Awkward.

Offensive.

Destructive.

Some people seem to live as if they’re the only ones on the planet.

They are oblivious or insensitive to how their behavior affects others.

How then do we communicate that their actions or words hurt, offend or harm us?

Suffice to say that waiting until you blow up in an explosion of rage is not very effective.

What is appropriate when confronting the inappropriate?

This week Claudia discuss confronting inappropriate behavior in the workplace.

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

“He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.”

Henry David Thoreau

“What possible good can result from venturing into the unknown?”

Margaret Benefiel thus thrusts us into the crux of the leader’s conundrum. We do not all traverse paths paved and mapped by others. Increasingly in today’s ever-changing world, we find ourselves in new territory, exploring not yet imagined possibilities.

If knowing or controlling the outcome is a prerequisite for leadership, then we are trapped before even beginning. How does anything new ever break in? If the end has to be determined and proven before we begin, there is no means for experimenting with the new, strange or different.

Benefiel’s bold assertion is that the heart can be trusted as a leader’s compass in charting strange territory, discerning the need for change, and trying entirely new approaches.

Anyone reading here probably already believes that leadership is not a mechanical catalogue of techniques that one masters and implements with precise and reliable effect.

What if leadership derives its very nature, form and power from the particular individual who enacts it? What if leadership were an embodied dynamic?

Suddenly the importance of what sort of person this leader is becomes significant. The quality of one’s character limits or enhances one’s capacity (more…)

Granted confrontation will probably never be anyone’s favorite task.

What, though, if confrontation were a mere ordinary, matter-of-fact, and mundane task? Just another workplace reality whenever diverse people and complex systems overlap. Ho hum.

Could fear and anger be making confrontation more difficult and dangerous than it really need be?

Join Claudia and I as we begin a new discussion series entitled, Confrontation for Those Who Don’t Like Confrontation.

Maybe we simply need to change our vocabulary. Instead of “confrontation” we could call it, “talking about difficult issues,” “informing others of your boundaries,” or “clearing up misunderstandings.”

Problems are to be expected in the workplace. Confrontation should be a normal and dispassionate form of communication that takes place more often than not. Confrontation should be a helpful and constructive activity not a scary or dangerous one. Confrontation should help us work through our problems earlier and more effectively rather than letting them fester and compound.

Confrontation for Those Who Don’t Like Confrontation
Week #1: Making Confrontation Normal
Week #2: Confronting Inappropriate Behavior
Week #3: Confronting Unacceptable Work
Week #4: Confronting Not Pulling One’s Weight
Week #5: Confronting Misunderstandings

How do you feel about confrontation?

Listen in.

“Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures. They are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers.”

Christian Bovee

Which is more work: giving yourself fully to the task at hand or holding back?

It’s a open question. It’s also a loaded question.

My suspicion is that holding back takes more effort than working hard.

Holding back requires constant reflection. “How much is just enough?” “Am I putting in more than I’m being paid for?” “Is anyone watching?” “What time is it now?”

Giving your all requires no extra effort and involves no mind games. You simply go for it.

You’re free and focused to a degree unavailable to the person holding back.

Think about your own approach to work and working hard. Which days go by the quickest? On which days do you experience the greatest sense of achievement?

Why begrudge going the proverbial “extra mile” with someone when I imagine we’d have already gone the extra mile and come back by the time we sweated through whether we were being taken advantage of or exceeded the requirements of our job description or won’t be appropriately appreciated.

You can hold back if you choose. It may be appropriate. It may be fair. It may be justified. But it will certainly be a lot more work.

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

If you believe that you need to be self-sufficient, dominant, proficient, and heartless in order to be a good leader, I don’t know whether to welcome you or warn you about our next Thought Leaders Unpacked™ series.

More than a challenge to the prevalent myths about leadership in our culture, Margaret Benefiel’s The Soul of a Leader is a guide to a healthier, deeper and more human understanding of leadership. Ironically, or maybe I should say, poetically, the evidence seems to suggest that such a human approach is also the more effective approach.

From my perspective, it makes perfect sense that it takes a healthy human person to effectively lead other human persons. Strange that so much of the leadership cult and culture today is content with mechanizing and commoditizing what by nature—people—are unique and diverse in talents, interests, styles and motivations.

What about you? Are you trying to squeeze yourself into the uncritically accepted mold of the self-sufficient, dominant, proficient, and heartless leader? Are you slowly dying inside in the process?

What if by doing so you were robbing yourself and the world of the very gift you have to offer… you!? You in all your distinctness, passion, giftedness and power.

Please join me as we explore this renewing and empowering book together. We will be working our way through one chapter at a time. I will post my reflections here each week. I invite you to contribute your reflections in the comment section. We can all learn more when we share more learning.

Choosing the Path
Following the Heart
Finding Partners
Daring to Dream

Staying on Track
Keeping Mission at the Fore
Practicing Gratitude
Battling for the Soul

Persevering to the End
Breaking the Cycle of Violence
Persevering to the End
Finding Spiritual Guidance

Here is a link to the book on Amazon.com. Get your copy today and we’ll look at the first chapter next week.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

More painful for the new leader than probably anything else is being unpopular.

Accepting a promotion would involve choosing to put myself in this awkward place vis-a-vis my team where my decisions might evoke negative reactions.

The promotion is attractive because I anticipate being successful, making good decisions, and being enthusiastically appreciated for doing so.

And yet, deep within, we know reality is not so simple. Reality is that we cannot please everyone.

A wise question to ask oneself is how will one respond to the negative reactions, both those with substance and those without.

More germane to this week’s discussion, though, is asking whether you are avoiding the responsibility of leadership in order to avoid the unpopularity that often goes along with it?

Listen in.

Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

Most of us can relate to the idiom about “shooting oneself in the foot.”

We are painfully aware of those times when our efforts work against us instead of for us. Or we watch others in disbelief as they sabotage their own best plans and intentions.

Ideally we would serve as our own best friend. We naturally feel regret, embarrassment, and confusion when we find ourselves to be our own worst enemy.

Imagine being betrayed by the one who should be our most trusted advocate. How do we build trust with ourselves again? Or do we slowly spiral downward in a cycle of mistakes, eroding self-confidence and further mistakes?

Instead of focusing on eliminating mistakes (an unrealistic and futile goal), what if we worked on becoming better advocates for ourselves?

What if, instead of interpreting errors as failure events, we viewed them as learning processes?

1. What if you viewed your mistakes as the beginning of something constructive instead of the end of something disastrous? What might you learn from the situation? What might you do differently going forward? What needs to improve in your own thinking, your team’s communication, or your organization’s processes? What benefit going forward can you construct from this unfortunate situation?

Mistakes can become new beginnings.

2. What if you viewed errors as learning in motion instead of static grades on a report card. It’s the difference between a motion picture and a photograph. If you take an uncomplimentary driver’s license photo, that’s the image (more…)

That we have jobs is not to be taken for granted in this economy. Many of our friends, neighbors and family members do not.

There is one sense where gratitude is an appropriate response to good fortune. Whether you direct your gratitude to the personal God of your faith tradition or somewhere else, we understand deep within that thanks are fitting… even necessary.

In another sense we have come to experience that giving thanks is good for us. Gratitude helps us keep much that is difficult about our jobs or annoying about our co-workers in perspective. We find that feelings of overwhelm, discouragement and resentment are tempered when revisited from the point of view of the gift recipient.

To live in a time where many people do not have work can heighten our sense of personal gratitude.

We say, “Thank you,” not out of moral obligation, but out of careful stewardship of the human spirit… our own spirit… which cannot operate without refreshment.

Functioning as a gift recipient is an entirely different frame of reference than functioning as an overlooked employee, a taken for granted team member, or a faceless cog in the machinery.

Gratitude is good for the soul and invigorating to the spirit.

For what might you give thanks as you begin this week?!

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.