Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leading the Team

Reading time, 4 minutes

Why you keep repeating the same leadership habit

"I know I'm doing it, it's just what I always do." I hear that from experienced leaders all the time, smart people who've read all the books and can name their habit perfectly, and yet it still runs. In this episode I share two stories, my own early career spiral and my client Kara's, about why knowing a habit isn't the same as changing it, plus two questions I ask my clients and one thing to try before your next big call.

Key takeaways:

• Knowing your habit and seeing what drives it are two very different things. Only seeing what drives it changes it.
• Building the plan first and then asking for feedback can leave you second guessing yourself. Gathering ideas first, then building the plan, changes that.
• Holding back real, specific feedback because you don't want someone to feel bad keeps the problem running, and the whole team pays for it.
• Two questions to ask yourself: what has this habit been costing you, and what difference would it make to replace it now?
• Before your next call, pause and ask: if I were leading from clarity and certainty, completely aligned with my vision, what would I do? 

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/Xi59Zb0QnCw

Listen to this episode: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/podcasts/leading-from-the-edge-podcast/episodes/2149262870 

Read the blog: https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/blog/you-already-know-what-you-do

Timestamps:

0:00 – The habit you know but can't shift

0:47 – My early career spiral

1:36 – Kara and the feedback she avoided

2:48 – The 2 questions I ask my clients

3:03 – One thing to try before your next call

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EPISODE LENGTH: 3 minutes 41 seconds

Full transcript

"I know I'm doing it. It's just what I always do."

I hear that from experienced leaders all the time. Really smart people, and people who have read all the books. They can name their habit perfectly, and yet they're still running it.

So if you already know what to do, why hasn't knowing it changed anything? That is exactly what we're here unpacking today. Because knowing your habit and seeing what drives it are two very different things.

In the next five minutes, I'm going to share with you two stories, two questions that I ask my clients that you might find helpful, and I'm going to share one thing to try before you make the next big call that you have to make.

Early in my career, I remember making a decision, and I was very excited about it. I set this huge plan in place and I presented it to my leadership team. I couldn't wait for their feedback. Then one of them pushed back with a completely different perspective.

I was shattered, and that's when my spiral started. I was questioning myself, thinking, is their idea better than mine? Will they follow through if it's my idea? And then I really started to think, am I even cut out for this?

The real issue was actually that I'd planned first, and then I started second guessing as soon as that feedback from them came in. So, over time, making the same mistake, I learnt it's important to gather your ideas first and then build the plan. It took me a long time to get there.

I have a client, her name's Kara, and she had a team member who just kept making the same mistake over and over. And Kara was giving feedback, giving subtle hints, making suggestions, but she never really got to the heart of it.

And the story that she was saying to herself was that they aren't ready to hear it yet. They've got too much on. It wouldn't be fair at this stage, with everything that's going on in their life.

The cost, though, is that it kept happening and happening, and the rest of her team started complaining about her team member.

The thing that was really driving it, though, underneath, was that she had a really bad boss who had given her feedback in a really hurtful way, and she didn't want her team member feeling that way too. In fact, she never wanted any of her team to feel the way that she felt with the way that her old team leader addressed issues.

Once Kara saw that, real and specific feedback became the thing that would actually help the situation. So Kara knew the habit. What changed it was seeing what was underneath it.

When a leader tells me, "I know I'm doing it, it's just that it's what I always do," I ask them two things. The first one is, what has it been costing you? And the second, what difference would it make to replace it now?

Before you make your next call, pause and ask yourself, "If I were leading from clarity and certainty, completely aligned with my vision, what would I do in this situation?"

Knowing your habit is where it starts. Seeing what drives it is what changes it.

If you want to find out which pattern is driving yours, take the Leadership Mirror. It looks at four areas of how you lead under pressure, and it shows you where your authority is quietly slipping. It's free, and the link is below.

Tell me in the comments: what's the habit you know you do, and you still do it anyway?