Leaders who hold the baseline between panic and dismissive indifference find themselves in the most precarious place. Some people will find their steadiness a comforting guide. Those are usually the ones who don’t swing too far from the baseline. They’re the reasonable folks who are looking for reason. Unfortunately, there are unreasonable folks who are, by definition,
We can either treat pain like a good teacher or an evil one to be avoided at all costs. How we respond shows us what we are able to handle. If we run from pain, we know we cannot handle much adversity. That may feel like a harsh judgement and it’s probably true of the majority of
Any teammate can treat the rest of the team well when they are treated well. The test of a great teammate is how they respond when another teammate disappoints them. Sometimes it’s best to try to understand what caused the disappointment. Is it simply a bad day? Did they not sleep well? Are the struggling with other
Passive-aggressive bitterness is a dysfunctional form of deception that distracts from the team’s purposes and goals. I use the word deception because everyone else is deceived into thinking the shift in attitude or tone has nothing to do with the small offense that has grown in the mind of the offender. Passive-aggressive behavior that hides conflict and
When we see the world as it should be, we set ourselves up to live a life of disappointment. I choose to see the world as it is so I can influence closer to the ideal. If I choose to only see the world through a sentimental lens, I would be tempted to expect the ideal and
Circumstances tend to tell a story about the quality of a team. How a team responds to good times and bad times reflects the actual state of a team. This does not always match the professed or believed state of a team. Good teams can struggle with pride. Bad teams can allow insecurity to dominate their decision
There is reality and then there is what we want and choose to see. We all have ideal circumstances that we aim for. I have learned that ideal is rare. Very rare. It’s best to see the world as it is and not how we imagine it should be. This is a key to a much more
Fitness is usually attached to visions of the gym and dieting. Fitness is simply the state of being fit. It is actually a spectrum and we are always in a state of fitness. We are always in shape, out of shape, or somewhere in between. We are always the before and after picture of the standard that
Maturity can be such a breath of fresh air when we are used to leading people through their constant cycles of drama. It’s like finding an adult to talk to on the playground of an elementary school. Mature people are easy to be around and tend to be reliable solution-makers. They can also be trusted to deescalate
Maturity is an often underrated attribute that every great teammate shares. It may even be the root cause of why a great teammate is so effective. Some might call it experience but maturity is more than experience. Experience tells us what to expect while maturity tells us how to respond. People with the same experience but different