Front Range Leadership
Developing Leadership Skills
Centered leaders know when to facilitate harmony or stir up discord. Balancing challenge and support is an art.
We all know leaders who specialize in one or the other -- they either always seek to restore harmony or it seems like they are always challenging, always stirring up trouble. Either approach can fatigue a team quickly and prevent efficiency.
Centered leaders may want harmony but realize that complacency or stasis is not the answer. Sometimes it's necessary to stir things up. Done positively, and with kindness, this is a high performance behavior. Done carelessly or callously, this is disaster.
Challenging leaders realize that people can get tired of being challenged and that sometimes the waves are too rough to sail. Sometimes a leader must find ways to restore stability and create a more harmonious environment. It's more art than science -- and that takes creativity.
To work, centered leadership requires constant communication. Knowing when to restore harmony and knowing when to rock the boat requires a leader to know where people are emotionally, intellectually, and motivationally. You can't push someone into deep water if they don't know how to swim. (Well, you can, but you aren't likely to enjoy the outcome).
Why is all this important?
Because people are different from each other AND different from themselves from situation to situation. Push someone who is ready to be pushed forward and the results are wonderful: better performance, happier team members, stronger teams. But push someone who is in retreat and cowering over too many challenges and they could simply drown in their own emotions.
Harmony or Discord? Like that great improv question in theater, the answer is both/and. Sometimes you need harmony. Sometimes you need discord. Wisdom is knowing when to choose which.
The Big Questions
How are you at stirring up a challenge when it's needed?
When was the last time you helped create a more harmonious environment?
Are you equipt to do it again, if needed?
What are you doing to develop your courage, creativity, clarity, and compassion today?
For information on scheduling a teleclass, workshop, or coaching, contact us here:
info@frontrangeleadership.com