Field notes

Charting out the leaders you have developed and learning where they are now can be an illuminating exercise. Visualizing the impact you have had on others can reinforce the importance of developing others. It can even underscore why you do this work in the first place. A leader’s true legacy is in the relationships they touch directly and indirectly for years to come. Your Coaching Tree displays this legacy, so you know where you stand. How healthy is your tree? Is the labor of your leadership bearing enough fruit?

The tension between making decisions on the ground or in the field as opposed to by a centralized source is a healthy one. Giving those leaders or producers closest to the issues and problems the ability to make decisions that affect them results in more practical and timely solutions. When field leaders feel empowered, they get things done. Their action-oriented mindset keeps the enterprise agile and opportunistic.

It may seem like a small or trivial matter to some, but the kind of instructions you give yourself during moments of key performance can profoundly impact what transpires. Anytime a performer plants the idea of what not to do in the mind, the brain has a funny way of punishing the thought. Whatever we tell ourselves not to do usually results in the opposite outcome. A common myth is that the brain can’t interpret the difference between do and don’t do. But here’s the truth: Telling yourself what not to do usually results in disaster.

People don’t like to be wrong. They like to fail even less. This is especially true with big mistakes and faulty predictions. So, after mistakes or failures, they naturally reflect upon what occurred in an attempt to understand what happened and why. But a funny thing happens on the way to drawing a conclusion. People commonly underestimate their own role and actions in creating the outcome. Instead, they look for answers that don’t include them. They have a need to attribute negative outcomes to anyone but the person staring back in the mirror. Defensive attribution refers to the strong tendency people have to view negative outcomes as a result of things outside of their control.

Perhaps the hardest task in leadership is making decisions that negatively impact people the leader cares about. Decisions are choices with consequences. By definition, deciding to follow a specific path forward eliminates other choices and pathways. This invariably means that some people will be negatively impacted by the choice. Good leaders make the call anyway. Not because it is easy or without struggle, but because it is the right thing to do for the larger enterprise. Leaders must always hold the health and survival of the organization and team above the needs of any individual, no matter how much they care about them. While nothing will take away the stress and unhappiness of doing the right thing for the team and the wrong thing by the individual, the best leaders follow three steps to guide their actions and messages after the difficult decision has been made.