Your Alternate Personality

You have heard “fake it til you make it”.  That means practice being the person you haven’t been until you are that person.

It can also lead to the development of an alternate personality; one that is not exactly your natural personality but one you are comfortable with.  You put this personality on when you are doing that job in that environment and put it away when you leave there.

For example, Larry and Larry the business owner are different.  Larry is mostly an introvert who likes alone time.  But when Larry is at work, he has a job to do and he’s going to be ok being uncomfortable to get the job done well.

Then there is Larry the trainer.  He’s different still.  It takes him a few minutes to get warmed up as he puts his trainer suit on, and then he loves the job.

You can play productive roles that don’t necessarily match your native personality style. Like a gentle caring guy going into “beast mode” when he puts a football uniform on and walks onto the field.

It takes the practice of purposely facing your discomfort (and fear) and doing it, until, gradually, you have that “mode” of you to use whenever you need it.

Leadership development IS personal development

“Being a better business owner is connected to being a better human.” – Joe Polish

By working on me and becoming a better person, I became a better leader.

By facing all the things a business leader must face, and by having to be responsible for so much and solve so many problems at work, I became a better person.

A leader is a person.  A better person is a better leader.

Work on you.

From the inner…the outer.

Replace Judgement with Movement

Rather than trying to judge if a certain decision or course of action is good or bad, and guessing using your biases and other flawed decision-making mechanisms in your head, take action instead.

Try things and see what really happens to learn more.

Test ideas and notice the results to move forward.

Movement is a stepping stone to the best path forward.

Being a path to clarity for people

I wrote this down some years ago.  I think I got it from Geno Auriemma. I thought it was great leadership and management advice.

“Be good at understanding people who cannot explain themselves.

Be good at explaining to people who don’t understand.”

Being a path to clarity is an important leadership quality.

Leaders – are you above others?

Many people think that leaders or people who are very successful think they are better than others.  I got to thinking why that was.  The reason, I think, is because that’s how some people at the top behave.  Some think they are better than everyone else, and fail to remember where they came from or how they got there.  

Perhaps living a life where you call all the shots and do what you want disconnected them from other people and made them feel superior. 

In their defense, I would say that some people assume that the leader is a snob or feels above them, just because other leaders are like that.  For some, it’s less that they feel the leader is above them than it is them feeling they are below the leader.  Indeed I have had people get nervous when I walk into a room and act differently.  But that has more to do with them and less with me.

Respecting the leader is probably a good idea.  But the leader needs to know why it is that people show that respect.  If it is fear, just the office or title, that the leader has the power to determine the fate of his employees, or that the leader demanded respect without earning it – well those are the wrong reasons.

For me, a life of leadership is one of great responsibility.  It is also a privilege.  It is given to you by the people you lead because of what you have enabled for them and the team that would not have been there had you not been present.  But it can be fragile.  If you lose the respect of those you lead, your ability to lead them will diminish, and eventually, they will leave you.

Do not look at anyone’s work as unimportant or lowly relative to yours.  It takes all of us to make the team go.  Don’t be “that” leader who gives the rest of us a bad rap.

What people do below us is not beneath us.

Emotional leader, emotional players

People are not logical most of the time.  And you, as a leader, are a person.

Pay attention to how YOU are processing events and how you are coming across to others.

No matter what you are doing or trying to get your team to do, you have to get them to feel good about it against what they value, and how they are feeling.

You are emotional.  Others are emotional.

Pay attention.

"I want to think about it"

When someone (your prospect) tells you I want to think about it, don’t say anything for ten seconds.

Keep gentle eye contact and open your body language.

They should tell you why or tell you more if you are quiet long enough.

Try it!

Speeding yourself up is not a good strategy.

You can only solve your problems by being more efficient or speeding yourself up so much.  There is a limit to that; a breaking point. 

Running your brain around crazy fast and multi-tasking all day is not a good strategy.

Hiring well, thinking, delegation, training, and empowerment are much better strategies.

Then get your butt home by 6 pm.

Sell yourself first

We all sell.  We sell things for money, or we sell people on our ideas, are sell them on doing something. 

In order to convince someone, you have to be totally convinced yourself.

The first sale you have to make is to yourself.

To the degree you believe in yourself, is the degree your customers (others) will believe in you.

Are yo completely sold on your product/service/idea?

Is your (sales) team?

Why be creative if you can't recognize a good idea?

Why be creative in business?

There is little point in being creative if you can’t recognize a good idea. 

If you have been ignoring good ideas, failing to see them, or very bad at implementing them, then why try to do something new to make things better?

Can you see the good creative ideas of others (your predecessors or current team members)?

When you come up with a handful of new ideas, do you have the understanding, knowledge and/or experience to recognize which ones are good and which are not before you go and invest lots of time and money to find out?