I sometimes ponder this question, especially when I’m working with someone who is taking up a leadership role or a role where they need to engage or influence others.

 

All our personalities carry our unique quirks, preferences, filters, triggers etc – some more extreme than others. Whilst we may accept this in ourselves and others, it’s important to know that some of these traits can be quite dysfunctional when we’re trying to achieve what we want out of life through others.

The way we act is how we have learned to behave in order to make sense and survive the world as we see and interpret it.  Outside of targeted malicious behaviour, we are mostly the best we can be given the tools we have. Although we are the best we can be, when we are in the mode of protecting ourselves, which is when the self-defeating behaviour creeps in, people can and do misinterpret our behaviour as dysfunctional or even malicious regardless of our best intentions. Sure – this is the way of the world, but it can be an impedance to our ongoing self-development.

Once you move into a leadership role or a role where you need to influence and engage others, the game changes.  Being the best you can be may not be enough for those around you. Suddenly all those little defensive traits are not only being seen as negative, but they become the source of demotivation for those around you.

Here is a two-pronged approach to addressing these challenges:

  1. Start your self-reflection, do the psychometric tests, ask people around you for feedback and start to understand yourself and how you are coming across to others. You can’t begin to understand people unless you understand yourself.
  2. Ask yourself, “who do others need me to be in this situation to achieve the results?”.

 

Expanding on the second point, if you want to lead and influence others, you need to present yourself in a way that is appropriate to the situation regardless of how you might be feeling about it.

 

 

Case Study 1

You have a chance to present to a large group of people, your message is important and critical, and you need buy-in from the group to achieve an outcome. You don’t like presenting to large groups and when you do, you come across as fearful and timid.  Fearful and timid or even nervous is not going to engage a group almost regardless of the message, the crowd have an expectation of expertise, knowledge and leadership.  Your message will be lost in the delivery.

Your knowledge of the subject remains the same, your strong message has not changed, your expertise is intact, but you’re starting from a low base that you may never recover from.  Overcoming your perceived negative elements of your situation and presenting in a way that aligns in everyway with the importance of the message is essential.

 

Case Study 2

You’re new to a leadership/management role and now heading up a team of experts.  You are keen to demonstrate to them that you are ‘the boss’ and go about doing this in a way that puts others down, micromanages their efforts, dismisses their contributions or uses language that ‘puts them in their place’. However, you’re not getting the respect that you seek, in fact you find yourself on the outs with the team and having to fight even harder to mark your place, the team is on the verge of rebellion.

Your behaviour comes from a place of fear, needing to belong and needing to control. This may have worked for you in certain circumstances in the past, but it is not working for you now.  What you seek – respect and recognition – comes after it is given by you.  Your own personal ego and self-protection needs are not who you need to be to engage and positively influence the group.  You need to be a leader, a servant leader, otherwise you run the risk of bringing down the whole team and actually accelerating your greatest fear.

When we are under pressure, it is natural for us to revert to the ‘best we can be’ behaviour, regardless of its external effectiveness.  Sadly, the more pressure we are put under emotionally, the more we revert to tried and true methods and the last thing we are thinking about is changing our behaviour in the hope of a better outcome. When we are under pressure that feels way too risky.  So, we focus harder on our self-serving behaviours and wonder why it is actually having the opposite effect.

The good news is that you can explore yourself as you expose yourself to situations that require you to step up and be the person others need.  Doing this in a way where you are exploring your reaction and self-reflecting can accelerate your own understanding of yourself; why do I feel this, why am I doing that, why do I think that way?  When you need to lead and influence others, its not about you anymore, its about them, what do they need?  Understand this concept and you’ll be well on your way to self-discovery and better leadership.