Stephen H Baum Leadership

Have you had a moment of stress when you reacted instinctively and drew back when you should have faced it? Or, when provoked, you attacked in anger only to realize afterward it wasn’t in your own interest? What was going on inside you?

One of the lessons from the Strozzi leadership workshop is to pay attention to our “grabs.” These are instinctive responses to events in which we are emotionally hijacked by deep-seated fears embedded in us years ago. It puts us into fight or flight mode which strips us of our ability to lead ourselves, let alone to lead others. 

If you failed to stand up for something you  believe in when a customer, employee or family member took you down the wrong path, did you fear hurting or losing the relationship and held back? Have you lashed out at someone because you felt your image or position was under attack when there were other ways to get things straight?  Did you shrink from taking a prudent risk because of self-doubt and the fear of failure?

Strong leaders have worked their way through such “grabs.” The starting point is self-awareness. Get to know patterns of stimulus and response (shortly after an event, make notes on a 3×5 index card, put the card away, then read the cards at the end of two or three weeks; write down the trigger and the emotion it evoked along with the source of the trigger — who said or did whatever was the trigger). Spend some time digging into your past to see what or who built the grab pattern into you. 

In future posts, I will say more about how to get past these grabs. For now, simply take a deep breath and make sure you take at least a few seconds to think about how to respond before you do. 

More later.