You may have heard the story that there is a mirror on the exit door of the changing rooms in Disneyland. It is rumoured that above this mirror there is a sign that says, “You are about to go on stage!!” which serves as a reminder to those employees about the importance of creating a memorable experience for the people attending that day. We can all adopt this as a practice, if we feel that this will help with our interactions. A positive approach is very important, and I also believe an authentic approach is vital to be completely true to ourselves and to others.
- How easy is it to be our authentic self in pressure situations?
Each of us will have our own way of being, when we are with people that are significant to us, and it is important that we are aware of this. We must always strive to be present and connected with ourselves if we are to be our best selves with others. Self-Awareness is having a clear perception of our personality. We must consider our strengths, which may be being under-played. We must consider our development areas which may be being ignored. We must also consider our thoughts and beliefs which can be influenced by outside events, and our values which we may not think about regularly but may have been conflicted in some situations. Our connection to ourselves allows us to begin to understand our attitude and our responses to others in the heat of the moment. We will have a good degree of self-awareness already. I believe that we can always work on this awareness. Let’s consider how aware we are by reflecting on some questions:
- What are your core values?
- How do these values show up in your behaviour each day?
- What strengths are being over-played or under-played?
- What blind spots have you uncovered recently about your leadership approach?
- Who can support you with these blind spots?
Hopefully, these questions didn’t take too long to navigate. I hope it has allowed us increased awareness during this exercise. Working on our self-awareness creates the opportunity to make changes in behaviour, beliefs, and interactions. For example, I was coaching a leader in Business, who was telling me how frustrated he was that his team were not performing at the level he wanted. He wanted to have a direct conversation but also did not want to de-motivate the team. He thought of the Disneyland approach, but this pep talk was falling on deaf ears. I asked how this approach aligned with his own values. His shoulders sank, he let out a sigh and said “I have only just realised, this went against my value of integrity. We have all contributed to this situation, me included, and it is up to me to find the solutions with others. I was trying to be upbeat, despite the situation, when deep down there were some truths that needed to be said.”
We then considered a 360-degree feedback exercise to ascertain how his approach was impacting people. We wanted to understand, from a range of perspectives, the key areas that he could further develop. We based the feedback on his core values and agreed with him who to contact. These were people who would be both honest and supportive.
It is so important for all of us to regularly reflect on ourselves. To conduct this reflective practice on your own is important, but I believe to do this with a coach/mentor is immensely powerful, as they can function as a critical friend and work in partnership with you to help reflect on aspects of your coaching practice and increasing self – awareness. I get so much value with my time with my own coach/mentor and, when I have parts of my interactions observed, this can highlight blind spots in my own practice. Coaches in football are brilliant at identifying areas that their players can work on to improve.
- How are we developing as leaders of people?
This practice of self-reflection allows us to see where our thoughts and emotions are taking us and how we are responding to people in those pressure moments. It also allows us to take control of our emotions, so we can make changes we want. Until we are completely aware of our thoughts, emotions, values, and actions, we will have difficulty making changes to become a highly effective people leader. I also believe that we should take reflective practice very seriously. I am not convinced that conducting this in the car on our way home is the best space to be reflecting on our approaches. Not only is this fraught with health and safety dangers, but we are likely to forget most of what we were thinking about.
Setting aside time regularly to properly look at our approaches should be worked into our diaries. It is fascinating when we really look deeply into ourselves, what our values are, and how these lead us to behave in the way that we do. Confusion, frustration, and anxiety can be companions during our eventful weeks. It often starts the personal struggle against the critical voice within us, which is always highlighting something to us that we may need to pay attention to. Sometimes the response for people is to supress this voice, switch off or to concentrate on something else. The problem with this approach is that the voice will return to remind us of the message that we are attempting to ignore. The interesting thing is that people talk about this inner critic as if it is something separate to them, as if it is some external force that is exercising some control. It isn’t, it is part of our whole being and will therefore have our best intentions at its root. So, if we really listen, knowing that this is part of our being and the intent for us is positive, what may this be telling us and why? Sometimes this will be because we are not living according to our values, or we are conflicted about something.
Integrity, authenticity, and self-reliance are critical factors for helping with improved self-acceptance. Healthy self-esteem which leads to self-acceptance is not an absence of self-doubt, anxiety, or self-criticism. It is unlikely that we will ever eliminate these insecurities from our lives, but as we learn to identify them and the situations’ that bring them out, we will become more knowledgeable about the origins and how we can use this as information to reflect and learn from, rather than ignore or hide from.
Through regular self-reflection, our self-doubt is weakened because our awareness enables us to be more conscious and intentional with our response. This is my definition of response-ability, which for me is a more authentic space to be in before we open the stage door to connect to our audience.