Instinct, Passion and Trust

bymegabux

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Updated 9 years ago

What follows is the second segment in a multi-part series entitled "The Ghosts of Leadership" - ideals amassed throughout a long and colorful career, both as a contributor to a team and in managing teams. The premise of these ideals are grounded in Dickens’ notion that ghosts of our past, present, and future spur us to act when we clearly see the impact of our decision-making behaviors, whether it be influencing people or teams.

PART II

In Part I we discussed the Ghosts of Change, Awareness and Failure. In summary, in order for us to better understand others we first need to understand ourselves. We make change a part of our normal functioning state by embracing it; seeing things not as how they are but how much better they will be. Second, we need to recognize when the universe is trying to tell us something by having high conscious and situational awareness. The universe is interconnected between our environment and ourselves. Tuning to those frequencies generates actionable intelligence on a necessary way forward. Lastly, failure is an important key to success and innovation. It is important for us to know what failure and losing feels like, so that we may plan for and enjoy our accomplishments. More importantly, it teaches us how we will not lose the next time we face similar circumstances. We should strive toward attainment without a fear to fail since we learn about ourselves as we evolve.

The Ghosts of Instinct, Passion, and Trust extend these ideals by creating accessible conditions to achieving lasting changes. We become receptive to growth opportunities that become apparent when we make a plan to adhere to ideals covered in the previous section.

We are the embodiment of our programming. Our programming is a coded set of actions and responses built up through many years of experience. It consists of our upbringing, achievements, motivations, and a host of social stimuli. Our behaviors are the culmination of this set of programming instructions, and although it is useful most of the time, there are many instances where we need calibration; to make positive changes, and reinforce those changes with adequate feedback mechanisms. These improvements correct our programming, just like a software developer works through bugs in his or her code.

We do not have to be victimized by our programming. However, it is a conscious choice many people decide is acceptable, as it is their default way forward. We may recognize it as the fallback excuse, “I’ve always done it this way.” This is one of the most difficult aspects of ourselves we attempt to change. It is difficult to shirk our programming and adapt new attitudes when both our self-awareness and our understanding of the interconnectedness of our environment are switched off. When we consciously decide to re-factor our programming, we are receptive to new attitudes and behaviors. When we have attained a high level of alertness in and of our environment, we are primed to learn and change ourselves with corrective action.

The Ghost of Instinct

When we are in tune with our environment, our instincts are honed and will produce a high deterministic success rate. We only need to take the time to trust and listen to that inner voice. It is amazingly accurate.

One instinct we have difficulty in appreciating is recognizing where we excel. I’ve failed at many things. I’m also good at certain things and great at others, and terrible at still others. I know this about myself and have accepted my strengths and limitations as a result. That does not mean I will stop trying, because when I stop trying, I stop growing. I’m not perfect. However, I can say I tried something and failed – and at least I’ve tried. How many people around us are examples of not having ever tried at all? Or not instinctively recognizing where they excel?

A good leader possesses instinctive qualities in spotting and developing talent. It’s up to us as leaders to recognize where our subordinates and teammates excel, coach them, and help them to succeed. We provide a greater sense of well-being and job satisfaction when we do. The rewards are strong inter-personal relationships and enhanced trust. In addition, we learn the capabilities of key teammates we later count on for a project or a situation we know they are best suited to succeed.

As a leader with conscious awareness, our instincts become solid; a trusty tool in the arsenal of success.

The Ghost of Passion

Finding what we are passionate about takes a great deal of self-reflection coupled with a desire to share our voice and vision with others. When we promote our passions our team discovers their own passions as well. Passion is usually attributed to romance but exists in every aspect of our lives, whether we consciously admit it or not.

In the workplace, when we consider the term “burned out” we often attribute that feeling to fatigue, when arguably, that person’s passion has dissipated for what he or she was once passionate. We can look around at several of our coworkers and visibly see they are “burned out.” This term is code for they have lost their passion.

As a leader, it is important we discuss this aspect of a person’s state in the context of a team, since if left alone, it will drag the rest of the team down – possibly into failure. In addition, the state of the enterprise and organizational psychology play a key role. Negative workplace situations can sap anyone’s spirit very quickly and in that regard, it is best to move on or make changes before it eats away at us and destroys something we love. It is our duty as leaders to nullify any conditions hindering nothing but complete success for our teams.

A “burned out” colleague will appreciate us recognizing something their vision became too clouded to realize, when we discuss their shortcomings in a meaningful, constructive way as leaders. We all want to feel appreciated. We are all striving toward success. Understanding how they are failing assists in removing barriers to their own success and helps us by providing our team new buoyancy.

I've surprised myself with passionate interests I didn't realize I had. Some I knew from early on, such as writing, science, photography, and music. But others, like history, politics, sociology, psychology, and art are passions I’m continuously exploring. I’m writing a book – eight chapters, two hundred pages so far – and loving it. The key is perhaps opening ourselves up to self-examination will yield new revelations, and we should embrace them and make them part of us to better our overall well-being.

Good leaders are passionate people. They have a vision and believe in what they are doing. They are invested so completely that they get their teams to invest their energy and passions in committing to that vision.

The Ghost of Trust

We tend to overlook the fact that many of these character traits necessitate a willingness to share the core components of our belief systems with someone we genuinely and unconditionally trust, some of which expose our true limitations as human beings. But in order to grow we need absolute validation that the path we choose is the better way forward. Trusting someone is essential in giving us constructive criticism when revealing areas requiring improvement. Without a genuine, sincere feedback mechanism, we take the chance of losing ourselves to circumstances when we operate blindly.

As a leader, trusting the people that work for us is akin to helping them find their own success. The more we trust our subordinates and teammates to succeed, the more energy we are empowering them to do so. Over time this pays absolute dividends in personal and professional growth and has an adjacent effect in strengthening inter-personal relationships, not to mention functionally strengthening a team.

To summarize –

• We are not victims of our programming. We attain actionable intelligence on a necessary way forward when we are in tune to our environment, and our programming can change as a result.
• When we are passionate, our teams invest energy in our vision and discover passions of their own.
• When we trust someone unconditionally, we establish the means for positive feedback and validation.

In anticipation of questions or comments, this advice is a composite of many years (and dollars) of management and self-help advice in books, hypnotherapy, seminars, videos and the like. These ideas are not new so much as they are rigorously tested and therefore true. They are reminders of a more evolved self we seek.

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