I have a member of my support team who struggles with depression and clients who have ongoing depression, anxiety and complex grief.  I have two colleagues who have suffered the death of their son’s much to early in life.  I have clients who struggle with a wide range of addictions issues both behavioural and substance addictions.  I have clients whose marriages or finances are struggling.  Both men and women, young and old are all struggling and many around them would never know but I know.

It all started from a conversation about thinking and contemplation and we all settled on contemplation being about presence and bearing witness to our own thoughts.  Now this might sound all philosophical and in many ways it is, yet I see distinct connection between our willingness make space to contemplate and our leadership effectiveness.

“Will you please help me?” I asked and the airline representative wouldn’t even look at me.  There were seats left on the closing flight to Houston and from a place of powerlessness I explained to her that my travel companion was rebooked on another flight and I needed help getting on any flight to Houston.  I’m not suggesting that she had to assist me but I was completely astounded at the lack of empathy she displayed.  This experience has me thinking about the critical lack of empathy for customers in the airline industry and what must be happening in the leadership of those organizations that sets this kind of culture.

Being an effective leader is a continuous learning leader learning about the perspectives of your peers, stakeholders, and direct reports.  Learning about the systems, environment and processes.  Learning about the decisions and strategic focus.  Learning to navigate personal resilience and building strong relationships.  Learning to grow and develop your team to become effective in their roles and to become future leaders.  Learning to ultimately step into uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure again and again and again.

Do you spend time reading to become a better leader? I work with a lot of executive clients who struggle to make time to read or find reading a chore and boring.  As a result, they often don’t make time to read instead devoting more time to more meetings and occasionally getting their other work done.  But what if reading was part of your job?  I believe it is.  And, if you think you get lots of reading in by reading texts and emails, you’re cheating yourself.  Reading goes far beyond the time suck of email.

Take the time to consider you options and reflect on other peoples perspectives through feedback and reviews. Ponder these insights and improve through evolution of you and your team.