Perspective

One of the most difficult things to do as a leader is to accept differences in others. The difference can be cultural or it may simply be personality. The point is, no two people are alike. That can be really annoying since we all have a perspective that constantly presents us with awareness as to how things should be done, how we should react to a situation and so on. The problem is, just like not two people are alike, no two perspectives are alike either.

Jim is in management and took a new role in his organization. While it was a lateral move in terms of title, it was with a line of business he was not familiar with. When assuming his new duties, Jim made it a priority to meet consistently with his top level business peers and executives. He wanted to make a good impression and establish good relationships with the difference makers he would be dealing with consistently. This approach kept his calendar packed consistently, but Jim knew he had other leaders in his organizational structure that could handle the departmental work effectively.

Sue has worked in her department for quite some time. She’s very knowledgeable and performs at a high level for the organization. Recently a new department head took over and Susan has not been able to spend much time with him. The new leader is not familiar with the departments processes and functions. He is always in meetings and pulled in a lot of directions by other leaders. Sue feels a distance from leadership that hasn’t existed in the organization to her knowledge.

If you haven’t figured it out, Sue works in Jim’s organization. Jim took an approach that he believes will make the most impact in the long run. Sue believes management needs to be more involved in the day to day operations of the teams. While this is a made up scenario, this type of thing happens all the time. Who do you think is right? Do you think Jim should spend more time with his teams? Do you think Sue has a right to feel frustrated or is she out of line? You can answer the questions any way you want, but your answers will be based on your perspective of the situation. It really isn’t a questions of which perspective is right and which is wrong. Each approach to the situation has merit and each looks right to each party involved. Neither is completely right or wrong, they’re just different.

You will always come into contact with people that are completely different than you. You will constantly be involved, in business or in life, with people that have a different perspective than you on the way to do things. That doesn’t mean their approach to life and problem solving is wrong. It doesn’t mean yours is either – it’s just different. If you want to advance your career and be a good leader, you must learn to be empathetic to the positions and approaches that others take. Learn to be aware of your own position and that other perspectives that are different than yours may actually have merit. Treat people in ways that are meaningful to them not just in ways that you believe to be meaningful. This will go a long way to creating trust in your relationships and enhancing your ability to influence and lead them effectively.

Your greatest competitive edge

I enjoy professional football. It’s a great game, I’m extremely competitive and the season is short enough that every game is meaningful. With the 2016 draft just held this weekend, it occurred to me that teams are preparing for the future by finding young players to replace their current players. There’s nothing like someone hiring your replacement right under your nose to get you thinking. So it got me thinking…

What is our greatest competitive edge? Being teachable in every area of life will allow us to retain our competitive edge. Maintaining a teachable attitude requires many soft-skills that require years of diligence to perfect. Some of those skills include flexibility and adaptability. Being able to adjust to circumstances beyond your control is essential in order to maintain the proper attitude. Whether it’s changing priorities, canceled projects or lack of resources, most of the time decisions are out of your control, so you have to find ways to adjust and do the best with what you have that is in your control. In these types of circumstances, we default to blaming others for the poor decision that created our situation or problems. Taking the teachable way means to look inward to areas, decisions or other parts of the equation that are in your control and where you can actually enact change. You will have more luck implementing change within areas you control than waiting on others to see what you perceive to be the “error of their ways”. After all, you can’t change anyone except yourself.

Being teachable means you are willing to learn from anyone. Find successful people and understand what they are doing that is different from you. Try to enlist a mentor you respect that has more life experience than you and make it a priority to spend time with them. Your mentor can be inside or outside of your organization.

Being teachable means you read a lot. If you think you are reading enough, read some more.

I mentioned humility as a crucial part of the definition of leadership in my last post, but it is also a significant factor to being teachable. If you think you know everything, there’s not much you need to learn. In life, in marriage and in business I have made it a priority to be constantly enrolled in the school of learning. If there is a day I don’t learn anything, I consider it a bad day. Look for opportunities to learn from your own life experience or from observing others. Did you know you can learn as much from failure as you can from success? Did you know that personal skills are not business oriented, so you can learn them from any experience or relationship you have? It’s primarily a function of how much self-awareness you have. How willing are you to look in the mirror and be honest about what needs to change? Instead of deflecting responsibility, taking it head on and doing what you can to make a difference for those that look to you for leadership.