Strategic Leadership Coaching

Sabotaging Ourselves

Are you inadvertently sabotaging yourself from becoming an exceptional leader?  Gary Collins in his blog post Holding Ourselves Back outlines five ways that people commonly derail their own leadership potential.  He sites research from an article in the February 2011 Harvard Business Review.  Take a look and see if any of the five apply to you.

Dealing with the office bully

Dealing with the office bully can be a very difficult and stressful situation especially if the bully happens to be your supervisor. Here are a few thoughts:

1. Maintain very clear professional boundaries for you. Maintain your self respect and do not acquiesce to demands made in a bullying fashion clearly state your need to be communicated with in a professional manner.
2. Develop a list of "one-liner" responses to bullying comments that you rehearse for yourself. By "one-liner" I mean a clear short statement that clearly shows up the nature of the bully's request. Avoid sarcasm and personal jabs at the bully your goal should be to reinforce your boundaries.
3. Document every interaction done in a bullying fashion. Keep emails and voice mails and make notes of personal interactions that are distressing so that you can recall them later include dates, times, and possible witnesses.
4. If the bully does not change his behavior in response to your boundaries then you might want to consult with your human resources or employee relations department. This is where your documentation will be useful.

Ultimately, if nothing changes and your organization takes no action to address the bullying behavior you have to question the health of the organizational culture.  Then the decision becomes one of respecting your own boundaries and well being, which means it may be time to consider finding a new position.  I hope these suggestions are helpful in managing a very challenging situation. 

When Tension is a Good Thing

When I say the word tension what do you think?  If you are like most people you think, "Tension is bad and I need to reduce it in my life" and you turn to any number of so-called stress reducers a bubble bath, a glass of wine, or zoning in front of the television.  And to a certain degree you would be right. Tension out of control can be damaging both mentally and physically.  However, in business and life we need a certain amount of tension to get things done what I call "productive tension". 

 

What sorts of things cause your tension to rise?  Usually it involves some kind of deadline on a task or an obligation to another person or group of people.  Now imagine that all those potential sources of tension just went away with the wave of a magic wand.  Life might feel very different with no tension almost tranquil, but let me ask you how productive you would be?  When you are lying on the beach on vacation it feels great for a few days maybe even a week, but after a while what starts to happen we get bored.  There is no sense of accomplishment while we are lying on the beach; our purpose becomes obscured for a time while we recharge.

 

Productive tension is about finding the appropriate level of stress or anxiety for particular mission critical activities.  Then operating out of an awareness of factors that might move our tension up or down out of the productive range and responding appropriately to stay in the sweet spot.  Are you paying attention to tension?

Creating Safety in Your Organization

I just found this very Interesting article on Creating Safety in Your Organization from the Success.com blog.  What are the consequences of having an unsafe environment in your organization?