Leaders everywhere have challenges. Some challenges are unique and temporary, but most are common and ongoing. These latter challenges connect right to the core of the individual in ways that can constrain a leader’s ability to execute the technical side of their role. They are also rarely talked about.
Gaining Respect and Being Liked
I put these two together, because in many instances leader use ‘being respected‘ as an excuse for behaving in ways that fail to lead to ‘being liked‘. Sadly, they see being respected and being liked as being mutually exclusive. For some reason they see being competent gains respect, and being nice gets people to like you. Yet it only takes a bit of extra effort to gain both by paying attention to how you treat the people you lead.
Aligning Corporate and Cultural Goals
Some people are better at organising and getting things done; others are stronger in building relationships with others. It’s not always easy to do both – yet that’s exactly what a leader needs to do. If we consider the culture of an organisation as the collective mindset of the people within it, it’s not as easy to change a culture as it is to change a strategy. It’s easy for a misalignment between culture and strategy – and when this happens people start to feel isolated from the company, losing sight of its mission and values. They feel uncared for, under supported with resources they need to do their job, and productivity falls. Most people understand that in times of crisis, sacrifices need to be made, but in the long term, if they feel that leadership is failing them after the crisis has passed, they start to feel resentful and eventually seek employment elsewhere.
It’s a very difficult role to balance delivering to the needs of people with the needs of the company, but its one that leaders need to manage every single day – not just when crisis hits.
Self-Motivation
With much emphasis on motivating and retaining talented staff, it is easy to forget to motivate oneself. Leadership is a tough gig. It can also be a very rewarding one at many levels. Leaders need to be able to manage their own motivation and their resilience. Motivation is an inside job. It is easy to expect it is ‘the company’s’ role to motivate everyone, including leaders – but in reality, staying motivated at work is no different than being responsible for being motivated in any other part of one’s life. It’s something we need to learn to do for ourselves.
One of the most powerful ways to do this is to constantly stay connected with why you are in the role you are in – what is your big purpose. The higher one’s sense of purpose, the higher their motivation. Then when things get tough – we simply default to the greater good and look past the stress of the ‘what’ in the immediate situation and focus on the end point – the ‘why‘.
Resilience
They key to resilience is focus – on what is most important long term, and then on what is most relevant to that right now. This triage approach to every day demands on a leaders attention helps them to focus on what is most important. In doing so, they reserve their energy and attention on what will be most productive. It’s the difference between business and busyness.
I find it helps to set one major outcome a day. I start every day by answering the question “What is the most important thing we need to accomplish today?” Actually, I find that I do this at the end of the previous day, and it seems to calm my mind during my evenings and sleep with a pseudo-sense of control. Before one can be effective at leading others, one must become a master and leading themselves.
Importantly, once I decide on your major focus – make sure that those around you know. It helps them understand your approach to your day, and identify resources that may assist. This might sound logical, but it’s amazing how many leaders don’t keep their direct reports informed on the what and why – which leads to confusion, cross purpose behaviour and inefficiencies.
There is a common thread to all of these leadership challenges and that is they are all emotionally based. Leaders are typically well-trained in the technical skills of leadership, but often gain no education or coaching in the softer skills such as emotional intelligence.
Fear
If you think about each of the above, they all connect with several common emotions, but the biggest one of all is fear. Fear of not being respected or liked, fear of failure both as a leader and as a person, fear of being seen as slacking on the job if not at work 16 hours a day, and even fear of being too self-involved if one takes time to renew one’s energy, and focus on one’s own purpose-driven goals as a source of motivation.
We can add to that many technically-driven fears – fear of lack of control, fear of making a bad decision, fear of losing one’s job, fear of being found out! Trying to negotiate one’s way through every day challenges when constrained at every turn by some fear-based emotion makes leadership a very difficult job. So how can we start to unravel this web?
If we look at fear in simple terms, it is very much intertwined with confidence – typically the more confidence, the less fear. And confidence comes from a sense of being in control – starting with control of oneself. This is where the real power of emotional intelligence comes it. When one becomes more self-aware, that alone creates confidence. As that self-awareness leads to learning and behaving new ways, this self-mastery leads to confidence. In turn, less energy is expended in stress, and more empathetic focus on others leads to better relationships. When you learn to like and respect yourself, then others – that is reflected back to you.
This is why once leaders get to a point of leadership competency they fail to improve until they master emotional intelligence. This is the foundation of what Insight Mastery claims as going from being a good leader to a great leader. Insight Mastery provides a six month online coaching program specifically designed for leaders. For more information on EQ Leadership.
Author: Gail La Grouw. Insight Mastery Program Director, and Strategic Performance Consultant for Coded Vision Ltd.
