How much energy do you waste on managing, worrying about, or adjusting your behavior in response to what others think about you? If you happen to be an extrovert like me, chances are impression management is a persistent force in your life. Wanting people to like you tends to be a thankless and exhausting pursuit. But introverts are just as capable of feeling insecure about how people judge them.<\/p>\n
There is a balance between being self-conscious or being aware of yourself relative to your surroundings, which in itself is necessary and a good thing \u2013 and being consumed and hijacked by that awareness. Overall, self-awareness is a critical factor in leadership, but it is a double-edged sword: you need to stay sharp and aware of things that matter and dull your focus on obstacles you place in your own way.<\/p>\n
Being in a leadership role intensifies the complexities of self-awareness. On the one hand, you need to have influence; therefore, you must command other people\u2019s attention. On the other hand, you need to be in service to others, which means you cannot make decisions based on what\u2019s best for you. It is tempting to prioritize pleasing others over making necessary but unpopular decisions if you seek approval or validation. In this sense, you want to be self-conscious, not of external judgment, but your purpose and internal guidance.<\/p>\n
There is a cocktail of habitual behaviors that show up with impression management. You tend to be fearful, defensive \u2013 or even insincere and duplicitous \u2013 to either challenge or cultivate the impressions others have of you. These behaviors undermine the results you are trying to achieve. Rather than galvanizing relationships, you erode trust and reduce the confidence people have in you.<\/p>\n
When you operate based on accomplishing what matters most, you change how you view how you do things. Rarely is there ever just one way to accomplish anything. And the best way of doing something today is likely to be replaced by a better way in the future. You must be adaptive and able to welcome change. And you must be curious.<\/p>\n
People resist change because they fear loss. Some people hold onto the comfort of familiarity rather than embrace uncertainty. It is why people prefer problems they cannot solve over solutions they do not like. Doing the same thing over and over again not only eliminates the need to be curious but also numbs the senses and eliminates the ability to be curious. People prefer being unhappy and unfulfilled in predictable routines over pursuing things that would bring them overwhelming joy.<\/p>\n
Joy is an entirely internal experience. You cannot find joy out in the world \u2013 you must experience joy based on how you interpret your circumstances. <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Joy is a function of perspective and self-satisfaction. You find joy in what you accomplish. Even small accomplishments can be a source of great joy. People who love life are those who string together moments of overwhelming joy by accomplishing things they understand to be meaningful, suggesting it makes sense to do and significant, meaning that the benefit is somehow measurable.<\/p>\n
All competent leaders have an accomplishment bias. They understand that what they do is only of consequence when it accomplishes something meaningful. Your significance as a leader is a function of the meaningful things you accomplish.<\/p>\n
The agency of leadership can often be a burden. Owning responsibility for not just your actions but all the consequences that result can be enormously vexing. But the satisfaction and joy you experience make the burden thoroughly worthwhile.<\/p>\n
People will judge your accomplishments just as certainly as they will judge you. The difference is that the qualities that measure results are easily discernable. People may be fickle and size you up based on irrelevant and even imagined attributes in the absence of anything empirical to assess. But the real measure and significance of a leader are what you accomplish and evidence of your having a noble purpose.<\/p>\n
Your efficacy as a leader results from being prepared to accomplish what is necessary by showing others what is possible. Steve Jobs once noted that the job of a leader is not to tell people what to do but to help them see what is possible.<\/p>\n
It may not be possible to do what is necessary and win the adulation of others, but you will always know the satisfaction of doing the right thing. Living a life of purposeful, meaningful accomplishment will permanently eliminate the need to worry about what others think of you. Let them judge your worth by your accomplishments \u2013 and you can disregard what they might think of you.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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How much energy do you waste on managing, worrying about, or adjusting your behavior in response to what others think about you? If you happen to be an extrovert like me, chances are impression management is a persistent force in your life. Wanting people to like you tends to be a thankless and exhausting pursuit. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cohort-reading-resources","category-leadership-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15813,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15811\/revisions\/15813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}