All of us would like to believe that we can lead in such a way where people would never drive us nuts. Of course, that's not reality – and we've all had to deal with people many times that push our buttons in all the wrong ways. In this episode, I share a recent experience I had where someone was driving me nuts and what mistakes I made (and advise I have) for leading when this happens.
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Here are nine things you can do to lead when someone is driving you nuts:
1) Ask yourself, it is personality or performance?
- Rarely do we get to decide what personalities we get to work with and lead.
- If it's personality, challenge yourself to be flexible.
2) Give people the benefit of the doubt.
- Almost nobody wakes up in the morning with the goal to make other people miserable.
3) Address non-performance early.
- If there is a clear performance issue, address it early.
- Trust your instincts and those of the people around you.
- What should it be? For me, 2 incidents.
- People know you are watching, that you care, and what the expectations are.
4) Tell people you are giving them a second chance.
- Error on the side of over-communicating here.
5) Use email wisely (and Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Stay off posting or sending things in writing when you are mad.
- Follow-up expectations with an email summary.
6) Find out if it can be fixed before losing your cool.
- Most everything can be fixed.
7) Sleep on it.
- We don't make good decisions when we're tired.
- We anger faster.
- We take twice and long to handle stuff.
- We don't have perspective.
- We have the tendency to fire off emails.
8) Let other people do their jobs once you've raised a concern.
- Sometimes you'll get punished for being proactive.
9) Decide how much of your time and energy this is worth.
- Dale Carnegie says, “Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth and refuse to give it more.”
- This too shall pass.
- Often I find that I am angry at myself when I feel like I am angry at others.
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Wherever you are in the world, whatever is on your agenda today, take one idea from this show to engage and develop someone you lead.
