The Thoughtful Leaders Blog
Posted by Robyn McLeod on April 19, 2012
 Recently I attended a workshop led by two dynamic facilitators. Their credentials, renown, and years of experience certainly were impressive, but it was their handling of one incident during the session that truly highlighted their mastery of facilitation and connection to others and provided a great leadership lesson for dealing with difficult people.
Here’s what happened: As I settled into my chair in the front of the room, I heard a woman (Let’s call her Pat) behind me speaking in very irritated and angry tones. It seemed that someone had moved her belongings to another chair while she was up getting coffee. Pat clearly took this as an affront and fussed, mostly to herself, about inconsiderate and rude people. I noticed that people around her were looking somewhat uncomfortable.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on February 13, 2012
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” John Quincy Adams
Ever notice that sometimes when you are about to give up – when you’ve tried too hard or too long and the obstacles seem too great, when you just don’t have it in you to keep going – as if by magic, you have a breakthrough. I see this in my own life, when the prospects with whom I have been following up with for years finally bring us in for a project. I witness it in the lives of my clients, when the proposal they’ve put before their boss, which has seemingly disappeared, is brought back as a topic of discussion…and then funded. I notice it in the life of my son, who has literally cried his way through homework because handwriting is so difficult for him, and then one day he found himself easily putting pencil to paper and capturing his thoughts without struggling. In each one of these instances, frustration has been high and we’ve all been at the “breaking point,” but when we’ve been patient, when we’ve persevered, it has been magical.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on January 23, 2012
“A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.” David Brinkley
I was speaking with a colleague recently who told her tale of woe about a large project she was heading up at work. She shared a litany of roadblocks and obstacles. “Every time I turn around,” she said, “It’s like someone else has come up with yet another ridiculous hoop I have to jump through and a reason why my project will fail…or shouldn’t even be started. At times I just want to quit.”
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on January 9, 2012
“You don’t have to suffer continual chaos in order to grow.” John C. Lilly
We have been taught since we were young, “No pain, no gain.” I no longer adhere to that approach.
The world is filled with organisms that grow without pain and chaos. People grow, cities grow, businesses grow, flowers grow – all, at times, without chaos and pain. The world shows us that it is entirely possible, and yet when I share this concept with my clients, they find it enlightening.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on November 7, 2011
“If you don’t give people information, they’ll make something up to fill the void.” Carla O’Dell
We highly recommend “overcommunication” to our clients. We tell our clients, repeatedly, that they should share with others what they know, what they don’t know, what they can disclose, what they can’t disclose, why they can’t disclose something, when they might disclose something – basically everything possible. Because if they don’t – if they leave a void – the people around them will make something up.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on September 19, 2011
“In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” Albert Camus
There are many sayings that highlight the fact that adversity can often yield the best results. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” “Diamonds are made under pressure.” “Every cloud has a silver lining.” These all remind us that it is often the difficult times that bring out the best in us or get us where we need to go.
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Posted by Robyn McLeod on September 8, 2011
In teaching a program on Managing Conflict recently I asked participants to name some of the sources of conflict in their organization. They offered many suggestions about the things that cause conflict to arise, and the strongest sources of conflict, the ones that seemed to generate the most nods of agreement and emphatic responses, centered around communication – lack of communication, miscommunication, conflicting messages, and misinterpreted messages.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on June 13, 2011
“Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.” Liberian proverb
When we fall, when we fail, we often immediately look at the point where we came crashing to the ground. We may blame our immediate surroundings; we may decide to stay on the ground and not get up; we may decide we can’t achieve our goals or that we need to change direction.
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Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on March 28, 2011
“Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but paddling like the dickens underneath.” Michael Caine
When things get frantic, do you get frantic? Can those who work with you and live with you notice your frenetic energy? And do they then get frantic themselves? An essential leadership skill – whether you’re leading an organization, a team, a project, or a family – is to learn to flow with the chaos and show a calm demeanor to the people around you.
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Posted by Robyn McLeod on March 11, 2011
Earlier this week my family watched a program on bullying among teenagers, a subject that schools across the country are grappling with, as bullying takes place in school, outside of school, and in cyberspace. The program brought unsuspecting teens into a scenario where actors played the parts of two bullies and a victim. The program host and the parents of the teens observed their reactions via hidden cameras. Needless to say, a few of the parents felt extremely proud of their children for speaking up and confronting the bullies, while the majority of the parents watched their children remain silent, look away, or even laugh and encourage the bullies. It made for a great conversation with our children about what to do when you are bullied or you see someone else being bullied.
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View Robyn McLeod's profile
I once received some feedback about this very issue. It seems that when I took one of the many typing indicators it determined that I was as calm in a high stress situation as in areas that were routine. This was good and bad. The good as you pointed out was that the team remained calm and did not get rattled and unable to perform, the bad is that no one really knew how bad the situation was and therefore did not have the chance to rise to the occasion and help out. I have not changed the nature in which I take stress, but I have found cues to help those around me appreciate the gravity of the situation. Just thought I would share this to enhance your thoughts.
Thanks Dwight – that is excellent food for thought and I know I will incorporate it for myself and my clients as we talk through stress, calmness, and reactions. Good for you that you took the feedback and found a way to work with it that worked for you (and those around you)!