My interpretation of a courageous leader is someone who is willing to view the world from a whole new viewpoint and not about trying to come up with solutions through managing or improving situations from inside the structure which created them.
How many fabulous time-management courses and techniques have we tried and behavioural change programs have we attended where the effect is temporary and still the demand on us remains. I’ve often heard, ‘Oh yes, that ‘effective diary management’ technique is awesome! If only I had the time to implement it!”
When I find myself in a place where I feel like I’m needing to juggle time and energy, I bring myself back to one of the most powerful truths I know and that is I AM ALWAYS AT CHOICE.
Its very easy to lose myself in the busy-ness and drama of overwhelm and over-commitment and in that experience, forget that truth. In the moment I have forgotten that whatever is turning up, all the urgencies and “must do’s”, I have chosen. That truth can be a hard one to swallow, especially if it appears that someone else is pressuring me or if its something that I don’t feel like I have chosen and yet, I still remind myself of that truth.
It can feel like everything is important and needs my attention right now but I have learned that if I sit back, take a breath and get off the hamster wheel in my mind (yes sometimes a big effort to do, especially when you may have many people pressuring you!) and remind myself that before I came into the world, it worked well without me and after I leave this world it will work well without me, the avenue of other options open up.
By getting present in this way and getting out of my self aggrandizement, the path clears, my energy replenishes and the most effective action step becomes obvious. Its like my natural intelligence comes into play and I know what’s the most important step. Then I notice that much of the urgent ‘stuff’ gets taken care of and the worst case scenarios that my head comes up with, don’t occur or get resolved by others stepping up and taking responsibility.
And with this being viewed through the context of Courageous Leadership it takes just that, COURAGE and a willingness to do something differently and role model to others that sometimes the most powerful thing to do is do nothing, step out of the reactiveness of the moment, until you are present and choose with a clear mind.
The journey inward is one that requires courage and vulnerability and certainly in the context of a leadership space, is an essential one. When you make the shift from viewing the world from a separate, ‘you and me as individuals’ perspective and see you and your team or communities as an integrated whole, you realise the absolute necessity of understanding yourself.
You see that by knowing what runs inside you and determines how you show up (or don’t!) in your life, you have the key to seeing why you experience what you do on the outside. “As within, so without” which in simple terms means whatever you are thinking about both consciously and subconsciously will be brought about into your reality.
The courageousness and inevitable feelings of vulnerability are key components of this journey and in fact if they are absent, I invite you to to look at whether what end result you are going for is really all that important to you. An authentic leader learns not to avoid vulnerability and actually learns to actively work on ‘the edge’ in a comfortably uncomfortable place, knowing that’s where ‘the juice’ lies, where evolution occurs rather than stagnation.
A popular talk by Ms Brene Brown at TED.com shows the power found in true vulnerabilty around understanding yourself and is well worth viewing.
Through my experience in choosing this style of leadership, I have found that my authentic style, unique to me, naturally emerges and shines through. The requirement to measure myself against others and compare my way of leading loses relevance. The urgent need to prove that I’m anything other than I am disappears and I turn up making decisions and choices that have clarity and certainty.
When I was invited to share my feeling on this months newsletter topic of Leadership and Conflict, I was tempted to keep it very simple and to the point and that was to say the answer to staying in your leadership when experiencing conflict, is to
be present. It is the simple answer and the only way in which you can be powerful in your leadership and stay true to yourself and at the same time support and guide others to evolve and grow in their own personal leadership.
Simple? yes, easy? not always! When you are in a position that requires you to ignite or encourage conflict, it requires you to be very clear and grounded in who you really are, which is OK, valuable, worthy of love and perfect just as you are, right here and now. WHAAAAAAT?! I hear you cry! Yes thats the truth of who you are , even though you may not feel like it all the time. And the kicker is, so is the other person who is part of the conflict! This is a vital distinction to get when becoming more and more courageous in your leadership. Who you truly are and what you DO are different. We have created a world where we mix those two up and make judgements about ourselves and others by linking our actions to the value and worth of us as human beings. In other words, we take things personally and that leads to confrontation, defending our position and attack or shrinking away from opportunity. (The good old fight or flight response.)
The breaking of the habit of taking things personally needs consistency and discipline around reminding ourselves of who we truly are and the only place where we can find that truth is in the present moment. Its where you will have whatever wisdom, words, actions necessary to respond constructively. This is what I call developing your emotional resilience through being present and in that we grow our capacity to manage and engage with conflict, in the moment wherever it arises.
When you are fully present and taking full personal responsibility for the way you are turning up and choosing to be, then you will be courageously leading the way for others in your company to do so. Try it out and see. If you are somehow waiting for someone around you to change, step up or be different in any way to how they are turning up, (and perhaps this is what is causing the conflict in the first place), YOUturn up differently FIRST. Be consistent and authentic in that space and watch what happens. Either the conflict will shift and no longer be an issue – the conflict details will be the same but you will have a whole new creative way of looking at it which will lead to it no longer causing you an issue – or the person with whom you have the conflict will simply leave.
So as an overview for simplicity:
- Be present – be in the here and now no matter what conflict is there.
- Don’t take things personally! STOP as soon as you realise you are because it will activate your fight or flight response which is fear-based and leads to more unnecessary conflict.
- Remember that who you are is OK, valuable, worthy of love and perfect just as you are, right here and now, regardless of how you may feel or think about that.
- Your behaviours, or what you do can be a bit dubious from time to time but its still not WHO YOU ARE. It’s important that we remember that we are only ever doing the best that we are able to do with the awareness that we have in that moment. And that goes for the the other or others too! Being present means you will be more aware and able to choose effectively.
- Take responsibility for who you are BEing and as Mahatma Gandhi was rumoured to have said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
When I view the business world and in particular the leaders of business I find that , like in life generally, people allow themselves to be led by their emotions. Now for most, that’s not particularly revelatory or indeed rocket science but what it means when it comes to leading constructively in tough times is that a courageous leader would be equipped with the ability to be emotionally resilient. (Note RESILIENT not RESISTANT). Which means that they would be able to fully experience the emotions moving through them that are sparked by what is going on around them but are plugged into a deeper, more grounded and still place inside which is un-shakeable. There’s a recognition that there is no point in avoiding the natural death and resurrection cycle of life within business and by being meta to the surface reality of what is going on, it gives you a leadership edge.
One of my favourite quotes is:
“peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart” unknown
What this says to me is that you can have all kinds of challenging situations and tough decisions, people and pressure going on around you but you are peaceful BECAUSE you are certain inside. Certainty inside is a process of remembering rather than a learning of new tools or strategies and can often be experienced as a peeling off of behaviours and beliefs long held to courageously open up to new perspectives and ideas. It’s an ability to KNOW that no matter how tough a situation appears, that everything changes and “this too shall pass”. If you as a leader allow yourself to forget that there is always a bigger picture going on and get stuck in problem solving, you are likely to use a lot of energy up wastefully and always be ‘managing’ a situation rather than transforming it. This certainty is magnetic and absolutely brings about a calmness amongst the chaos. It is always the energy of who you are being that affects what is going on around you.
A simple reminder to self when things are tough:
- Do whatever it takes for you to create space and get out of the reactive environment if needs be in order to get back into the observer of the situation rather than the subject.
- Remind yourself that ‘this too shall pass’ much like the seasons in nature and there is always a bigger picture context going on which will become clear in the fullness of time.
- If you as a leader can be in a grounded and certain place authentically, you will enable your team to also be there. Don’t expect others to turn up in ways that you aren’t doing yourself.
- Instead of berating the challenge on your plate, no matter how hard, be courageous and ponder on how the situation is providing an opportunity. This may be hard when all you can see is cost but you can do it anyway and get used to staying in that open minded position.
This is why I love what I do as a coach and intuitive mentor and why I have a mentor myself. Its invaluable as a leader to have a time put aside to be supported to stay real, open and vulnerable whilst at the same time, building emotional resilience and be reminded of the bigger picture, or context of what is going on. That way, you will experience the inherent ‘tough times’ of business life with more ease and flow, certainty and clarity.
I was speaking to a friend of mine who I had known for many years the other day. I usually would hear about her partners life and how his business was going and how overwhelmed with busyness he was and how important it was that he felt supported. When they went away together, it would be to do things that he wanted to do like intense rock-climbing expeditions and treks and she would go along with it, even at the risk of her health sometimes. All I would hear about her life was how she hated doing her job and how she felt compelled to keep doing it so she ‘kept up’ with him. I would hear about how he would make decisions about his career, including moving overseas without any concern for her and how she may fit into the move. She would often sit and try to be ok about the compromise and pressure this put on their relationship and even had moved over to be with him but no sooner had she done that, he changed his mind and they both had to move back to Sydney.
Fast forward two years later, the same thing happened and he has moved overseas to follow his career path but this time she has decided that she will finally take the leap and leave her job, apply for a work visa and move over properly with him. She is going through all the usual emotions and fear of leaving the safe harbour of her role and the wage that comes with it but has started to notice something happening for her.
She is the one who is left to pack up the house and sell off any stuff they didn’t want to store and has noticed that as she keeps taking each step towards what she wants, support keeps coming in. No matter how challenging or impossible each step of the move is, she keeps getting supported by people. The car that had been taking ages to sell, sold this week. The clutter around the house since her decision to jump has cleared, bit by bit. She is noticing that she is beginning to feel lighter and lighter about the whole experience. She has several job opportunities waiting for her to arrive and she is moving to a country where her 51 years is respected and admired, whereas she was experiencing ageism and glass-ceilings here in Sydney which contributed to her fear of leaving her job, believing that she will soon to be unemployable and irrelevant. She was talking about the very thing that we all know and love to experience and that is flow. Things falling onto place when we follow our heart no matter what the perceived challenges are. She leaves next week and feels good about it, regardless of the fear inherent in change.
Then she shared with me that she had heard from her partner last night and that he wasn’t feeling so great about the move and that he wasn’t sure about staying there. She initially started to go into her usual role of concerning herself about his mental state and about how he was feeling under-challenged in the role and how he was bored. But then….something clicked inside of her as we spoke. She realised that she no longer had the energy left to keep worrying herself about his problems and choices and certainly not for his frame of mind. She realised that she had been walking around on eggshells with him for as long as she could remember, afraid of his reactions and worried about his mental health history, worried about his moods and temper. She had put aside her love of TV and Media, a role she had when they first met and was awesome at and had effectively made herself small next to him so that he didn’t feel bad or challenged by her. What clicked for her was quite profound because what she realised was how none of this had anything to do with him! She had been the one to choose to put his requirements ahead of her own. She had made the decisions based upon her judgement of him not being able to handle himself emotionally. In her attempt not to upset or challenge him, she had given him no choice but to turn up like he did and seem to take advantage of her like he did. But no-one can be taken advantage of unless they unconsciously let that advantage be taken. She had hit a point of release where she knew that for her to continue to feel the flow of life around and through her, she would have to make the choice to move overseas FOR HER, not for him and that she was the one who was able to take responsibility for herself and let him take responsibility for his choices.
It was beautiful to witness as years of self-judgement and weariness began to fall away. It doesn’t mean that the next while will now be all hearts and flowers and that it wont come with continued courageous steps and challenges in the story of their relationship but it does mean that their relationship can now become more of what it truly is. Each of them no longer able to continue to turn up the same way as before, a new, more real and authentic experience awaits.
So I ask, as a point of reflection and pondering, who is it that you are caretaking? Who do you put your life on-hold for and concern yourself about their well-being above your own and keep yourself small as a result? Who do you use as an excuse for not living your life? and what justifications do you keep telling yourself about why you do it so you feel like you have no other choice?
