Anton Guinea
Entrepreneur, Speaker, bestselling author, and founder of The Guinea Group of Companies. For over 15 years, Anton has helped leaders move their teams to become psychologically safe, physically safe and overall better versions of themselves.
I could not work out how one of my clients just kept their stuff together. Always. Never lost it. Ever. So cool, calm, and collected. Unlike me (at times). My emotions seem to fluctuate wildly, and I feel like I get the full human experience… going through all the emotional states.
So, I asked my client what was going on for them. Even when things were going south. When things weren’t right. When things weren’t ideal.
After some considered reflection, my client said that in their mind it was as simple as ‘being ok with boring’.
Quite the insightful response. Quite the measured response. Quite the unexpected response.
“Talk me through it,” I asked…
“Well (after more reflection), as a leader you don’t need to be all over the place. You don’t need to be inconsistent, and you don’t need to be unpredictable. You just need to be boring (not as a human), as a leader.”
Here is what else we discussed…
1. Learn to be predictable in your emotions
In short, don’t be the leader who your team have to wait until you are in the right mood to approach.
Don’t be the leader who your team have to worry about your emotions being out of control when they deliver bad news.
Don’t be the leader who is unstable, unpredictable, or unreliable emotionally.
Be boring. Get in control of your emotions so that regardless of the situation, you are able to ‘take it in your stride’. You are able to engage your frontal lobes and talk yourself down before responding. You are able to name your emotional state, which is the first step in the emotional intelligence process (credit: Daniel Goleman).
2. Learn to be predictable in your behaviour
When we survey team members (or leaders) and we ask them what is the most important character trait that they would like to see in their leaders, there are several commonly used words (and yes, sometimes the survey has words like, charisma, care factor, consistency, commitment, or communication).
What would you answer to the question of what is the most important leadership character trait?
The most common response we hear is consistency. Consistency of response. Consistency of mood, and consistency of behaviour.
Team members need leaders to behave consistently. Why? Because leadership behaviour is reflected by team members. Leadership behaviour becomes the example to follow. Leadership behaviour has an impact on others.
Leaders need to have the courageous conversations at times. And they need to have those in a way that is not aggressive, abusive, or abrupt. If they are any of these things, the conversation is not courageous, it is counterproductive.
Be boring. Be the leader who is so consistent that you team know what your decisions will be before they ask you. Be the leaders who has words or phrases that you use consistently. Be the leader that is in control of their behavioural patterns.
3. Learn to be predictable in your focus
Too many leaders have too many priorities. Too many leaders are chasing their tails. Too many leaders have a daily focus instead of a monthly, quarterly, or annual focus.
One of our favourite clients pick a focus for every year. This year it was simply ‘happiness’. Be happy at work. Be happy at home. Be happy at life (as much as you can – not always achievable, but a great goal). Every month, my sessions with that team are focused on content that supports the mission critical focus of happiness.
When working with that team, it is pretty simple. Is what we are doing making us happy? Is what we are doing making our team happy? Is what we are going making our guests happy? If not, it is time to change something.
Be boring. Have a consistent focus. Have a consistent priority list. Have a consistent approach to delivering your priorities. Have punctuality (watch that change how much your credibility increases, just with that small change).
In summary, be boring (if I haven’t mentioned that already). Yes, leadership is about firefighting. And most leaders get some excitement from reacting, rather than responding. But the more boring you can be (aka consistent), the better you team will respond!
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