Don’t be the leader who chases the storm. Be the weather. (#306)
The Confident Leader
BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” — Mark Twain
This Week’s Edition
Every person who walks into your meeting brings their own temperature.
This week is about trying to control the temperature; effectively, being a thermostat isn’t your best bet.
Clarify Your Thinking
Dana wasn’t walking into a neutral room. No leader does.
For example, one person came in hot from a deal gone poorly. One came in flat. One came in anxious about who knows what.
The room temperature was moving up and down simultaneously before she said a word.
That’s the leadership temptation is to react to other people’s moods.
Instead decide what mood the meeting needs and own that.
Meaning, you don’t manage the room. You lead it by setting the climate.
Old Thinking: My job is to read the room and match it, steadying things when the energy drops.
New Thinking: My job is to read what the room needs, then bring the mood, tone, and energy that meets it.
Thoughts Lead to Actions
Your mood is the first thing they read, before anything else. It is the tone setter.
Do you know what tone is needed?
Can you set that tone? Candor. Caution. Urgency. Ease.
Your energy is contagious, and they’ll catch yours fast.
As we know, leadership is situational. Reading which tone is right for the moment is executive presence at its height.
Presence requires being intentional before, during, and after you walk into the room.
Step 1. Read the room. Assess the situation (not the players).
Step 2. Determine the tone needed. Give it a name. Determine how to display that tone.
Step 3. Be that tone in every aspect of your leadership: mindset, energy, behavior and listening.
And if you’re newer to this, start with step one. You may not be able to set the room yet. But you can learn to read it, watching the energy move in real time and naming what the moment needs.
Every leader who sets the weather learned to forecast it first.
You bring weather into every room you enter. This week, decide what it is before you arrive.
Boost Your Performance
One sales leader stopped chasing her team’s mood swings around the table, started deciding her own tone before she walked in, and watched a room that used to run her begin to take its read from her instead. This week’s video breaks down the two-minute reset in plain steps.
What’s Your Opinion?
When you walk into a room under pressure, what is your default tendency? Do you absorb the energy around you, or intentionally set the tone you want others to follow?
I’d love to hear your thoughts: robin.pou@robinpou.com
If you are going to be a leader, you might as well be a good one. Don’t let doubt count you out. Have a confident week!
Robin Pou, Chief Advisor and Strategist
We live to make bad leadership extinct so forward this newsletter to others who strive to be confident leaders.
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What is “The Confident Leader”?
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, I began a video series called “Panic or Plan?” It was designed to equip leaders to navigate the doubt they experienced and to rise in the confidence they needed to lead during turbulent times. It took off. I then started this newsletter to equip leaders in the same fashion each week for the doubt that crashes across the bow of their leaderSHIP.