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In this lesson we're going to be talking about the leadership compass.
All of us who are leaders are leading teams and
having influence on people every day.
And unfortunately, a lot of people who are in positions of leadership don't do a lot
of work around self-awareness, and really understanding who they are in the world.
And as a result, they have an impact on people and have influence on people,
and they're not really intentional about it.
And then sometimes that has a negative consequence.
One of the things that I've really discovered through my work,
is that all of us, when we're in a leadership role, I think have said several
times in previous modules and lessons that how you live is how you lead, right?
So if you're having a difficult time dealing with something at home,
it's likely going to show up at work.
If you're feeling frustrated, it's showing up at work.
If you're feeling impatient, it shows up at work.
If you feel angry or sad or happy or joyful or
elated, these are all emotions that we feel, right?
We know that, because we've explored the thought model,
we've learned that how we feel drives our behavior, right?
So inevitably, when I get hired to work with clients, especially those clients who
are dealing with challenges, or I've been hired to coach leaders because they
may be difficult people, what I find is that they don't feel good most of the day.
They feel, and these are sort of typical emotions I hear, but they feel impatient,
and they feel frustrated, sometimes they feel helpless and powerless.
Those are other very common emotions that people who are managing people might feel.
So from these emotions, negative behaviors come, right?
So if I feel impatient with someone, it's likely I will be short with them or
abrupt with them, or frankly, I might even ignore them or avoid them.
If I feel frustrated, I might do the same, or I might raise my voice.
Or I might not involve them, because they are, I believe, frustrating me, right?
And if I feel helpless or powerless, I may be sort of dismissive or
just assume things are going to be bad, and not have the opportunity or
create the opportunities to involve people and not take any action.
And when we behave that way at work, that's how people experience us, right?
Nobody knows what's going on in our head, nobody knows what we're feeling.
What they know and how they experience us is through our behavior.
So as leaders I believe we have to have a very good sense of how we feel every day,
so that we can be aware of our behavior.
And when you feel badly, when you feel impatient or frustrated or
anger, that is influencing how you lead and manage people at work.
So the leadership compass, which if you think about the compass as a metaphor,
it helps you know what direction you're going in,
always helps you know where your true north is.
The notion of a leadership compass is that you have an internal guide all the time,
which is your emotions.
And your emotions can help you know what direction you're pointing yourself, and
how you're working with people every day.
And my guess is that sometimes that's awesome,
when you feel great, you feel empowered, you feel excited, you feel eager,
you feel intrigued and that's all good.
And then there are other times, and not just days, but literally short windows of
time, when you're feeling impatient or frustrated or overwhelmed or stressed.
When we are there, when we feel those feelings,
that's when this leadership compass work is very powerful.
Because what we want to really make sure, is that we're turning into,
first of all, how do we feel, and, how is that influencing my behavior?
How is that influencing my relationships with other people around me?
We also need to remember that how we feel is our business.
It's not someone else's business to change, so that we can feel better.
So if I feel impatient, that's not my employee's fault,
because they don't know how to do something.
If I feel impatient, it's because I believe they should know how to do
something, and then I feel impatient, because they don't.
Which of course the irony is that if I feel patient and
I'm short with someone as a result,
I'm not every likely to be teaching them what they need to know, am I?
I'm sort of ignoring them.
So that's sort of funny how we do that, because then they don't learn,
which is exactly what I think they should know how too do, right?
That's so interesting.
So I think there's a lot of value In this exercise.
Really, we don't talk about feelings a lot at work, and
I'm not suggesting that's what this really means.
I'm suggesting that you recognize that you have this internal compass.
And your ability to identify how you're feeling on a regular basis can be very
powerful for you to manage yourself and
ultimately have better influence on your team.
We tend to have some go-to emotions.
There's an exercise that's sort of your top three feelings,
how do you feel everyday?
What are those top three feelings you feel every day?
And how can you identify those and really understand them?
Then you can kind of, remember, we can go back to wonder what those thoughts are,
those beliefs are that are driving those feelings,
that are ultimately impacting your behavior everyday at work.
So this is a very introspective process, leadership compass.
It's sort of like a tuning fork.
It's like, if you think about yourself as an instrument, and
that you have influence on people outside of you,
the tuning fork is really knowing how do I feel and is this productive?
Is this interfering with my ability to lead and manage others?
So I invite you to do this work if you haven't already.
You can do it right now.
You can ask yourself, how do I feel today?
What would I say are the top three emotions I felt today?
And then connect those emotions to your behavior and see what you find out.
I recommend you keep all of this in your mind as you start thinking through all of
the activities you're doing from milestone one,
reflecting on your coaching philosophy.
Kris PlachyCEO and Founder & Instructor, Leadership Coach, LLC &
