When you bring people together, you’re going to experience some clash of perspectives.
This may morph into a siege complete with hand-grenade insults and temper tantrums. Or a quiet icy silent embargo. I’ve been on the receiving, and giving, end of both.
Welcome to office politics.
But you don’t have to just shrug it off as a necessarily evil of modern business.
Being influential is easy when you have power and a job title to match. What happens when you’ve got a great idea but you feel like just a cog in a machine?
You could quite easily just seethe and simper in a corner, bemoaning the powers that be for being too caught up in their ivory tower to listen to the likes of you. After all, it’s not your problem…
But hey that would be playing victim and adding to the problem, and I know you are too much of a natural rock star leader to let THAT happen, right?!
Does anyone else wonder what will happen to Apple now that Steve-The-Genius Jobs has passed on? If there is ever to be a test of his leadership, it’s now; what survives when the leader doesn’t? We may not know for a few years yet.
Here’s what has survived – the example he set in his fierce and fearless approach to design and business, and how you can think like the mega-man too.
To be a successful leader, you need sound rapport. But how do you get it when some folks just drive you bonkers?
It’s not easy when someone can make your toes curl just by the way they smile.
But trust me, you can develop good rapport with anyone using these three secret strategies.
We’re going to go one better than simply getting along with people, we’re going to share how to create magnetic rapport. Rapport that wraps people in a bubble of loveliness and lures the angels to strum their harps and cherubs to chirp.
“You look tired.” At least three people on the leadership program and a couple of my colleagues said that to me this week. Nice. I would have preferred, “You look gorgeous!” But ‘tired’ is the feedback I got.
It started to bother me. My mother-in-law says this to me every time I see her. My boss says it to me. My honey says it to me and makes me lie on the couch while he cooks dinner (that part is good!).
I realised I was projecting ‘tired’ out in to my world. And that is just so unattractive! Friends don’t want to hang around ‘tired’, clients don’t want to engage you if you’re ‘tired’, participants aren’t engaged by someone who is ‘tired’…
I’m never short of an opinion, so when my forthright comments in a recent board meeting elicited a response that equated to “Shut up, Buttercup, and respect your elders”, my blood boiled.
Luckily, being as outspoken as I am, I’ve had a few opportunities to learn conflict management techniques and what not to do in a situation like this. Try them next time you’re fuming.
Don’t let your emotions speak for you.
If I’d let rip with the words I was screaming in my head during that meeting, all anyone there would have heard would have been my feelings, red and raw. Plus, I would’ve had to watch them wipe spittle from their eyes. Yuck.
When making difficult decisions, the options can feel like deciding between swimming a river full of crocodiles or staying to fight a pack of dingoes. So what should you do? Here are some tips to help you navigate through this challenging obstacle course.
The Logical Way of Making Difficult Decisions
The good old pros and cons list. This will clarify the issues and benefits associated with each choice. Sometimes the choice becomes clear at this point. The next step is just taking the plunge.
The Intuitive Way of Making Difficult Decisions
Leading can be difficult and painful – hence the notion of ‘crucible’ experiences: an event that was challenging or even harrowing acts as a transformational experience, much like a crucible provides a container for huge temperatures that initiate a re-structure of its contents.
Leaders too can act as crucibles – creating a stable steady environment to contain the fury within as change crackles and burns. Transformation occurs, but it’s an overwhelming, painful process.
Change need not be so punitive. Magnetic leadership principles offer a more gentle, compassionate process for growth. Trial by fire can be replaced with memorphosis within a gentler container.
Here’s the scene: Thanks to the sudden resignation of one of your colleague, you’ve been promoted and you are now expected to lead a team. But you’ve never managed anyone before and are concerned about becoming “boss” of people who are used to dealing with you as a friend on their level.
“Crikey! Dropped in the deep end – the top 3 factors to consider when you’re suddenly the new ‘boss’”:
I confess – I am no good at receiving compliments. I’ve trained myself to say ‘thanks’ instead of ‘it’s nothing’ but I’m still usually in shock. Love my article? But it’s just what I do day in day out. You find my coaching insightful and powerful? But I just tell it how I see it. Love my presentation? But public speaking is so easy!
And I know how ridiculous this all sounds by the hundreds of you I can hear scoffing at the last point. Public speaking is not easy – not by a long shot.
So why do I downplay?