Not so enchanted mirror

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? What if your fairness as a leader was the quality being measured instead of beauty? Leadership is always a challenge and our own least desired qualities are the hardest to face.

Do you find certain employees more difficult to deal with than others? Perhaps there is one employee or a handful that you find absolutely frustrating! It is a common problem, but what we often fail to see is that the shortcomings of these employees may be reflected in ourselves. What we dislike the most in other people is often the very same thing that we dislike about ourselves. That mirror is not always flattering. This enchanted mirror effect is what creates your frustration. Only 15% of people are truly self-aware. The rest of us are lying to ourselves on a daily basis.

What can we learn from this hard-to-face truth? How to be a better leader. Leadership is often best won through example. I pose the challenge to each of you. Take your most frustrating employees. Make a list of what behaviors are causing the frustration. Take a hard look at your own behaviors and see if there are any correlations. You have to be honest during the process to make it work. I promise it will be worth the effort.

Now for the hard part my friends, create a set of changes that you can make to effectively demonstrate the behaviors that you would like to see from your staff. Check in with yourself weekly to see if you were able to achieve these goals and course correct for the following week.

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