Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
- do what makes your stomach hurt!
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Click here to view and download the Discussion Guide to utilize with your Group and/or Team over the next 12 months. The Guide and questions will be updated each month to reflect the TOTM concept.
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“If you search inside yourself, you will find your truth.”
James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, Finding Your Voice Essay
Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell
Servant Leadership in Action
Every decade is characterized by unique circumstances. The decade we find ourselves in is no exception. As we explore the tenets of Developing a Leadership Mindset in 2022, this month we will introduce the practice of getting comfortable being uncomfortable.
Effective leadership and developing a leadership mindset, require engaging in the life-long habit and discipline of introspection which builds our ability to recognize, surface, and process emotions, and respond appropriately to ourselves and others. Leadership consultants and authors, Kouzes and Posner, in their essay in Servant Leadership in Action state, “to lead others, you have to learn to lead yourself.”
Developing a leadership mindset also means forsaking a life of ease, convenience, and personal preferences. M. Scott Peck, author of one of my favorite reads, The Road Less Traveled, opens his book with the following three words, “life is difficult.” Peck beautifully explores our tendency as humans to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid what is difficult, and by doing so, ironically, we create more, and in most instances, greater levels of dysfunction and difficulty.
Introspection calls for the development of the characteristics of humility, willingness, courage, and grace for oneself and others. Developing authenticity and transparency is also rooted in our self-reflection and provides us with a platform to give greater levels of grace to others. It is the soil in which empathy can grow as we search inside ourselves to find our truth. The path to self-examination and the process of “finding one’s truth” has the potential to make us uncomfortable, hence we may avoid the very reality we need.
Getting comfortable being uncomfortable means being willing to take the road less traveled by developing the ability to manage and navigate conflict effectively. We believe it requires, what we fondly refer to as, “doing what makes your stomach hurt.” Practicing the discipline of introspection and mastering the ability to manage and navigate conflict effectively requires embracing discomfort.
For more than ten years we have had the privilege of teaching our cornerstone class, Managing From The Inside Out. I wish we would have started recording the response to the Session 1 Peer Interview question “What is one thing you avoid?”. Without question, the number one response we receive is, “conflict!” We have learned a significant number of leaders do not embrace conflict, which, ironically, is exactly what we need them to do for the individuals and teams in our organizations to be more effective!
If we are to become equipped as effective leaders, it is essential we develop the ability to engage in difficult conversations and share facts and feelings that may be unwelcomed, resisted, or unwanted. Leaders have a responsibility to “face the brutal facts” as Jim Collins unpacks in the business classic Good to Great. Leadership requires a willingness to address underperformance, conflict among teams, financial challenges, and change resistance without simply asserting authority, wielding power, position, or title or playing the “because I am the boss and I say so” card.
Our preference and tendency, understandably, is to avoid the emotional, relational, and psychological pain and the feelings of discomfort conflict brings. Fear of looking bad and/or fear of feeling bad, consciously or unconsciously, may also be a source of stomachache. We may need to have a conversation with ourselves or another individual or team of people and that requires learning to give and receive feedback in an authentic, transparent manner. Taking the high road, rather than avoiding challenging people or situations, means walking through valleys and navigating the messiness and discomfort of uncomfortable situations. Brené Brown refers to it as “rumbling.” Rumbling means rolling up our emotional sleeves and working through communication and situational challenges with others.
If your stomach isn’t hurting as a leader, you are most likely in a comfortable place, and that place is potentially ineffective. We are security and stability seeking creatures of comfort as Drs. Brandt and Kriegel’s research in Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers demonstrates. The powerful and insightful change ready tool Brandt and Kriegel developed identifies seven traits of change readiness that can be measured. We have administered the tool to a considerable number of leader managers and for 90% of the respondents, trait seven or Tolerance for Ambiguity, and trait two or Adventurousness, are the two lowest scoring traits. Getting comfortable being uncomfortable appears to be a universal challenge!
Mark Twain once said, “courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s acting in spite of fear.” Leaders recognize the ache in their stomach can be a positive signal. If we learn to pay attention to, and act appropriately on the stomachache, we will have the opportunity to be and become more effective. The signal the stomachache provides can serve as a positive window into the need to right a wrong, seek greater levels of clarity, correct an injustice, or take responsibility to hold oneself accountable. If we dull the ache with denial, defensiveness, avoidance, etc., the ache will most certainly dissipate over time. It may then take extraordinary circumstances, such as the loss of a relationship or a significant failure, to face the source of the stomachache and act appropriately. Effectiveness is not “microwaveable”, and we will most likely lengthen the development timeline when we engage in avoidance or denial.
Getting comfortable being uncomfortable means leaning in and being curious about one’s own needs and the needs of others. Do I have a need for recognition or acceptance, power, admiration, or control that is unhealthy? What am I afraid of, and why am I avoiding what makes my stomach hurt rather than embracing the opportunity to be and become more effective?
Critical questions for consideration that may make your stomach hurt:
How well do I accurately, transparently, and authentically know myself?
How well do I understand the needs of others as they perceive them?
How effectively do I speak and share the truth, facts, and feelings?
How well do I understand how my behavior impacts others?
Each time we do what makes our stomach hurt we increase our capacity for effectiveness. We all have a capacity box, and our box is a certain size based upon our current level of ability and functionality. The more often we shrink from doing what makes our stomach hurt, the smaller our box becomes. Conversely, when we engage in difficult conversations and take the first step in addressing and navigating conflict, our capacity box grows.
We like a straight path, clear expectations, and abundant resources. Instead, what we get as leader managers (and humans!) are detours, opposition, and challenges. Leadership is getting on and staying on the high road. Leaders make people around them better by setting those around them up for success and encouraging them to be more effective than they would have been without your presence. Living, leading, and doing what makes your stomach hurt is a willful act, and that is how courage is defined; a willful act that benefits others, most likely entailing some measure of personal sacrifice. That sacrifice may be time, energy, money, ego, pride. A sacrifice is always made when progress occurs.
As you lead and manage those around you this month, may you embrace discomfort, engage in crucial conversations, courageously make sacrifices, delve into deeper levels of introspection, and practice grace, humility, and patience. Remember our effectiveness and our capacity for becoming comfortable being uncomfortable is elastic and our capacity box has the ability to grow as we search for, identify, and live out our truth. For that I am exceedingly grateful.
-LS
Group Discussion
Guide
Click here to view and download the Discussion Guide to utilize with your Group and/or Team over the next 12 months. The Guide and questions will be updated each month.
Recommended Quarterly Reading
Servant Leadership In Action
edited by Ken Blanchard & Renee Broadwell
2022
Managing From The Inside Out
Winter 2022
February 2, 9, 16, 23
March 2, 9, 16
AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
Spring 2022
May 4, 11, 18, 25
June 1, 8, 15
AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
PM Classes: 1:30-4:30 P.M.
Fall 2022
October 5, 12, 19, 26
November 2, 9, 16
AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
PM Classes: 1:30-4:30 P.M.
Register today to engage in professional growth and development as a Leader Manager and join us for Managing From The Inside Out! Simply email Erin Higgins at erin@lauraschanz.com to reserve a seat for yourself or a Team Member. The 2022 Registration Fee is $1,195.