During these times I have found that leaders I speak with are either working feverishly or their work has slowed to a grinding halt. While we are leading through a new work mode and new work effort I find that these times can be triggering at best.
I’m Esther Weinberg, and I’m the Chief Leadership Development Officer and Founder of The Ready Zone.
It’s easy to get distracted with the news of the day or stress or managing remote teams or managing yourself or managing shifting demands of leadership and the organization. What can bring you back to center? There are three key questions that you can ask yourself to pull you back into alignment and that is:
- Who is the situation calling me to be? Or Who am I choosing to be in the face of this situation?
- What am I learning from the situation?
- What actions will I take as a result?
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Let me give you a practical example…your boss or key leadership is asking of you what seems to be unreasonable demands. You are frustrated because in the new work from home world, while you are doing your best to take breaks and create space to check in with your team and have them share how they are feeling, you are frustrated that leadership seemingly has a lack of understanding or patience on the time it takes to actually get something done now. You have attempted to recalibrate their expectations and you are simply left with frustration.
So you can continue to be frustration or take more decisive action. And the action I’m talking about is internal work first to facilitate high performance in the external world. So you ask yourself:
- Who is the situation calling me to be? Maybe it’s patient because they are adjusting too; maybe it’s bold because you are being called to step up and be more vocal when you typically would not be
- What am I learning from the situation? Perhaps you are learning to re-examine your communication. Maybe you thought you were being clear and you were not 100%. Maybe you are learning that speaking your truth is something you shy away from. You tend to tolerate situations rather than speak up.
- What actions will I take as a result? Maybe it’s to make a list of all the key stakeholders on the project. Re-examine your list and see who really holds the power card here – who are really the decision makers and centers of influence. Create tailored communication messages for each one that recalibrates expectations. Or your messages could be filled with questions that lead from curiosity than decisive answers.
Use these questions when you find yourself out of alignment and examine your answers. It doesn’t take long it does take patience with yourself to simply pause. And isn’t our current times asking us to pause and be more thoughtful?
If you are interested in digging deeper in what we talked about, the best next step is to fill out our Needs Assessment. I’ll be happy to connect with you. And remember…Better Leaders, Better People, Better Results.
