We live in an exciting time for leaders. Advances in technology shed light on all things anew, including how to be at our best and bring out the best in others – even amidst turbulence. Resilience, enduring disruption and returning to a stable form, has been replaced by harmonized growth, transforming into a new integrative form. In making this shift, great leaders recognize beliefs outlive their usefulness regularly. To inspire growth, let’s start an exploration of three such beliefs.
Number 1: Manage Energy not Time
Gone are the days of smoothly moving through As, Bs, and 1,2,3s. Unless you are a first responder, urgency is often not predictable. Importance is in the eyes of the beholder as polycultural executive teams and a multigenerational workforce bring diverse values systems.
To provide clarity in complexity, effective leaders know how to manage their internal energy to maintain a calm and alert presence. They know how to activate for creativity, how to energize with physical activity, and when forcing to do one more thing will come at a personal expense as well as suboptimal outcome. They know their rhythms and have let go of ‘shoulding’ on themselves, as well as others.
Do your own experiment, a few weeks is often sufficient to gather your own data. See if you can replicate research results. Here are three experiments to consider -
1. Establish a productivity measure that is relevant to you and measure daily productivity for 7-10 days to have a baseline. One example is a self-assessment of satisfaction with what got done on a 7-point scale. Then, for 2-3 weeks, take the last fifteen minutes of your day to write down everything that had gotten done that day. Continue to track productivity for those 2-3 weeks. What do you notice?
2. Go to bed fifteen minutes earlier each night until you wake the next morning (keeping a consistent waking time) feeling refreshed. Maintain that sleep rhythm for a couple weeks, tracking mood, productivity, relationship quality. Then go back to your pre-experiment amount of sleep. Notice the difference in those first few days! After that, your brain can be tricked into thinking the re-emerging fuzziness and restlessness are the norm.
3. Notice your restlessness which may show up as being fidgety or irritable or short. This might be an indication that your body rhythm is not being honored throughout the day and is working to get your attention. ADHD has become a quick answer for unrealistic expectations that people should be able to sit and concentrate endlessly. Just as physical exertion is best balanced with periods of rest, our attentiveness and cognitive abilities fare better when we follow the body’s natural rhythm for movement and stillness. It’s common for that cycle to be 70-110 minutes, yet everyone is unique.
If your reaction to these experiments is that you don’t have time, your learning has already begun! The information: your current beliefs about managing time are deeply rooted. The first step is to accept that your life experiences have shaped you to deeply hold your beliefs – at some time in the past, that served you well. It’s understandable and likely served a purpose. Now, however, it may be limiting you. So, carve out a few minutes to do your own research on the benefits of leading the self or work with a therapist to identify the underlying emotional hooks. You deserve the freedom to be your best.
The emotional hooks connect embedded beliefs to the embodied habits – the ways we impulsively act in different situations. See examples in prior articles about dynamics with differences and dissent, here and here. Even if you disliked how a caregiver managed anger or made it your priority to keep them happy, your brain learned through socialization (that’s how the human brain learns such things). Disliking the habits isn’t enough to break the pattern. We can’t turn them on/off because we walk through the office doorway. You can, however, do the work to dig under the surface level behaviors and connect new beliefs to new habits grounded in emotional wellness. This will allow you to engage with the nervous system and emotions as the source of energy, motivation, passion, and compassion, just as nature intended them.
A side note to prevent confusion: Although they may share some common external appearance characteristics, a state of being suppressed/shutdown/numb is not the same as being calm/alert. More on this in part 3 when we reframe stress (a label to an emotional experience) as stimulus for growth.
Creating awareness and unlearning the old can be the biggest hurdle. To jumpstart leaders into a transition to this new paradigm of dynamics and harmonized growth, we have designed the courses and coaching. Come to learn; stay to grow. Embrace the hidden dynamics as a lens for personal and interpersonal effectiveness in decision making, culture shifting, and trust building. The approach integrates the latest insights from neuroscience, cybernetics, and relational systems. Let's get growing!
And stay tuned…there’s more to come!
Number Two: Manage decisions not tasks.
Number Three: Manage growth not stress.
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