by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
February is heart month. Perhaps you’re wondering what that has to do with leadership.
Lots more than you might think: if we fail to take care of ourselves, there’s no leading or serving others. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way.
Many of us spend lots of time on work and too little on ourselves, thinking self-care is something for self-indulgent sissies. That’s a thought to let go of.
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” ~Anne Lamott
Years ago, when I mapped out what I wanted from life, being a statistic for heart disease wasn’t on the list. Had I been as diligent in learning about self-care as I was about leadership, I could have avoided becoming a heart statistic.
Thankfully, my loving husband ignored my “I’m fine” remarks and got me medical help. Because of hubby and an amazing cardiologist, I dodged the silent killer and have gotten to celebrate three more birthdays.
The privilege of surviving, I’ve learned, comes with opportunities and obligations. Opportunities to live a life of purpose and an obligation (albeit a welcome one) to share, educate, and inspire.
Self-care belongs on the to-do list of everyone who calls themself a leader.
7 ways to be a perfectly imperfect leader
To make that happen, the first thing we have to do is concede there’s more to life than work and then give ourselves permission to be unselfishly selfish and perfectly imperfect.
To be unselfishly selfish, we take or make the time to do things that make us better. To be perfectly imperfect, we accept our limitations and embrace the quirks that set us apart. We:
…block off hours in our calendar in which we turn off the computer and put away the cell phone. We use these chunks of “me-time” to think, dream, read, meet with a friend, write, stare out the window, or go for a walk. We see the productiveness of this time and note it’s in a form that’s different from our work-focused “go-go-go” activities. We renew.
…opt more often for the roasted veggies and grilled meat and less often for the double cheeseburger. Good fuel in, good health out. However, we still enjoy a cheeseburger occasionally and do so without guilt. Small pleasures are enough. We choose wisely.
…stay on top of our personal “metrics”—blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, and the like—just as we do our work-related ones. If we run a company or a department, we know our KPIs. We look at the numbers to know what’s going right and what needs attention. We need to be able to rattle off our personal health numbers just as easily as we do the business ones. We know our numbers.
…quit being the stoic who denies not feeling well. We no longer stay quiet because we don’t want to make a fuss, come across like a hypochondriac, or have to acknowledge the scary possibility that something serious might truly be wrong with us. (If you’re a woman and have used any of these reasons, you have lots of female company. Women are far more likely than men to delay seeking medical treatment for heart conditions, which is why heart disease kills more women than breast cancer each year.) We speak up.
…happily acknowledge being the most unbendy person in the yoga class or being the one who walks, not runs, around the track. The important thing is that we’re there and doing something physical. We make it so.
…know that heart attack symptoms differ between men and women. Men’s symptoms—chest and arm pain—are widely recognized; women’s not so much. Women’s symptoms can include being extra tired for no apparent reason, experiencing unusual shortness of breath, feeling light-headed, or having pain in your neck, jaw or back. I dismissed my episodes of dizziness and shortness of breath as signs of overwork and lack of exercise. That was almost a deadly mistake. We pay attention.
…accept the vulnerability that comes with sharing our self-care stories because story-telling touches hearts and minds—the same things that all good leaders do. Sharing is important because it keeps us honest—I’ll always remember the look on my husband’s face when he told me he never again wanted to follow an ambulance knowing that his wife was in it. We’re strong enough to be sensitive and sensible.
“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” ~Andre Lorde
And lastly, we hold each other accountable for self-care and tell ourselves and others—every day—that self-care isn’t selfish; it’s smart. Loving life and leading others starts with loving and taking care of ourselves. As a gift to ourselves, our loved ones, and those whom we lead, we just do it.
Life, love, and leadership—with all their delightful and dizzying ups and downs—is why.
Image credit: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
“I never thought I’d get in trouble for doing what I thought was the right thing,” lamented Sally. “I really thought my boss would appreciate that I dug in and got the whole story.”
Reba was Sally’s boss. She was also the department head, directly supervising ten people who, in turn, managed 180 employees. She was a busy woman who relied heavily on the judgment of her direct reports.
Keith was one of those direct reports. He had told Reba that one of his employees, Trina, had refused to lead a discussion with hourly employees.
Conducting those discussion was the responsibility of the quality team. Being on the quality team was a prestigious skill development assignment only available to high potential employees
Wrong turn #1
Keith said he believed that Trina had refused to lead the discussion because he suspected that she was trying to avoid what she now saw as extra, unpaid work. Keith recommended to Reba that Trina be removed from the quality team.
Wrong turn #2
Reba gave Keith the OK to remove her.
Trina was deeply hurt when Keith told her she was off the quality team. She asked if there was anything she could do to change her removal. Keith told her there wasn’t.
Several years earlier, Trina had worked on Sally’s team. Because they had a good relationship, Trina asked to meet one-on-one with Sally. Sally agreed.
In that meeting, Trina said she was going to quit because she didn’t want to work for a company that wasn’t understanding.
“I told Keith I didn’t feel up to leading the discussion because of a family matter.”
“What did Keith do after you told him that?” Asked Sally.
“All he did was nod his head and walk away. My impression is that he didn’t ask for more details because he wanted to honor my privacy. I appreciated that. Keith didn’t speak to me again until he told me that I was being removed from the quality team.”
“I know you appreciated Keith not asking more questions about your family matter. Are you comfortable giving me a few more details so I can better understand how your family matter impacted your ability to lead the quality discussion?”
“My father had a flare-up of an ongoing and long-term illness. The doctor told the family that he had less than three months to live. I was struggling to cope with that news and wasn’t at my best that week. Getting my own job done was almost more than I could handle.”
Concerned for several reasons, Sally approached Reba with this information.
Wrong turn #3
After hearing the added detail, Reba told Sally she was wrong to have interfered in Keith’s employee matter.
That evening, Reba told her husband about the situation. She was feeling remorseful and needed to talk it out.
She knew she’d acted harshly with Sally. She’d acted that way not because she was angry Sally had meddled, but because she was embarrassed for having agreed with Keith without having asked more questions.
Whatever their respective motivations, Keith, Reba, and Sally were all guilty of climbing the ladder of inference.
Reflect before jumping to a conclusion
Business theorist Chris Argyris created the ladder of inference, which is a model of how we think. To understand how the ladder of inference works, picture climbing a ladder that has seven rungs:
- The first step is us encountering data or a situation.
- The second step happens when we take something away from step one and decide to focus on it.
- We take step three when we assign meaning to what we’re focusing on.
- Step four occurs when we make an assumption based on the meaning we’ve given to what happened in step one.
- Step five is when we draw a conclusion based on our assumption.
- Step six is us using our conclusion to affirm an old belief or develop a new one.
- Step seven finds us taking action based on our belief.
The climb to the top of the ladder of inference is one we take alone, which can makes it a dangerous climb especially if we’re heading to an incorrect conclusion.
As we ascend from one rung to the next, we rely on our personal beliefs, values, opinions, past experiences, etc. to reach a conclusion that seems natural, normal, and right to us.
Sometimes our conclusion is spot on, but sometimes it’s wrong. Really, really wrong.
When we’re really wrong and are beating ourselves up for not being more thoughtful, remind yourself that the other party wasn’t in your head as you climbed the ladder of inference.
The person we’ve wronged doesn’t have a clue about the seven ladder steps we climbed without them…which means we feel misunderstood or unfairly accused as events spiral out of control.
Ask questions before jumping to a conclusion
If you find yourself facing unintended consequences resulting from a decision you made, ask yourself a few questions to determine how far up the ladder of inference you scrambled.
- Do I really have enough information to think this way?
- Did I ask enough questions or do enough research to assure that I had all the facts?
- Could I have missed something?
- Is there something I’ve chosen to ignore?
- Is the meaning I’m giving to what happened truly objective or are my feelings and opinions about this person or situation driving my conclusions?
- Are my assumptions correct?
- Am I making something personal that isn’t?
- Are my own insecurities coloring what I’m thinking and feeling?
- Could an impartial third party suspect that a bias or two might be influencing me?
The best way to avoid the unintended consequences that result from climbing the ladder of inference is to avoid climbing it. Channel your emotions. Validate your feelings. Gather all the relevant information. Test your assumptions. Invite feedback on your conclusion. Then take action.
As you think, so you become. Avoid superstitiously investing events with power or meanings they don’t have. Keep your head. Our busy minds are forever jumping to conclusions, manufacturing and interpreting signs that aren’t there. ~Epictetus, philosopher, The Art of Living
Have you ever climbed the ladder of inference and done something you wished you hadn’t because it turned out your conclusion was wrong? Have you ever had someone attack or accuse you of wrong-doing because they incorrectly climbed the ladder of inference? How did you make things right?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
It felt creepy and uncomfortable to hear the project team lead say during the kick-off meeting, “I know exactly what we need to do to get this body of work done. All you have to do is do as I say, and we’ll all get a big bonus.”
Perhaps it’s my confirmation bias working overtime because I hear many people expressing a similar sentiment. I’ve got this; just follow my lead. Let me do the thinking, and everything will be good to go. I’m the one with the answers. These declarations are delivered emphatically, signaling zero openness to alternate ideas.
In an increasingly connected world that bumps into lots of diversity of thought, moving beyond confidence into the hubris and arrogance of this follow me/my way isn’t a strong leadership position, no matter how technically smart someone may be.
Being an effective leader begins with leading ourselves, which means being open to other points of view and ways of doing things other than our own.
The ideal leadership/followership equilibrium results when respect and empathy are displayed; diversity of thought, opinion, perspective, and experience is sought and embraced; both tradition and innovation are valued; and everyone is encouraged to have an open mind and heart.
Leadership…is an act of love in the face of an uncertain world. ~Umair Haque, author
In a world in which we expect the neighborhood ice cream shop to offer up at least 31 flavors from which to choose, leaders who want to deliver both economics and engagement need to bring the same expectation of variety to their work and not force one ideology—theirs.
Sometimes this my-way-or-the-highway approach is the result of an abundance of dogmatic thinking or being hyper-skeptical of other’s abilities and differing opinions.
Other times, ego, a mega-need for control, and too little respect for others are the drivers.
Heard that the office grapevine describes you as bossy, opinionated, and over-bearing? Crashed and burned in a feedback session or 360 review? Become aware that you’re never invited to join anyone for a coffee, lunch, or after-work cocktail?
If so, and you’re not happy with those outcomes, it’s time to explore five matters—need for control, motives, insecurity, orientation to facts and opinions, and regard for others. Ask yourself some uncomfortable questions for a good cause—and to become a more effective leader.
5 questions to ask to build trust and respect
How deep rooted is my need for being in control?
Consider:
- Do I see those who aren’t thinking or doing things “my way” as a challenge to my authority?
- Am I open to considering that my way may not be the only way?
- Can I permit those around me to do things their way as long as they produce the results I’m responsible for delivering?
- Can I accept that what’s right for others may be different than what’s right for me?
- Can I accept that different doesn’t mean wrong?
- Am I willing to trust others?
Do I have an agenda?
Ponder:
- What are my motives for wanting to be right and for converting people to my point of view?
- Am I in it for “me” or for “we?” (Sometimes the motivation to “fix” others stems from a sincere desire to help them be their best. Other times the motive is less pure.)
- Do I have an ego-centric need to be the hero who saves the day or the person with all the right answers?
- Can I accept that helping people grow their skills and abilities is an ongoing process aimed at what’s best for them, not a one-time event that makes me look good?
Am I hiding something?
Reflect:
- Is my interest in fixing others an attempt to hide my own feelings of incompetence or insecurity?
- Are my motives for wanting to change others a way to deflect my inner concerns about my own qualifications?
- Is my confidence real or just for show?
Am I being curious or judgmental?
Contemplate:
- Do I let my opinion masquerade as fact? (Opinions are personal points of view, judgments, and conclusions, i.e., February is the best month. Steve is a bad boss. Older women should have short hair. Facts are concrete realities that are verifiable by observation, i.e., the earth makes one rotation every 24 hours; consistent with the rules of a symbol system, i.e., 2+2=4; or apply objective standards of value, i.e., stealing is against the law.)
- Do I engage in critical thinking by seeking out a spectrum of ideas, or do I always go with my gut?
- Would others day I practice “tend and befriend” or “fight or flight?”
Am I ready to give positional unconditional regard?
Mull over:
- Can I accept that having positive unconditional regard for someone doesn’t require that I accept their differing point of view, only that I acknowledge—without judgment—their right to believe, think, and act differently than I do?
- How can I become capable of making room for everyone by extending positive unconditional regard no matter how they think or act?
Leaders…lead us to truth, worth, nobility, wonder, imagination, joy, heartbreak, challenge, rebellion, and meaning. ~Umair Haque, author
Ready to let go of absolute certainty and begin sampling other points of view?
Image credit (before quote added): Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Bias
I almost couldn’t believe my eyes as I read the following core passage in a book a local businessman had written. He’d asked me to help him promote it. This is the sentence that blew me away: “Remove people from your life whose beliefs, ideas, and values aren’t aligned with yours. Make no compromises here.”
Holy smokes!
To me, that wasn’t how I wanted to live my life. I don’t always succeed, but I try to keep an open heart and mind toward those who see the world differently than I do.
I asked the writer if we could meet and talk, saying I wanted to understand why he felt that way. He agreed to meet. When I asked him to give me the backstory as to how he’d come to think that way, he said he was surprised by my question.
“You struck me as being smart,” he said. “I thought you’d understand that position. To me, that sentence says it all. No further elaboration needed. Why clutter up your life with people who are wrong? Do you agree with me or not?”
“I don’t agree.”
“Then we have nothing to discuss now. Or ever.”
True to his beliefs, he removed me from his life. Got to hand it to him—he walked his talk.
These days including only those people who agree with us and excluding others is a common practice. To my way of thinking, that’s scary, limiting, and unnecessarily hurtful.
The human capacity to injure other people is very great precisely because our capacity to imagine other people is very small. ~Elaine Scarry, Teaching for a Tolerant World
Seeing sameness as both good and bad
Uniformity and conformity are comforting. When things are same, we know what to expect, how to react. We know where the boundaries are.
The word homophily was created by sociologists in the 1950s to describe the human tendency to “love the same,” that is, our preference to seek out those who share similar characteristics and beliefs. This preference creates the unintended consequence of forming ingroups that have the “right” views and outgroups that have the “wrong” ones. The “us versus them” stuff.
From our periodic chats, the writer/businessman had deduced that I shared his view. We all make these snap judgments about people or situations based on our perceptions, definition of reality, and way of sense-making. From those data points, we draw boundaries—the who’s in, who’s out, who’s right, who’s wrong, who’s the same, who’s not stuff.
What if there’s no need for boundaries?
In a highly connected, interdependent world that’s overflowing with diversity, isn’t demanding sameness unfeasible and fuel unnecessary discord? Why can’t difference broaden our lives rather than narrow them and help us keep an open heart and mind?
4 categories of beliefs
Curious about the ways in which beliefs can vary, I did some research and discovered four groupings of beliefs that contribute to us seeing the world differently from those around us. These four groups represent vast arenas for varying views and approaches:
- Moral beliefs, which are our code of conduct for welfare and justice in how we treat one another.
- Conventional beliefs, which are our expectations for appropriate behavior.
- Psychological beliefs, which is our understanding of ourselves and others.
- Metaphysical beliefs, which is our faith and spiritual views.
In our empty nest household, hubby and I bring yin and yang to most everything we do. While there’s the occasional conflict, we’ve come to love the serendipity and growth associated with our differing thoughts, opinions, perspectives, and preferences. Our lives have been made richer by the exposure to what’s different.
In a world populated with over 7 billion people and as many opinions, expecting sameness and alignment seems unrealistic. When faced with the smorgasbord of differences, what I’d love to see happen is people replacing intolerance for differences with respect, acknowledgment, and inclusion.
Accepting that what we believe to be true might not be the only truth is a big shift in thinking. Making that mental and emotional shift to keep our minds and hearts open requires a boatload of courage, determination, resilience, and grace. Two tools can help us with that shift .
2 tools to keep an open heart and mind
One tool is reflective thinking, a concept introduced in 1910 by educator John Dewey.
Dewey defined reflective thinking as the “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends.”
Reflective thinking is critical thinking in which we think about our thinking. We mindfully evaluate our thought processes to see if we’ve made the unexamined examined. That is, we thoughtfully assess whether or not assumptions, pre-conceived beliefs, or stereotypes have unconsciously colored our decisions.
Without reflective thinking, we can fancy ourselves being tolerant while still being prejudiced.
The other tool is building tolerance for ambiguity.
Confirmation bias, which is us seeing what we unconsciously choose to see and ignoring facts to the contrary, sucks us in all the time. When we do that, we inadvertently let confirmation bias negatively impact how we assess people and situations.
We escape confirmation bias by nurturing our capacity to accept deviation and uncertainty in what we define as being the truth. We let go of rigid boundaries, like the writer’s assertion to “Remove people from your life whose beliefs, ideas, and values aren’t aligned with yours.” We resolve to keep an open heart and mind.
Building a tolerance for ambiguity means forfeiting a measure of certainty, sameness, and control. Building a tolerance for ambiguity means we let go of dogma and become skilled in both doubting and believing.
Call to action
Sadly I’ll never know what motivated that businessman to adopt his position and defend it so fiercely. Was it dogma? Bigotry? Fear? Something else? His refusal to engage leaves me guessing.
If it were within my power, I’d create a golden rule about making room for everyone. I’d enable people everywhere to replace their fear of not knowing or being right with unconditional positive regard for themselves and others.
Making figurative room for everyone wouldn’t mean having to accept someone’s differing viewpoint. All it would require is simply acknowledging without judgment that everyone has a right to believe and think differently. No one’s right or wrong, just different; and that’s OK.
What do you think?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Character
One of my personal rules is that my phone is always off when I’m with a client or conducting workshops. Why? The people I’m with deserve 100 percent of my attention. Calls are returned and emails answered later.
While curled up in my hotel room one evening, I returned calls and answered emails. I saw that an acquaintance had called earlier in the day. She didn’t leave a message, so I did nothing, surmising she’d rung me by mistake.
When I saw her a week later, she was cool and clipped.
“Hey, is everything all right?” I asked, detecting the emotional distance.
“No.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“I’m mad at you.”
“Mad at me? Why?”
“You let me down.”
“How did I do that?”
“You didn’t call me back last week. I really needed to talk to you.”
“You didn’t leave a message.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Help me out. What’s the point I’m missing?”
“You saw that I called, right?”
“I did.”
“You should have called me to find out why I called you.”
Her expectation took me back years ago to a former boss. He kept a toy—barrel of monkeys—on his desk. When he gave anyone on his team an assignment, he gave us a plastic monkey and placed one on his desktop, telling us, “Now you know what to do, and I know what I asked you to do. We’re in this together.”
We returned the monkey to him when our assignment was complete. He’d return his monkey and ours to the barrel.
One day in a staff meeting, someone asked him why he kept a monkey when he gave us an assignment.
“It’s a symbol,” he said. “Giving you an assignment doesn’t take me out of the equation. I’m always responsible. I can’t give that responsibility away. I own it. The monkeys remind me of that ownership.”
“Is that something you’ve always done?” Asked a colleague.
“Early in my career, I asked an employee to perform a task. He didn’t get it done, but I didn’t follow-up with him either,” replied my boss. “When my boss asked me why the work wasn’t done, I told him I’d asked an employee to do it and that the employee had failed to get it done. My tone obviously implied the issue wasn’t my fault. My boss looked me square in the eye and said, ‘Don’t paint yourself as the victim here. Assigning work to someone never takes the monkey off your back. You own it, no excuses, no blaming.’ I learned a big life lesson that day.”
The boss gave all of us a barrel of monkeys game at the next staffing saying, “Remember, if you need it or want it, own getting it done.”
I still have my barrel of monkeys. It’s a symbol to me, just like it was to that long ago boss.
That acquaintance tried to give me her monkey. She blamed me for not acting when she hadn’t made it clear she wanted action, so I refused to let myself feel guilty.
Unspoken expectations are tricky things.
I think that being a leader who is clear about he/she wants and who follows up is a double bonus recipe for liking ourselves and for working better with others.
Your thoughts?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
