Sometimes opportunities to improve were present all along and the team just needed a reason to look under the hood to find the source of the thing that just doesn’t sound right. It’s better to address those small warnings early than to abide the sound that plants a “something is wrong” alarm in the back of your
Teams that like their favorite way become predictable and rely too much on a narrow window of circumstance to succeed. The inflexible decision-maker can fall into the trap of believing so much in their “tried and true” way that if it doesn’t work in every circumstance, it wasn’t meant to be. As the favorite way becomes more
When a team or teammate’s limit is set, the achievements beyond that set limit are not only seen as unreachable but perhaps even morally questionable. This is because the ease of their job has become what governs their decision-making. These are the people that wait all week for the weekend and dread Mondays. They look at success
Every team deals with the moment when everything seems to go wrong. We respond correctly to “emergency” situations when we categorize our response in stages. The typical stages include: Breathe (limit emotion) Assess Triage (do what you can) Repair (do what you should) Learn When we categorize our response to adversity, we allow ourselves to manage our
Injuries are a good teacher because they cost us our routines and previous plans. Injuries catch our attention because they are painful. They are the kind of painful that doesn’t get better overnight. Injuries reframe our world to see and think about what happened and how to avoid it in the future. In this way, an injury
Growing pains are good and should be leaned into even though they are achey and inconvenient. Injuries are a different kind of pain that communicate something other than growth. Injuries tend to be sharper and more intense. This means something is wrong and we must stop to rest and recover. Injuries happen when we exceed our capacities
Every endeavor worth doing will cause us some measure of discomfort. We have a decision to make everytime we are faced with discomfort. Do I quit or do I push through the pain? This is where we decide if we are hurt or injured. If I am hurt, I should suck it up and keep going. If
A mature leader is patient in the face of adversity that is likely to pass over time. Things rarely go as planned and adversity requires a mature attitude to navigate through it. Maturity leans into adverse situations because strength and growth are often the outcome. Naïve attitudes fear the bad look of adversity and do everything they
When a leader is mature enough to discern what is a big deal and what isn’t, they can allocate resources better than those who tend to be more reactive to circumstances. Maturity sees the world beyond the immediate circumstances. They know when time and money is needed to help get something off the ground. They also can
There are a lot of different leadership styles. There are a multitude of effective methods. How does a person find the most effective leadership path with all the valid and diverse approaches available? It’s found in attitude more than method. Mature leadership attitudes will beat the naïve and ambitious more often over time. Maturity allows people to