Leadership Choices
“It’s not our abilities that show us what we truly are; it’s our choices.”
These words, spoken by Professor Dumbledore to Harry Potter, are a profound reminder that leaders require self leadership.
Viktor Frankl, the Nazi death camp survivor and founder of logo therapy, said it this way, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Interestingly we do not always get the best education in making choices. I recently spoke to a father who told me that he was having difficulty disciplining his teenage son; he had said to the boy, “Whilst under my roof, you have no choice.” With some empathy I shared a perspective that he might be handicapping his son’s abilities to learn to choose. Our choices have consequences and perhaps we need a gradient of consequences as we learn the power of choice?
As Self Leadership International we take this approach with our staff, we give them tasks that require them to make choices. With new interns or employees we limit the consequenses of those choices away from business critical areas, but as they grow in confidence we give them more and more rope ( but not enough to hang themselves!).
I have been involved in training leadership for managers for many years and this concept of empowerment is one that they often struggle with. I think it might be linked to a lack of permission (as with the teenage son) to make choices for themselves that prevents them from allowing others to make choices.
Here is a simple self leadership approach to making choices:
- Own your right to choose. You have a birthright to make choices independent of your family and culture.
- Choices have consequences. You must take responsibility for your choices good or bad.
- Analyse your choices before you make them. “Do I have all the facts? Will this choice benefit me/others, in the short/long term?”
- Get input on your choices. With a major choice do not be afraid to get input from others but remain in control.
- Get feedback on your choices. Notice the effects of your choices and make adjustments as necessary.
It takes a high degree of self awareness to run through this process and we make many choices by ‘gut feel’ but gut feel is our unconscious processing of choices. Leaders train their gut feel or intuition by paying attention the results of their choices and the choices of others.
May you make good choices this year.
(copyright Andrew Bryant – no reproduction without permission)
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