0:00:00.0 S1: Do you have or have you in the past ever had a workplace nemesis...
0:00:03.6 S2: The landscape of business is changing radically. Yeah, leadership is being taught the same hallway has always been taught, when the world is changing, it's time to bring our leadership styles along for the ride, thanks to cutting edge neuroscience, we now have access to new tools and new language that inspires action, collaboration and innovation in the modern workplace, I started this podcast to bring you the best of these cutting-a tools exercises as practices and modern leadership strategies every single week, whether you're a company leader, appropriate visionary or an entrepreneur, this show gives you a new insight and center science and language of leadership as well as practical steps and tips, you can take back to the office so you can lead your team in a powerful way, keeping your people happy and engaged while cheating your biggest goals, because no one has ever changed the world by doing things the way they've always been that. I'm your host, Jen cordon, I'm a talent strategist, an executive coach, speaker in the founder of prior coaching. Now, let's fix leadership.
0:01:12.6 S1: Today, I wanna talk to you about that one person that you work with that makes you absolutely bad, make you crazy, they make you act like someone that you're not... I have had this happen in my career, I would venture to say a lot of you have had this happen to you, and if you haven't, there will come a time where you work with someone who just is different than you, they think different, they manage different, they prioritize different, there's something about them that really rubs you the wrong way, and over time, you allow that to build up and you start acting in a different way as a result of it. Now, that can be pretty hard on your career, I often times... And working with people through coaching and they always wanna tell me about someone else, someone else's fault, someone else did this and they did this because of that person, and it's all about this other person, and of course, in coaching, my question is, well, that's great, but this is about you, this is about how you are gonna handle it, this is how you are gonna respond and who you're gonna show up to be, and I understand that other person, not acting great, not being responsible is different, whatever it is.
0:02:35.4 S1: I understand that and I accept that. But the minute you give up your power to that person and you start acting a way that isn't true to who you are, you've lost out, you've lost out on the opportunity to do great things, you've lost out in the opportunity to lead, and you're just not setting a good example from anyone else, and it was your choice to do that, and that's difficult to recognize whether you're in a coaching situation or you're listening to this, or you're down the road a couple of years from now, and you think back on this conversation we're having today, when you decide to act outside of who you naturally are in response to someone else, you own it, it is 100% on you. So that's kind of heavy. Let's lighten it up. We've all had that work nemesis, we've all had that person that made us nutty and crazy, I have had a list of them over the years, some made me crazier than others, but when I got frustrated, I was really, really fantastic at blaming the other person I was really good at it. I thought about what they did, and I just didn't take ownership all the time on my own decisions and my own actions towards that person or things around it.
0:03:53.1 S1: I let it get to me, and I don't want that for you. I don't want you to be in a place where that person that's really difficult for you to work with, for whatever reason, changes and impacts your daily performance, so what do you do if you have that person right now, if you think of, Oh my gosh, I have that person, I know who this is, and I know I'm acting outside of who I am. What do you wanna do? The first thing is, obviously, we wanna check in around bullying, policy violations, retaliation, if you have something like that going on, that's very different than what we're gonna talk about today. And obviously, if any of those things are going on, you want to go and talk to someone about that, and it's your responsibility to see something, say something and sort it out, so let's take all of those situations and we'll set those to the side because you're a responsible leader, and I know you would talk to HR, your supervisor, whoever you need to, to solve anything in the workplace that is inappropriate or not... Okay, alright, we have all those over there, now what we're gonna talk about is how do we work with someone who leads different...
0:05:02.6 S1: Really, maybe communicates very different than we do, maybe they work on a different timeline, I see that happen a lot, people that aren't giving everyone in the right timeline or don't get things back on time and hold things up that really frustrates others. So there's a long list of things that can happen that really allows us to get frustrated with someone that we work with, so the first thing I want you to do is really start to recognize how this has impacted your behavior, you're going to have to get really honest with yourself, you have to be able to say, You know what, I have been impacted and this is the actions I've taken that I don't want to do again, or maybe I'm not proud of, those actions... Could be a myriad of things. One of them could be, you talked poorly about this person behind their back to your team or to peers, not... Okay, but it happens all the time because you're frustrated, maybe you, in some ways, wish to harm on this person you were thinking, you know what, I hope they get caught for that because they need to be held accountable.
0:06:11.7 S1: Blah, blah, blah, right? Those thoughts, you might be very short, your communication with them, you might stop showing up for meetings with them and not showing up and being the person and participating in the conversation, you know who knows how that person has impacted you and your behaviors, but the first thing I want you to do is really stop and say, How are my behavior is changing because I'm allowing this person to impact who I am and how I show up. Because it's important that you know that. Then decide, who do you wanna be? No matter how that person shows up, how are you gonna show up? So that person might show up in a way that they're going to pick the details to death and really miss the big concept, that may be who they are, and you may have to be someone else. And so in those situations, if that person comes in and starts picking the details, decide how you're gonna respond, you might respond with... I understand those details are important, but today we're here to discuss the strategy and the concept, and those details will come along another day, we'll talk about that the next time we meet.
0:07:28.2 S1: And so that you're really starting to manage that situation instead of just getting mad, puffing out your lives, go pool, or just not being professional and who you want to be. The other thing I want you to think about is this person who is frustrating you or revenue the wrong way, get honest with their contribution. That might be hard. I can see your eyes rolling as you're listening to this podcast, like, Do they really contribute anyway, chances are they're contributing in some way, and seeing the good and someone... And seeing someone's ability to contribute helps you start to understand, Hey, I don't like this piece of how they lead, but if I didn't have them, here's what would be missing, and I'm gonna celebrate what's good, and then I'm gonna learn how to work through the stuff that is difficult for me. And when you see there is a give and take, you want to be excited about what that person brings, and then you can start to separate out what you need different from this person, or why this person and you are struggling. And you can get into the details because the reason that's important is then that allows you to start to have conversations with this person, if you're just sitting in this place where you've given up your power, you blame this other person, it's really hard for you to go out and correct it to build about a relationship because you're not seeing their value, you can only see the fact that it's their fault, and you're not being who you wanna be, you're not being the best version of you, so making change and having difficult conversations around the facts become really, really difficult.
0:09:21.3 S2: Let's take a quick break from the conversation, does your company need to prepare those upcoming leaders to take the rain to learn more about our leadership academies and our coaching, and to see if your company is a good fit for our transformation program? Is it three or four? Coaching dot com.
0:09:41.7 S1: I also want you to think about managing the chemical reactions in your brain, so what's interesting about the brain is it is a predictive machine, so when you have conversations with someone and say You've had five meetings with this person, your work nemesis and you have not enjoyed any of them, all five of the last ones have been difficult for you, the next time you open your calendar and you see that you have a meeting with that person, your brain is going to predict that it's not gonna go well because it hasn't... The last few times, therefore, and your brain's mind, it's not gonna go well this time, and it mealy starts to kick in. Chemicals around cortisol and stress and anxiety, all of a sudden, all you can think about is, I know it's 8 o'clock in the morning. And if I can just make it through that 3 o'clock meeting all day long, those chemicals are gonna be setting with you and making it difficult for you to be creative, innovative, being able to go out and do your best work because you're allowing those chemicals to impact how you think and feel during the day, so how do you do that? How do you change the predictive chemicals that are in your brain because...
0:10:58.6 S1: Yeah, the last five instances have been no fun, how you can do that is you can change the narrative, you can say the last five meetings have been horrible, I've not enjoyed them at all, be honest with yourself, but today, no matter what that person does, I am going to walk out of the meeting being proud about how I manage me, because then you start to think about your ownership, you start to think about how you can control it, and you start to show up in a different way, and you start to be the leader of the path. The last thing I wanna talk to you about is I want you to never stop being the person that you are... The things about you that you like, when you have someone at work that is impacting you so much that it's changing who you are... It doesn't feel good. At the end of the day, you start looking back and thinking, Oh my gosh, I can't believe that I just said that in that meeting, or I cannot believe that I was so short-tempered with whoever is on your team, you are short-tempered with...
0:12:06.8 S1: You start at the end today to think back about things you did that you're not proud of, and a lot of it's because you let this person get to you, and so you started acting in a way 'cause you gave up your power. So always remember that you cannot control how other people perform around you, you can't control how other people think and prioritize, but you can't always control who you are, how you show up, and how you respond to that person. And it's important to remember that. I think back to that person in my life, probably my biggest person I worked with, he was actually somewhat of a supervisor to me, and he was hard on everyone, he made everyone a little loopy, but I allowed him to change who I was, I allowed his actions impact me so much that I was really miserable. I would come home from work, I would complain about this person every day, I would basically stare at at my laptop and not wanna work because this person just... I mean, it was just eating at me so much and my performance sled and I didn't do that well the year that I was around this person because I let them impact me.
0:13:26.9 S1: I don't want that to happen for anyone out there, and if it's happened for you in the past, I never want it to happen for you in the future, I want you to completely and 100% know that no matter how someone impacts you, you get to choose how you respond, and you get to choose how you think about that person. Alright, so if you have that work nemesis out there and they are eating at you, number one, if there are issues around bullying or performance or policies, take care of that, go sort that out, but if it's really just a difference of working style and communication, start to take ownership of your actions, really let go of your judgment towards them and focus on... You focus on how you're showing up who you are, and don't let them take over your day, that my friend I know is easier said than done, but even if you improve by 20% on this concept, you will have a better day, you'll be a better leader and you'll do bigger things, and you'll go out there and fix leadership, thank you for joining me and I will see you next week on a new episode.
0:14:42.3 S2: Thanks for listening to Les IT leadership. By hanging out with me today, you're already on your path, if you're looking to learn more and to see if your company is a good fit for our pushing and leadership education, and Hey, visit 3044 coaching dotcom if you got value on this podcast, share it with a friend, and it would mean the world to me if you leave a thoughtful review and a rating on iTunes, thanks again for listening, and I appreciate your work and fixing leadership.
