempted to exclude others are the times you need them most.
- Optimism. Name the ugly beast and believe you can make things better.
Bonus: Fix your attention on finding solutions. The difference between strength and weakness is whether you whine about problems or work to fix them.
How can leaders best face problems they’d like to avoid?
Excellent – and so MONDAY appropriate!
..believing “this will just go away” is the trap set under every problem.. get ahead of it.
Thanks Ken. Great add!
all great points, its all about keeping things in the proper perspective.
Thanks Isee… Perspective means most when facing problems.
Dear Dan,
Leaders would like to avoid “expectation” and “appreciation”. I look at it this way. There is a saying- do what you love, and love what you do. It means one has to be passionate about his interest. He has to decide what to do, where to do, how to do, when to do and why to do etc. Now, looking from others perspective, when you do not change your way of doing, people might think you repetitive, mad or sometimes arrogant. They perceive this because you do not necessary follow others step that they want. Now the question comes, whether we should expect others to follow our way or their own way. When we try to expect to follow our own way, they we show our arrogance. Instead of understanding others way, we reject others way. Leaders should avoid this expectation. They should believe that others way could be right as well. They should look from others perspectives.
Unfortunately, there are people in the organisations, who expect others to fit in their framework. When others do not fit in framework, they start making wrong perception. They suggest others to learn communication skills, professionalism and many other things.
My question is that should leaders expect others to follow them or they should understand others way. Is making perception based on our understanding is right?
If people understand the concept well, I hope most of the differences will flee.
Thanks Dr. Gupta. I appreciate the issue of who adapts to who. Perhaps adapting to others includes understanding where they best fit in..??
Interesting question Dr. Gupta. Perhaps one answer would be that leaders set the destination while allowing each traveler to decide on their mode of transportation.
Thanks for jumping in on this.
You know, I’d like to better understand why so many senior leaders communicate across their org so poorly. I’m not really sure what they are avoiding other than perhaps empathy in understanding why the lack of communication and transparency creates uncertainty, unease, and fear for their broader team.
Maybe you have some insights there Dan.
Thanks James. Your observations about the negative results of poor communication are insightful and sobering.
One reason leaders communicate poorly is the false belief that they have communicated well when they haven’t.
“Confusion is the result of giving equal weight to everything.” That one popped for me. So how do we ‘weigh’ things and their importance? Consider the source. thanks
Thanks Bigal. Glad you liked it. Source is an important part of weighing importance. Behaviors that have more impact might be another way.
Oh, man. I am the queen of the Scarlett O’Hara response in my head, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” Thanks for the list – I especially need to focus on #4 – I have a whole story in my head about why no one else can possibly help, instead of just asking. Thanks, Dan 🙂
Thanks Katie. Oh! The stories in our heads that complicate leadership. Best for the journey.
This post is great! Love the concise, sound advise. Ready and able to apply it today… seriously, my 10 am meeting today.
A 30 second bite is just right for me. Keep it coming!
Thanks Sara. Best with your meeting!
Avoiding drama. I agree so much. Too often, we love that bit of drama. It makes us feel strong!
Great post! Bad news doesn’t get better with age. I love the definition of confusion in #3. I can find myself there easily. I read your post every day, and always love the insight. But this really helps me right now.
Thank you so much. What you share is such a big help.