5 Business Leadership Tips
Every day around the world, business leaders in all shapes, sizes, and roles are facing an acceleration 
of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity as the forge ahead trying to execute the business strategies of the companies they work for. And just when it feels that perhaps we’ve caught up and adapted to the acceleration of the VUCA world, something unexpected happens and we are back wondering what just happened, what does it all mean, and what’s going to happen next?
During a recent Business Leadership and simulation workshop with a group of high performing mid-level managers, we took a slight detour from our discussion of accountability and delegation to have an in-depth dialogue about one of the most challenging aspects of being a leader in these uncertain time; Feeling Comfortable Feeling Uncomfortable
The following is a summary of the discussion and I present 5 practical take-aways to help you feel more comfortable being uncomfortable:
1) Become More Resilient by Erasing the Word “Frustration” from Your Leadership Vocabulary
One of the many leadership buzzwords over the past few years has been “resiliency” which means different things to different leaders. Here’s what is means to us; be as strong as you can be by adapting to change and eliminating the word frustration from your vocabulary. Frustration is a human-made emotion that can be eliminated by understanding one simple truth of leadership; there is a solution to every problem. Your job as a strong and resilient leader is to break down the problem into its’ smallest components and find the solutions. By doing that, you become stronger, more resilient and you eliminate the emotion of frustration.
2) Focus on Short-Term Solutions and Small Wins
Another key to success in an uncomfortable world is leveraging short-term solutions and small wins to get more comfortable. In other words, take each day as it comes and focus on the things you can control and look for the places where there are short-term solutions and small wins. These small wins will build your confidence – and more importantly the confidence of your teams – as you then as you connect the short-term solutions together to form long-term solutions and long-term wins you will start to feel much more comfortable being uncomfortable.
3) Follow Your Intuition and Gut
In times of uncertainly and during periods of being uncomfortable, over-analyzing and over-thinking will only lead to more feelings of being uncomfortable. One of the best things you can do is to trust your intuition and gut and feel comfortable that even if you make mistakes, you can fix them quickly.
4) Look for Ways to Proactively Innovate
Instead of reacting to the things that are happening around you – which inevitably make you feel more uncomfortable - take action by assessing the situation and challenging the status quo. You will feel more comfortable being uncomfortable when you are the one driving the changes in your world and not just reacting to them. One suggestion is to look for ways to innovate every aspect of the current strategy and value proposition to your customers. For example, how can you start to integrate Artificial Intelligence into your business model?
5) Take Ownership Unlearning and Relearning New Things
One of the driving forces of being uncomfortable as a leader is being stuck in old paradigms and old ways of thinking. You will feel much more comfortable being uncomfortable when you can start to unlearn old ways of thinking. For example, how to give feedback during times of uncertainty. The old paradigm is to give annual performance reviews and annual pay raises. You need to unlearn that behavior and relearn a new way of lifting performance by holding monthly huddles and addressing issues right away while also shifting priorities and addressing changes as soon as if not before they negatively impact the business.
