It’s Work Positive Wednesday with Dr. Joey Faucette

3 Ways to Lead Positive in a World of Mutiny

We’re talking about great leadership truths I discovered from Ed Friedman. The first one is that great leaders have “a capacity to separate themselves from the anxiety around them.” The second is that great leaders have “a commitment to goals beyond the horizons that everyone else saw.” The third one is great leaders have “the courage to define themselves within their community.”

This week we look at the fourth one which is great leaders have “the emotional stamina to persist in the face of mutinies.”

Anxiety drives those whom you lead to look short-range. Such a narrow focus creates fear within them. Fear causes mutinies. The very people you lead can revolt in fear and rather than following you, march off in all directions at once.

How do you discover the emotional stamina to persist in the face of such mutinies?

Here are 3 Ways to Lead Positive in a World of Mutiny:

Access Emotional Stamina

You have more strength within you than you realize. Think back over previous experiences when anxiety surrounded you, short-sightedness afflicted your vision, and fear paralyzed you. The people around you were leaving and just a few were left.

If you can remember it without a heart attack, you survived. You grew emotional stamina that is mature and tested.

Access it as you recall it. Feel it welling up within you.

Use it to face your current situation.

Advance with Persistence

Once you access your emotional stamina, you are equipped with the jet fuel that drives your success engine—persistence.

How many times have you said to a friend, “Hang in there!”?

That’s persistence. When they don’t answer your email, you call. When they don’t return it, you mail a card. When they offer no reply, you send a birthday greeting.

Your emotional stamina is strong enough to keep you moving forward toward your goal. You are equipped with persistence.

Use it. Hang in there, as I like to say, like an old, rusty fish hook.

Avoid Mutinies

Armed with your emotional stamina that fuels your success engine of persistence, you are ready to positively achieve. Your last challenge is to avoid those people on the team who would roll you under the bus just to cover their own anxiety, short-sightedness, and fear.

The way to Lead Positive and avoid mutinies is to starve them out. Avoid giving any of your emotions or thoughts to the Eeyore Vampires who say, “It can’t be done” and would suck you bone-dry of positive energy.

Attention is your most valuable emotional and mental asset. Divert all of your attention away from mutinies. Focus on how well you separated yourself from the anxiety, your deep commitment to the goals beyond the horizons that everyone else sees with the courage to define yourself within the community. These successful experiences turbocharge your emotional stamina which fuels your persistence.

Amaze yourself and those whom you lead by choosing to observe the mutiny without participating as you Work Positive!

Want to have Dr. Joey as your next 2014 keynote, seminar, or workshop presenter?
Contact Sue Falcone at sue@simplysuespeaks.com, or call 888-766-3155 today!