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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 behavior comes, right?
So if I'm feeling 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.
And 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 aren't 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 everyday,
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 everyday.
And my guess is that sometimes that's awesome.
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 that we're turning in to.
First of all, how do we feel and how was that influencing my behavior and
how was that influencing my relationships with other people around me.
We also have 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 inpatient and I'm short with someone as a result.
I'm not very 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 to do right.
That’s so interesting.
So I think there’s a lot of value in this exercise.
And 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 everyday.
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 believes 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 for
milestone one reflecting on your coaching philosophy.
Kris PlachyCEO and Founder & Instructor, Leadership Coach, LLC &
