Courageous leaders bounce back

What a day of mixed fortunes it has been and it has provoked me to think about the need to bounce back - how quickly do you need to bounce back and how long can you dwell on the things that you wanted to happen and they didn't?

I think it is is important to acknowledge your emotions and allow yourself to "feel them" - courageous leaders need to allow themselves time to be real and feel. However it is important not to allow these emotions to take you into one of the common roles we fulfil when "feeling" - victim, persecutor or rescuer. Interestingly I found myself feeling like a bit of a victim when some disapppointing news came our way - great I caught myself and returned to just "feeling" - being present with it and allowing it to percolate into my mind and body. The hardest part is to acknowledge that I "created the whole of my reality" - and sometimes this takes time to accept and acknowledge - why would I do this? Why would I create this? So it means I need to slow down and reflect on what I know, what I did and what has happened and importantly how I feel.

So in answer to my question I think and feel that it is important to allow enough time to be present with your feelings before deciding to "bounce back".

And bouncing back means owning your feelings and determining how you want to use them constructively to take yourself forward - no blame, no justification, no defensiveness - ready to accept the news and create personal action.

And since starting this blog I have certainly been tested on "just how courageous" are we talking about.....this is what I have created and now I am learning from it. So, courageous leaders allow themselves time to be present with their feelings before "bouncing back". It is OK to feel disappointed, to feel sad, to feel mad........and it is what you do with these feelings that is so important for the courageous leader!

Courageous leaders inspire

I was asked a question today about how the world might look if people were inspired to be courageous leaders. I found it hard to use words to describe what I think it will feel like to be in this kind of world........and I have pondered this question over the course of the last few hours and am going to attempt to put my thoughts and feelings into words.

Firstly I think the reason I found it so hard is because I do not know what it could possibly look like if we had people leading courageously as one symbiotic population of leaders within an organisation or even within every organisation in a country - no political game playing, no fear, no deception, no blame, no justifying, no controlling others. The opportunities and possibilites are truly exponential! So I needed to time to think and explore before I could respond - I could easily describe what I wanted us to move away from but it was not so easy to describe what I wanted us to move TOWARDS.

If we had each complete population of leaders within every organisation in every country adopting the mantle of courageous leader we would have a world where each leader took total responsibility for the ramifications of their decisions and would not make them from an egotistical or greedy basis. It would be like standing at the peak of a mountain and seeing no boundaries just limitless blue in front of you; and everyone would be standing with you feeling inspired about the future and what it was going to bring. You would almost feel breathless like you do at the peak of a huge mountain - only it would be because of the anticipation of what "might be" as we proceed into the future. We would have complete transparency with everyone believing in abundancy and not scarcity and our underlying principle would be that of "pay it forward". Trust would be complete as people would not feel the need to "hide" anything and would trust that the leaders would make decisions based on their trusted conscience of the "right thing to do" - and at a moral and ethical level we all recognise there is a right way to do things where we look after people, finances and the environment.

I believe there HAS to be another way of leading people to create our bountiful future - and I would not want to limit anyone's thinking about what we COULD achieve as a result of being a courageous leader. And that is probably why I find it hard to describe the future because I am limited by my own thinking and want dynamic, curious, interesting and collaborative interactions with other courageous leaders to truly explore what we could be capable of achieving.

It is therefore important for me to conclude that courageous leaders inspire...........they inspire us to dream of and envision a new and exhilerating way of "being."

Courageous leaders have relationships that challenge

Courageous leaders seek out relationships that challenge them to grow and develop - they do not have a high need for relationships that feed their ego. I loved reading about this principle in Carol Dweck's book called Mindset and I believe it is highly relevant for the Courageous Leader.

Working with participants in a workshop I noticed again how easy and quick it is for us to retreat to our defenses when challenged - we don't like to reflect on how things could be better or acknowledge (developmental) feedback from external sources. It is confronting so then our natural response is to label the people facilitating the challenging thoughts as negative, disloyal and other such descriptors that I explored in an earlier blog on challenging behaviour.

I found myself in such a situation just recently - and it is ever so hard not to jump into justify your behaviour when someone labels you - for me, I was labelled "negative" - and for those that know me well would know that kind of label really hurts and is not representative of the kind of person I am and the kind of brand I want to build. I found myself passionately wanting to prove to the person that I was not being negative that I was trying to challenge the reality of what was being created for this business. And I certainly experienced first hand how hard it is to engage in such conversations - because you feel under attack personally ........... and yet at the same time it is just the kind of relationship I say I seek - one to challenge me to grow!

If I pick up the challenge then I start to think that if I am creating the perception then what can I do differently to turn it around - how can I engage in the conversation differently? Or do I need to stop taking responsibility for how people are choosing to receive my ideas - others in the room found me inspiring? These thoughts rage through your head as you are trying to choose your behaviours in an instant - what should I say next, how should I respond, how will I manage my raging emotions constructively...........

Courageous Leaders look for opportunities to grow and develop as a result of the relationships they build - what can I learn from the impact I created for people from the language I chose to use and would I do anything differently if I were put into the same situation again?

If you see and hear people moving into their "defenses" what do you do - try to engage them differently, acknowledge that is where they are at and that is not where you are going to travel with them?

Wouldn't it be great to have a "manual" with all the answers - life is full of experiences that bolster growth if you allow it and that is the very essence of the Courageous leader. Know you did the best you could in the instant when you needed to make your choices and then reflect on what you can do differently when put into a similar situation in the future.

I think that next time I am going to ensure the person takes more responsibility for their reactions - I present a situation and it is their choice to respond defensively - and that is OK!

I would love to hear back from some of my followers about their experiences with such growth in relationships.