I'm Cy Wakeman and I'm a thought leader in human resources. In this video, I want to show you five ways you absolutely need to update your leadership philosophy. Many people don't even realize that traditional leadership philosophies, the ones you've been taught, the ones you've been practicing, are not helping. They're actually hurting. They're fueling drama at work and they're creating entitlement.
I won't bore you with the details of my research, but I am calling on everyone. to modernize their leadership philosophies, and update their practices. So let's get into those five tips.
So number one, stop blaming your circumstances. Seriously, your circumstances aren't the reasons that you can't succeed, and they aren't the reasons that your team can't succeed. And yet, when people come to you to complain about what's not working or to tattle on other teams that aren't doing their fair share. or to tell you something that is happening in their reality that is making it tough for them. If you're like most leaders, you jump up to go off and fix it.
But when you do that, you leave your team believing that the reason they can't succeed is their circumstances, their reality. And their circumstances aren't the reasons they can't succeed, it's the reality in which they must succeed. You not only leave them believing that their circumstances are their excuse. but you rob them of their own development. See, when people come to you, your job isn't to overmanage and go fix things.
Your job is to lead. So stop overmanaging and start leading. So here's what I want you to do instead.
Here's the tip, the technique. When people come to you, and you're tempted to go fix the situation, I want you to stop. Focus on growing the person in front of you. Coach the person in front of you. Develop them.
So when people come to you and they're complaining about adverse circumstances or they're tattling on other teams, I want you to absolutely refocus them on themselves. Number two, start managing energy, not people. Great leaders need to focus on managing the energy. energy of the situation rather than the people in the room.
In my research, I took a look at where energy is going in meetings. And I'm here to tell you that over 90% of the meetings that I observed, the energy was focused on why we couldn't, why we shouldn't have to, why the idea won't work. And leaders went along with it. They were Problem-solving how to get people's buy-in rather than how to deliver what the organization needed So I want you to work in your meetings and your interactions with people to move the energy away from why we can't To how we could to move it away from why we shouldn't have to into how we can deliver exquisitely. One way to do this is to make sure that you're using empathy, not sympathy.
Now here's the difference between the two. Sympathy is When I'm hearing that you're in pain and I go on to validate your victim mindset, that the reason for your pain is the circumstances or other people, things outside yourself. Here's what I mean.
You're in pain. I listen. And I start to sympathize. I start to agree with you and then collude with you and then leave you believing that the reason we're in this situation in the first place is somebody else's fault. Empathy is still kind acknowledgement of the fact that you're struggling right now, but it's followed by a call to greatness.
I see that you're suffering. So let's talk about what we would need to do in order to mitigate the risks you're concerned about and move forward. See, when leaders roll things out, too often they roll them out with sympathy. Here's what that looks like. You're rolling out a new change and you start by apologizing.
I'm so sorry. I know you're all so busy. I hate to bring another thing onto your plate.
But I've been instructed that this is a have to. It's mandatory. So if I'm the goodness of your heart, you can just please, please, please, please, please get on board and do your best.
You've just taught people that buy-in is optional. Here's what empathy looks like. looks like.
I have some new information that we need to deliver on and it's going to involve changing our business processes. So I'm going to let you know what I know and then we're going to go around the table and we're going to focus on what we need to do to be able to make this change least disruptive to our customers. Here's the explanation.
Now let's go. What's your idea? What's your idea?
What's your idea? See, that technique takes the energy of the meeting away from why we shouldn't have to or why it's a dumb idea. puts it into oh yeah we're gonna now let's focus on how we could number three understand that suffering is completely optional and by the way most often self and So let's break this down a bit. Suffering is completely optional.
Your suffering and the suffering of your employees is not coming from your circumstances, from your reality. It actually comes from the story we make up about our reality. Your suffering is optional. There are two ways to go through today, joy or misery, your choice.
And here's what you need to do as a leader. Separate out suffering. from reality. People come to me and they're frustrated.
They're like, Cy, we're moving again. Now, I may think that the reason they're suffering is that we're moving, but that's not the case. The reason they're suffering is they haven't yet gotten mobile, even though we've moved many, many times and if they want to get out of their suffering instead of asking me to stop the moving I need them to get mobile so moving doesn't hurt see are they suffering because we move are they suffering because they haven't yet got mobile while.
That's what I mean by separating out suffering from reality. If our reality is we move a lot, how can we make it so that we can be very fast in our moving and not have any pain around it? We grow in our own mobility. See, everywhere your team hurts is an indication of where they need to grow next. Number four, work with the willing.
I can't tell you the number of emails and calls I get where people want me. to tell them how to get somebody who is resistant on board. And my advice to you folks is work with the willing. Buy-in isn't optional. And buy-in is a verb. It is something the employee needs to do.
They need to go first. Buy-in is a verb. They need to get bought in. Too many times we're putting the responsibility on the leader to get somebody bought in, but their willingness is their business.
I can only work with the willing. I've worked with a lot of people who actually thought there was a third option until I as a leader helped them see reality. So here's an idea for you as a leader. When you're working with somebody who is resistant, who's withholding buy-in, use questions for self-reflection to help them understand their own magical thinking. I would love to have you on board.
And if you can't get on board because the decision's already made, our job is to get on board mitigating the risk. the risk and execute flawlessly, then I need you to transition off my team because one of my non-negotiables is that you got to be willing and buy-in is your verb. It's your job.
And so leaders work with the willing. And if you have resistors, use these questions, asking them what's their plan to sign up or out to help them understand there just isn't a third option. Number five, get very suspicious of conventional leaders. leadership philosophies. I started my career out as a therapist and when I was promoted to my first leadership position, I was shocked at what we were being taught in leadership development courses that ran counter to the evidence-based learning I had in psychology.
I actually made my career in the beginning out of questioning conventional wisdoms that most people have just accepted to be gospel truths. Here's an example. I heard over and over again leaders agreeing with people that change is hard.
But you know what? In my research, change is only hard for the unready. See, it isn't change that's hard.
What makes it hard is whether you're ready or not. Let's say that you have two great employees, except for one has refused to upgrade to a smartphone. In fact, they have the same flip phone they've had since high school.
And the other one continues to upgrade. upgrade their technology as often as possible to make sure that they have use of all the tools and resources that a great smartphone can provide. Flip phone, smartphone. Now the change comes. You give each of them a new smartphone.
Is change equally hard for them? No. Change is only hard for the unready, for the flip phone guy. Here's what I mean by that.
The one who has always been upgrading, they take the new smartphone and their attitude towards you is gratitude. They're so excited that they just for no reason get a new smartphone. They go to the cloud, get their stuff.
They're ready to go in about five minutes. The guy who has the flip phone is curled up in the fetal position. You have to hold a whole change initiative and training class to get him up to date.
But see, it isn't the change that was hard. It's just that change is hard for the unready. Now, there are so many simple things that you're saying on a daily basis, like change of sight.
hard that I want you to stop and question. So I hope I have you intrigued or at least convinced that it's time to update your leadership philosophies. It's time to admit that our way of leading isn't working.
And in fact, we still have a lot of drama and even more entitlement in our workplace than ever. If you love this video and you're ready to modernize your leadership philosophy, you're in luck. I have so much more content to share with you. To get started, make sure you check me out on Facebook.
Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and definitely subscribe to my channel. If you're looking for training and development tools for you and your team, go to my website and help yourself. And don't forget to share this video with all of your friends and colleagues so that they too can ditch the drama.