The Benefit of Interruptions (#147)
The Confident Leader
BOOST YOUR LEADERSHIP IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
Since I’m no longer taking my son to school during the summer, I’ve been driving a different route to the office. This slight change in routine revealed a few things that may be useful to leaders who feel stuck in a rut.
““Change has a wicked sense of humor. It always seems to show up fashionably late, uninvited, and wearing a ridiculous hat.”
Anonymous
This Week’s Edition
Pattern interruption is a way to alter a person’s mental, emotional, or behavioral state to break the monotony of their typical habits.
Clarify Your Thinking
Little did I know the scenic route would present unexpected challenges to my morning commute. I had to maneuver around cement trucks laying a foundation of a house, ran into construction that blocked off an entire lane, and realized I wasn’t going to drive by my favorite coffee shop.
This interruption to my normal flow was initially frustrating and take longer and be less efficient. Then, I realized I was stuck in my ways and somewhat inflexible to change. Leaders can run into the same situation.
Leaders have operational routines that are beneficial – standard operating procedures (SOPs) that create scale and generate momentum. However, a leader’s engrained personal professional patterns may be too routine and thus lead them to be:
- More resistant to change
- Prone to being bored with the status quo
- Susceptible to complacency
These side effects may stunt a leader’s adaptability, curiosity, creativity, effectiveness and overall fulfillment in their role.
Old Thinking: I feel stagnate in my role. Honestly, I’m a little bored. It feels like ground hog day. I’m struggling to stay motivated.
New Thinking: I don’t like feeling stuck. I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to change things up even if that means it won’t be 100% efficient.
Thoughts Lead to Actions
I came to see my new route to work as an intentional deviation – an opportunity to shake things up a bit. The neuroscientists call this pattern interruption: a deliberate deviation from an established routine, habit, or thought process.
It can be highly beneficial for leaders, because it takes them out of the ordinary. It renders them slightly more vigilant, because things aren’t the same all the time. It creates:
- Increased self-awareness, surfacing a leader’s own biases, habits, and limitations that may be unhelpful or counterproductive.
- Heightened adaptability, generating openness to change and willingness to embrace new ideas.
- Exploration of new ideas, perspectives, and approaches, leading to thinking outside the box and innovative solutions to challenges.
- Greater learning and growth, preventing stagnation by seeking new knowledge and perspectives.
- Improved resilience, exposing them to controlled disruptions and uncertainties, conditioning their ability to navigate unexpected changes, setbacks, or crises more effectively.
Here are a few ideas to voluntarily shake things up in your leadership life:
- Host regular meetings in a different location or sit in a different seat at the meeting.
- Set up your work station in a different location for the day and invite others to co-work with you.
- Invite other team members to lead the meeting rather than you or the usual facilitator.
Embrace pattern interruption, to keep your leadership fresh. Summer is a great time to shake things up and try something new. Use your slightly different schedule to create some new routines. Who knows how it might positively impact your leadership and your team’s followership.
Boost Your Performance
Find out one way a coach uses an unconventional approach to shake his clients into new routines and a better life in this week’s video highlighting pattern interruption.
What’s Your Opinion?
What will you intentional change this week to disrupt the status quo? Share it with me at 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.
