In my younger days I spent some time racing on a sail boat on Lake Michigan. I was very inexperienced as a sailor, but I enjoyed my time learning to sail competitively. While sailing there were times were the weather was not ideal, and this led to some uneasy times and heightened anxiety. You never know how fragile you are until you are battling against mother nature. With my inexperience I never knew how serious the weather was or what realistic level of danger we were in as a crew. I would look to our captain Tom as he was manning the steering wheel to see what his body language was telling me. No matter how rough the water or how strong the sea, he held the wheel and held a firm but steady demeanor. This would calm me and allow me to breathe easier and focus on my task at hand.
When I became a father twenty months ago, I began a journey that I was never trained on and I was never prepped on the massive responsibility of being a father. As I have watched my son grow, I see the same reaction in my son that I had as a novice sailor. The minute my son faces adversity he immediately looks to me or his mother to see how we respond. If he falls, he looks to us and if we stay calm, he stays calm. He is responding to the body language of his leaders. As I reflect on what it means to lead others the importance of being in control of your emotions as a leader is essential to allowing your team to focus on their tasks and not be distracted by the impact of adversity.
I have worked for leaders that are all over the board on the control of their emotions. I have worked for some that you never know what you are going to get when you come into work. Things can be going well and the leader is having a rough day and in return you are greeted by a hostile and irrational presence. This creates confusion and limits the effectiveness of those that are working on this team. I have also worked for leaders that seem to lack emotion. This leads to a culture that is comfortable with the status quo and embraces mediocrity. The key is to be balanced emotionally as a leader and regardless of the circumstances you must present a demeanor that provides inspiration and calm to those that are working alongside you.
In order to effectively lead others, you must have a great awareness of your own emotions. You must leverage that control to motivate or calm those that are working with you. This requires a great level of emotional intelligence and a discipline to present what others need in the moment and not what you may be feeling at the time. As a leader when the water gets rough everyone is looking to you, and everyone else responds in a way that is based on your reaction to the waves you are encountering as an organization. What kind of response will your colleagues give when you encounter rough waters? I hope to model the behavior I learned from Captain Tom and provide others with the calm and sanity to continue to move the organization forward in the face of adversity.