Advice from Mike Lombardi regarding leadership:
- Consider in advance how we will respond, not react, to adversity.
- Assign an assistant or teammate to monitor our body language or general temperament.
- Pledge to ourselves that if our team comes up short, our emotions won’t be the reason why.
I like this list a lot.
Consider in advance how we’re going to respond, not react, to adversity.
This suggests the creation of “if/then” conditions, which I do quite often.
Constantly, really.
I play out scenarios in my mind, choosing courses of action well ahead of the situation so I am prepared to do battle.
I’d like to think I learned this strategy during my collegiate debating days, but I probably internalized it much earlier while dealing with a childhood filled with verbal confrontations and relentless struggle.
Assign an assistant or teammate to monitor our body language or general temperament.
This is brilliant. As a teacher, it’s a little harder to do unless you have another adult in the classroom working with you, which is sometimes the case when we have a paraprofessional, co-teacher, or other educator working alongside us.
In those cases, I ask for feedback constantly.
The most helpful feedback I’ve ever received about my teaching came when a fellow teacher spent a day observing my instruction and told me what I was doing well and what could be improved.
Being told what I was failing to do or doing poorly was incredibly helpful, but so, too, was learning what I was doing well because it allowed me to do it more often and consistently.
Also, about once per month, I ask my students to review my performance by giving them time to write about what I’m doing well and what needs to be improved.
Looking for honesty in job performance?
Ask a kid.
Along similar lines, I’ve also been told by people that my behavior in meetings is something to behold. Unbeknownst to me, I sigh and grunt and make other expressions of disgust when dissatisfied or annoyed, which can happen quite often in a meeting.
These utterances were unintentional to me, and until they were pointed out, I had no idea they existed. I think I’ve since reduced these unintentional outbursts, but they still happen occasionally because even I notice them now.
Honestly, I don’t mind them too much. I like it when people know where I stand.
I once worked with someone who would position his chair in a meeting so that it faced away from me and in the direction of the rest of the attendees so he could watch their responses to my comments and feedback. Apparently, I am also quite blunt, direct, and pointed in meetings, and he loved watching others react to my statements.
It was, in his words, “Entertaining and hilarious.”
I’ve always known that I’m more open and direct in meetings, and I love saying the things that others are thinking but unwilling to say, but I’d never been cognizant of my impact on those around me, and I never would’ve thought their responses would be so apparent.
Happily, I had a friend who alerted me to all of this.
Pledge to ourselves that if our team comes up short, our emotions won’t be the reason why.
This suggests that we avoid becoming too emotional when our efforts are required to deliver results.
Easier said than done for many, but happily, not for me.
Just this year, I’ve learned — thanks to the insight of a colleague who knows me well — the degree to which I don’t take things personally.
It was quite the revelation for me. I had no idea.
But it makes sense. I’ve written a blog post every day for nearly 20 years. I write magazine and newspaper columns. I stand onstage, telling stories, offering opinions, and speaking with self-assigned authority. I’ve published three nonfiction books that tell people how to do stuff and are filled with my opinions and advice. I appear on podcasts espousing my expertise, and I’ve been the host of two podcasts that do the same.
While the vast majority of feedback on my work is positive, I have my critics, and because of the sheer amount of content I put out, they are — at least at times — quite numerous. While some are thoughtful and even helpful, many, if not most, are scathing, cruel, pointed, insulting, and demeaning.
Sometimes even threatening.
Often anonymous, too, because cowardice is in great supply these days.
But I never care.
I don’t take any of it personally. I never react emotionally. It never ruins my day, spoils my mood, or slows me down. It’s probably a combination of confidence and perspective:
When you’ve survived homelessness, jail, a violent, armed robbery, two near-death experiences, and the last name Dicks, an army of online trolls amount to a flea on an elephant.
If I come up short in achieving a goal — and I often do — it’s never because my emotions got in the way. I’ve either failed in my strategy, run out of time, or didn’t do what I need to do,
Lombardi’s list is good, and it likely appealed to me simply because I am already adhering to its tenets.
If his list had instead read:
- Show deference to authority.
- Dress professionally at all times.
- Eat broccoli while listening to Steely Dan.
… I may not have been so enthusiastic.
