Your Daily Leadership Program
January 2006
First, what is leadership? We say leadership is knowing your unique talent or gift, and expressing it completely with humility so that others are influenced to make the world a better place.
Every day you face two different scenarios: things go the way you want them to, and things don't go the way you want them to. On a "good day" leadership involves acknowledging others, staying humble and seeing what's next - very easy if you can remember the humility and acknowledgment part!
But when something happens that doesn't go the way you want, your immediate reaction is often "not this!" Acting from the state of reaction of, "this shouldn't be happening" only takes a nanosecond. This is the Road of Resistance. If you charge ahead with "taking care of the problem" from a state of resistance, know that there's a lot going on inside of you creating more of what you don't want.
Your first stop on your circular Road of Resistance is to label the problem or, in other words, what you experience that you don't want. Next stop is, usually unconsciously, the underlying issue - what this problem means for you. This underlying issue is the limiting belief you have held for a long time that keeps you in a self-imposed prison. This belief makes you feel bad, but you support its validity by - next stop on the Road - a story or stories about why you have to settle for this situation. Then you come roaring around the last bend in the Road to arrive at the start and "more of the same". Have you seen the movie, Ground Hog Day?
Let's look at an example of how this applies in real life. The context is an abusive customer relationship.
What actually happens is the customer calls and begins yelling at your employees. You go instantly into reaction and label the problem, "The customer shouldn't be yelling at my team, but he's an abusive guy with an anger problem." By thinking that's the problem that needs fixing, you miss seeing how this problem points to the underlying issue you've allowed to limit your effectiveness as long as you can remember, "I let people in power have their way." At this point you're not aware that what this means for you is, "I have to eat his abusive behavior and like it."
You end up settling for this situation with the story, "He's our biggest customer, I'm responsible to keep my team employed, we did make some mistakes etc." By not taking the time to look deeper than the apparent problem, you skip over your own issue and how you are limiting yourself. You act this all out with a lot of discussions with your team. You hope they don't take it too hard and maybe the customer won't be so awful on the next call.
Flash forward 6 days later. You're still pissed off and haven't been able to stop thinking about this guy. Your own leadership development program has been on hold for a week! You've noticed your jaw is tight again from the stress and you hate to admit it, but you were nasty to your kids a couple of times for making too much noise.
The unfortunate truth is this: you're all wound up in your own version of a self imposed reality. And it stems from the original issue that will live on to imprison you again and again. Even though this whole dynamic is very subtle and takes you into a spin very quickly, you have an awareness that you feel stuck and should somehow "know better" than to do this to yourself. But you just can't find the way out until...
You remember LionHeart's Five Principles. First, you remember that struggle is unnecessary so you decide to just STOP for a minute. You sense how angry you feel about how this customer has your team in an uproar over problems that don't seem that significant. You also feel frustrated that this happens with this person on a regular basis. Your approach has always been to "act professionally" in response to him to avoid a confrontation. Even though you feel uncomfortable with addressing this problem straight on, your heart knows it's time to stop rationalizing this problem away.
You remember that your highest intention is the key. You realize that you only want to work with customers who treat your team with respect. You also want a work environment that retains your best employees who always bust their tails for every customer. Mostly, however, you want to learn to stand up for your values. That will require speaking to your client with respect and honesty about what's needed from both sides to have a winning relationship.
As soon as your intention becomes clear, you hit the first obstacle and remember that obstacles are the stepping stones to growth. You come face to face with the fear that you'll be risking 50% of your business and feel your stomach clench with the thought of taking courageous action, so....
You remember that wisdom is always available. As you sit in remembrance for a few minutes with the frustration that "I have to eat his abuse to keep the business", you begin to feel more at peace (if Remembrance is a new idea for you, please see the Remembrance article at the bottom of our Newsletter Archive. You know that there are others that work above this guy in the client company that do not condone this behavior from their people. You cringe at having to go above his head, but with more remembrance you know that you can no longer protect him at your own expense. When you hit the next obstacle, "My partners will go ballistic if I jeopardize our relationship with this client," you quickly realize that contacting them is your first phone call.
Two weeks later, you review how all of these events unfolded and you conclude that you will never wait to stand up for your values again. The confrontation occurred spontaneously when the guy "lit into you personally with more abuse" before you had a chance to call him. You had yelled back in a controlled manner to get his attention, and then gone into the "we have to have some changes here or we won't be doing business with you any longer" conversation you'd prepared. It was very uncomfortable, but you got through it and covered all of the points you'd prepared without looking at your notes. He apologized and later even asked his boss to call you to assure you that his desire to do better was sincere. He called again to share his New Year's resolution: no more screaming at people or calling them stupid.
When you put the phone down after that call, you literally felt the fifth principle, loving your work creates real quality and value. You had renewed energy to put in procedures to prevent the problems he'd been yelling about. They weren't all that big of a deal, but you saw the chance for a higher standard of excellence!
You successfully turned a bad day into a new understanding of trust with an important client and developed more confidence in living up to your values as a leader. Now, if you can reduce the time it takes to move from the Road of Resistance to the Road of Remembrance you will truly have a Happy New Year! If you want a personal consultation on what's bugging you contact us at 503.632.8572.