“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
~Zen saying

We often offer experiential exercises when we’re teaching leadership skills. We suggest to our clients that they be “participant observers,” which means that they dive fully into the exercise, and at the same time, as much as possible, watch their own and other’s behaviors, so that they can reflect on the obvious, and less obvious, things that occur during the exercise.

Because, we remind them, how you show up in this “game” is often, potentially, how you show up in real life.

If you’re an interrupter in this exercise, chances are you’re an interrupter in real life. If you shut down amidst confusion, you may shut down at work. If you take over here, you may take over with your team. If you yell, you yell. If you cower, you cower. If you support, you support.

You get the idea. How you do anything is often how you do everything. Or in other words, a tiger can’t change its stripes.

There’s good and bad in that of course. The bad being if we have a less-than-helpful behavior, there’s a good chance we’re displaying that behavior everywhere. And it’s less than helpful. The good being our less-than-helpful behavior will be that much easier to spot and call out, and therefore, hopefully, to correct. And the good also being that the positive, constructive behaviors we take and attitudes we take on, well we are taking and taking those on throughout our work and life as well.

How you do anything may very well be how you do everything. Do you want to be more Thoughtful, and purposeful, in how you do what you’re doing?

How can you be more Thoughtful in what you’re doing?
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If you enjoyed this post, you can read more like it in our book, The Power of Thoughtful Leadership: 101 Minutes To Being the Leader You Want To Be, available on Amazon.


If you want to do it all in a way you want to do it, Lisa at lkohn@chatsworthconsulting.com.

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