Looking Outwards vs Looking Inwards – What Might be Better for You as a Leader

“I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see.”

Jimi Hendrix

Only less than two months ago the primary school kids in Bulgaria started online education for a month. Almost instantly some of the parents started complaining:

„Why this platform?“; „I prefer other?“; „My child does not understand it.“; „I do not have time to help him, because I am working.“; „My Internet connection is poor.“; etc.

I can understand that all of those are maybe true.

But like often appears in life, the problem is not the problem itself, it is the perspective.

Photo credit: Jasper van der Meij, Unsplash

In times of crisis or when man is under pressure, we can often distinguish two types of behaviour.

The first type is more frequently observed. These are the people who always search for reasons outwards.

A year ago I was working with a client who was promoted on a team lead position in the company he worked for. In the information technology companies nowadays not only in Bulgaria we can often observe very fast growth which comes with great challenges as well. They often have to act re-active and to promote on a first level managerial positions experts with great knowledge in the field but not always necessarily with any kind of experience as a manager.

And this was the case with my client. It was his first experience in a leadership role. Young man with a strong ego, great knowledge as a subject matter expert. Often that alone is not enough. He quickly understood that by blaming the others for the things they don't know or can't do well, the only thing you can achieve is an environment of a frustration and lack of trust - in your own skills and in other members of the team. And the toxicity increases with the ego of the leader.

The sooner you understand that leadership is not about you, it's about the people in your team, the better.

And sometimes you have to learn it the hard way. In our case our newly promoted manager was quickly left by the three of the best experts in the team.

In our sessions he understood that is much more productive if we focus on the things we can change easily - our approach to the people. Or the second type of behaviour. The one in which you take the responsibility and change yourself.

It is always much easier instead of trying to change the mindset of the team members and do so over and over again, to change our own mindset. Otherwise we can easily lose focus on what is important.

It is in entirely in our control to change the way we see every situation. Then we can use the information we have, accept it and deal with it.

This requires to look inwards and take the responsibility for the things we are able to change.

And like our children build their behavioural patterns by copying their parents (instead of listening to them), so are the future leaders.

Because not every manager is a leader.

Becoming a leader is a gradual process in which you:

• Learn to know yourself

• Educate your team

• Apply in practice

• Delegate trust

• Explore new ideas

• Remain people-focused

Most of us tend to think that we know ourselves well. But that is almost never the case. Self-awareness is a key component of one’s Emotional Intelligence. Constant observing and knowing how we operate in different situations will help us know and understand better every member of our team, to guide and empower the right people for the right task, to delegate more efficiently.

Critical part of people development is to manage the learning process with clear structure and coherent plan year by year, month by month, week by week. From my experience with lots of international and domestic companies in Bulgaria from many different sectors, it is better to have a bad plan, than no plan at all. Of course the more proactive you are as leader in planning the educational process, the better and more regular results your team will have.

But knowledge is often useless unless you are able to put it into practice. You have probably heard The Rule of the 72 hours - the longer you postpone putting something into practice, the less likely it is that you’ll actually do it. In other words, when you postpone something for longer than 72 hours, you usually will find enough excuses to not do it at all. So if you really want to apply something you've learned into practice, you must act instantly.

The next basic ingredient for any leader is constantly to improve one's delegation skills. And Trust is the key here. Our ability to delegate trust, rather than tasks will make possible faster development for all the members of our team. The rule is - the right task, in the right circumstances, to the right team member, with the right instructions and the right supervision. The hardest part is to keep on believing in your people even when they fail grandiosely, and to help them learn from their own experience.

And of course to give yourself and your team as well the opportunity to explore new ideas. In an ideal situation it is a good idea to schedule and facilitate brainstorming sessions at least every month. It will give the members of your team the feeling that their voice is equally important as yours.

And last but not least, we must not forget that if we as leaders act result-oriented, the best thing we can achieve is our goals.

But when we are people-focused as managers we will create an environment which is perfect for developing a culture of high performing team members on a daily basis.

And our newly promoted manager learned it the hard way, but quick enough to act and change his approach sooner rather than later.

Or like he said it in his own words:

“Our work together helped me realize that it might look easier to fight others and constantly to try changing the way they think and operate. What actually is much more productive is to accept them with their weaknesses and strengths and to use each individual strength for the right purpose."

I could not agree more.