It ALL Starts With You!

With perspective for just how much power a clear purpose has had for me and Cindy over the last 25 years, how we’ve had to continuously hone that purpose, and how the clarity we developed has allowed us to intentionally chase that purpose, I believe it’s my responsibility to challenge you to take action on yours! Make no mistake, I’ll be poking at you just as hard about your organization’s purpose and how you help each of your team members with their individual purpose before we’re done. For now though, I really need you to take a deep look within.

As we started looking at the importance of identifying why each of us were ever willing to accept leadership responsibility, mainly because some days it just plain sucks to lead, I asked you to think long and hard about why you do what you do. More recently, I shared some very personal reasons for why Cindy and I have chosen to do what we do; not because our reasons should be your reasons, but because I wanted to offer you an example that may serve you in building extreme specificity around your own. With that big picture in place, let’s get down to what may be the hardest part of the entire process - especially for those of you who are as fast-paced and task-oriented as I am…

My goal through all of this has been to provide you with as much transparency as possible. In following that theme, the idea of introspection has been something I’ve always struggled with. I’ve shared a few times here how Cindy has built systems into our routine that essentially force me to slow down and reflect on what we’ve accomplished, as well as what we need to focus on next. Those have been tolerable because we’re looking at results; ones we’ve achieved and ones we’ll be working on moving forward. What I want you to consider now though has been, and still is, incredibly hard for me so I don’t take what I’m suggesting to you lightly.

The first question I need you to take to heart is whether or not you understand exactly why you do what you do. This is a matter of understanding yourself in a way that allows you to predict changes in your emotions; how you’ll likely respond to the various situations you have to deal with as a leader. I’ve heard and read quite a bit about emotional intelligence over the years, but I’ve found very few resources that were simple enough to help me develop it within myself so I could have this kind of understanding. We’ll look at this in more detail shortly, but I needed you to have this in mind before I could ask the next question.

What kind of legacy do you want to leave; personally and professionally? A generation after you’re gone, what kind of impact do you hope to be remembered for? If I’m being honest, this is just as hard for me to consider. In my late teens and early twenties, I felt ten feet tall and bulletproof. At close to fifty, that’s changed a bit. A reality we’ll all have to come to terms with is that our time on this ball of mud is limited. If we don’t have absolute clarity about the legacy we’re working to leave, is there any real likelihood that we’ll leave one that’s remembered beyond the next generation? As you consider this, I’d encourage you to consider it from both those perspectives, personal and professional, and give some serious thought as to how closely the two will tie together when you’ve identified and are working toward a clear purpose that truly drives you. When that purpose is clear, I’m convinced our personal and professional lives develop a kind of cohesion that fuels everything we do. But connecting them won’t likely happen unless we have that deep understanding of ourselves.

Coming to Grips with How We’re Wired

Hopefully you’ve invested some serious energy into the legacy question. If not, circle back to that again (and again if necessary) before reading what follows…

Assuming you follow directions better than I do, we should be ready to dig deeper into that first question I challenged you with; Do you really understand why you do what you do? This isn’t a question with deep, philosophical meaning; I’m not that smart! It is, however, a question of understanding what motivates us to go above and beyond the call of duty in our daily routines as well as what drives us to be our best when the chips are down. As we push through the weight we’ve accepted in leading our teams, the fulfillment we get from working toward our clear purpose is essential in keeping us on track. Understanding how we’re wired, where that fulfillment comes from and how it can vary under more stressful circumstances, is critical in doing that.

Earlier in this process, I briefly shared some ways leaders can apply the DISC Model of Human Behavior to have a better shot at connecting a clear purpose with each individual on our teams; communicating that purpose with them the way they need to receive it rather than how we’d naturally send that message. The more I’ve studied the science that William Marston put together in developing this tool, the more convinced I’ve become that it’s the most practical and applicable resource for improving communication - in any environment - that I’ve ever seen. But improving communication certainly isn’t where its value ends.

I also made some very direct references near the beginning of this look at leading with a clear purpose as to how important that same methodology can be in identifying the purpose that drives us. Recognizing the outcomes that best fuel us - Results, Fun, Peace & Harmony, or Precision - can be key in crafting how we clarify and work to achieve our purpose, but coming to grips with the things that spur our emotions can be pivotal in keeping our purpose top-of-mind and in how we connect it with the purpose our organization needs to achieve.

In Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradberry lists the four components that make up emotional intelligence. He shares that “Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your own emotions in the moment and understand your tendencies across situations.” He describes Self-Management as “your ability to use your awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and direct your behavior positively.” Bradberry then defines Social Awareness as “your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on with them.” And finally, he tells us that Relationship Management is “the ability to use your awareness of your own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully.”

Early in that book, Bradberry sets the stage for the importance of emotional intelligence with this statement: “Your EQ is the foundation for a host of critical skills. EQ is so critical to success that it accounts for 58 percent of performance in all types of jobs.” While I could see the value of emotional intelligence from the first time I read anything about it, I openly admit that I struggled to understand what I could do to develop my own. In studying Marston’s work on the DISC Model of Human Behavior, as well as the scientific research he did to develop it that also yielded his book The Emotions of Normal People, I realized that I could apply what it taught me about how I communicated and how I was wired to behave toward developing a simple approach for steadily improving how I dealt with each of the four components of emotional intelligence.

The Model of Human Behavior provided me with a deeper level of self-awareness than any other resource I had seen. Understanding how my behavior (and communication) tends to change under stress, as well as recognizing the things that cause that stress, has done wonders in helping me hone the way I’ve isolated and worked at achieving my own clear purpose. This same understanding helped me just as much in developing the other two components of emotional intelligence, and I believe that’s enabled me to be more effective in communicating an organization’s purpose with a purpose that drives an individual team member.

Leading Ourselves (with a Clear Purpose) First

Leading with a clear purpose really does start with us, and coming to grips with how we’re wired can make an immediate difference in developing the kind of emotional intelligence that allows us to be so much more effective in how we do that. At the risk of being overly redundant (see what I did there?), I'll stress this one more time: the weight of leadership can be incredibly heavy. Dialing in on the specific purpose that gets us out of bed each morning, then continuing to hone that as our roles and responsibilities grow over time, takes constant effort - and that’s before any of the crazy demands we’ll be expected to keep up with as a leader! Crafting a clear organizational purpose requires just as much from us, especially when that purpose needs to produce the ever-so-important profitability every business depends on to keep the lights on. And I have no doubt that I completely overwhelmed more than a few people working through this process with me when I listed all the things I believe a leader should learn about each of their team members in order to help them latch onto a clear purpose of their own.

Leadership is indeed hard! I’d go so far as to argue that few will ever be able to carry this kind of weight long term without having their own clear purpose that connects to a strong organizational purpose AND having a great team of people who they’ve helped do through this same process. That said, the emotional intelligence I just referenced is where it all comes together. Building that skill set allows us to lead ourselves well (toward a clear purpose) first, then effectively lead each team member who’s counting on us.

Let’s be honest here, no one will be as effective as they can be in leading others if they can’t recognize and manage their own emotions, behavior, and communication. And if we’re stuck dealing with that, I can’t imagine we’ll have much energy left to hone that clear purpose we need to help us push through the tough times. Further, there’s little chance of developing the kind of social awareness necessary to facilitate relationship management if we’re consumed with keeping our own train from wrecking.

For me, gaining that in depth personal understanding through the tools based on the DISC Model of Human Behavior (which Cindy and I have been licensed with for years and build into nearly everything we do today) was just what I needed to move intentionally toward being the leader I needed to be so others could count on me. And with that foundation, I was able to move more of my focus to sharing an organizational purpose with each team I’ve worked with, so we’ll dig into that more soon.