{"id":18661,"date":"2021-07-20T12:19:56","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T16:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/948294437a.nxcli.io\/?p=18661"},"modified":"2021-07-20T12:19:56","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T16:19:56","slug":"stop-and-smell-the-flowers-a-ceo-survival-skill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/20\/stop-and-smell-the-flowers-a-ceo-survival-skill\/","title":{"rendered":"STOP and Smell the Flowers: A CEO Survival Skill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leadership, at times, can be brutal. You can find yourself under constant pressure to perform. The demands of your role mean that you must solve problems, prevent problems, direct the organization\u2019s strategic course, correct the course, evaluate threats and opportunities, provision the resources your organization needs, set standards, ensure that your people are working in alignment all while making certain that the organization is accomplishing what matters most \u2013 and can maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. It\u2019s easy for the tasks to become overwhelming.<\/p>\n

Experienced successful leaders make all of this look easy, but it is not.<\/span> <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Like mastering any complex skill, it is a combination of mastering what you need to know, effectively practicing what you need to do, and deciphering the feedback you need to track your growth and assess whether you are accomplishing the things that matter most. Having some raw natural skill helps \u2013 but still needs to be properly developed to be useful.<\/p>\n

Skill might even get in the way: many people who find that things come easy to them never develop the discipline, drive, or grit necessary to fully develop their potential. People who need to work harder to develop the same level of skills also develop the habits that make them conscientious and focused on constant improvement. Young athletes are a good example: oftentimes, players whose talents are identified early on show up as prima-donnas with a cultivated sense of entitlement, very low emotional intelligence, and lacking what it takes to perform with a team. The same is sometimes true for people that have been groomed to be leaders within an organization and lack the empathy and humility that define highly effective leaders.<\/p>\n

Even with good self-awareness and discipline, developing yourself into a competent leader is a tall hurdle for most people.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, in addition to the external demands on a leader, the need to mold yourself into who you need to be effective can be the most daunting task. Even with good self-awareness and discipline, developing yourself into a competent leader is a tall hurdle for most people.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that leadership is always situational. Much of leadership comes down to how you interpret the circumstances before you and how effectively you communicate to others what must be accomplished. It\u2019s easy to learn basic principles that apply to leaders on the whole. But the art of leadership is being able to apply those principles when they are needed and accomplishing what is needed. It means discerning what is necessary and showing others that it is also possible, but more importantly, having those people themselves determine that what must be accomplished is necessary. This is how leaders inspire exceptional performance and move mountains.<\/p>\n

The process of leadership self-development truly is a journey without a destination.<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Attaining a title or a position might be a matter of a goal you achieve, or an ambition fulfilled, but getting there does not satisfy what you need to continue to achieve to be effective. Leadership is dynamic with needs and abilities that must be fluid to keep up with the demands placed upon you. It\u2019s more than just staying current with the changes in your customers\u2019 needs or the tools you employ to serve them. The most basic functions of being an effective leader require that you remain agile, nimble, and in a state of constant learning. In fact, title and position are no indication that you possess any leadership ability whatsoever. Often the work of becoming a leader only begins after having already ascended to the role, and in the case of too many people, sadly, the work never begins at all.<\/p>\n

For those who have prepared themselves for the journey, it is a process of learning, unlearning, relearning to prepare for the ever-present uncertainties and ambiguities that are inextricable facets of being a leader. Whatever you prepare for must ultimately lead you to the next thing you must then be prepared for. The expectation that leading with certainty is even possible impedes your ability to adapt and grow. You must yield your desire for certainty to your need for curiosity. It is what frees you from operating in the knowing mode and allows you to emerge from the cocoon you build around yourself, transformed and able to operate in the learning mode.<\/p>\n

As the Greek Stoic Epictetus noted, you cannot learn what you believe you already know. The knowing mode feeds reactive thinking, isolating you from the world of possibilities. There is an illusion of safety that we are taught to associate with having the right answers to the problems we face. The process of formal education enforces this belief. And while there are moments when you must take action with violent certainty, those actions are best guided by recognizing and embracing the uncertainties that lead you to your final decision to act and then<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0requires you to reengage your curiosity in order to assess the efficacy of your actions. This process is known as the cycle of curiosity and certainty, where you spend 25% of the effort in the knowing mode \u2013 and the remainder of the process operating in the learning mode.<\/p>\n

Managing things to a level of certainty is crucial. It is the basis of engineering. We want to know the tensile strength of materials when we build structures or the aerodynamics of a design before sending people into flight. But you cannot manage people; they must led.<\/p>\n

People are inherently unpredictable. We can anticipate what is likely, but nearly never predict behavior with anything close to absolute certainty. Human beings have the capacity to express their will \u2013 even under the threat of pain or death. And even when manipulated under duress are still unpredictable \u2013 and at best, will not perform to their potential.<\/p>\n

People are inherently unpredictable. We can anticipate what is likely, but nearly never predict behavior with anything close to absolute certainty.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is why leadership is dynamic. In the absence of control, leaders must have influence, which in some respects is the opposite of control. The power of influence is dependent on the choices made by those you seek to have influence over. Control assumes that you have power over the behavior of others, but influence depends on those people freely giving that power to you. It is the basis for developing creative leadership qualities. These represent the leadership behaviors that foster cooperation, collaboration, and innovation in order to collectively observe, define and solve problems. On an organizational macro level, it is the leader\u2019s responsibility to create a shared sense of purpose that not only aligns the actions and activities to accomplish specific aims it also elevates individual and collective performance by providing the spark of inspiration that causes people to be conscientious and feel that their contributions are a source of personal satisfaction. It is this drivetrain of purpose-driven action that creates the force that defines and fuels high-performance organizations.<\/p>\n

Under the day-to-day pressures of leadership, it can be hard to access your creative qualities. Many people don\u2019t know where to look, even on a good day. When you allow yourself to be driven to exhaustion or remain fixated on achieving your ambitions, you will find yourself hiding from the uncertainty by spinning a cocoon from the knowledge you have acquired. Extensive research has demonstrated that people perform more poorly at solving problems when under stress.<\/p>\n

The caterpillar isn\u2019t hiding in its cocoon. It is silently and patiently transforming itself into a butterfly, literally by digesting itself and allowing the wings from within it to emerge and a new body form. The hard work of climbing and consuming the vital nutrients it needs comes to a stop. In the dark and quiet space, it spins for itself; it emerges as a creature with beautiful wings to fly with instead of the busy legs it used before – and literally dance in the breeze whenever it takes flight, stopping to smell the flowers and drink their nectar. Their purpose in life is to pollinate plants as they feed and to create new butterflies.<\/p>\n

You can learn something about leadership transformation from the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. You can begin by taking time to smell the flowers. Take in the nectar of life. Your job isn\u2019t to consume more and more knowledge but to use what you have consumed to take flight. Living in the learning mode is like being that butterfly. Your job is to pollinate ideas and help them bear fruit. And your job is ultimately to create new leaders.<\/p>\n

When was the last time you stopped to smell the flowers? What keeps you from making the time? And what would your life be like \u2013 and how would your company benefit \u2013 if you did?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leadership, at times, can be brutal. You can find yourself under constant pressure to perform. The demands of your role mean that you must solve problems, prevent problems, direct the organization\u2019s strategic course, correct the course, evaluate threats and opportunities, provision the resources your organization needs, set standards, ensure that your people are working in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18662,"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-18661","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\/18661","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=18661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18663,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661\/revisions\/18663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}