ACRONYMS CAN BE VALUABLE FOR LEADERS
As I have written here previously, every Sunday morning, I look forward to receiving a leadership blog post from my good friend Michael Reuter. Michael is the former head of the leadership program at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Each week his blog post is filled with wisdom and insights.
On a regular basis, I send Michael an email with my thoughts and comments about the content of his blog post. He does the same for me when I send out this newsletter every Sunday evening.
This week Michael responded to my comments with what I am thinking is a new take on a traditional leadership acronym: PIP
You might be thinking: “Larry, PIP is very well-known within our leadership ranks. It stands for performance improvement plan. We use these frequently with an under-performing team member.”
Like you, I have created and implemented performance improvement plans many times over the years. Sometimes these plans lead to significant improvements in the performance of a particular teammate. Other times the team member is not able to execute the performance improvement plan or live up to it and has to be let go. Those are unfortunate situations, but the performance improvement plan helps smooth things over, at least with the HR department.
Last week I wrote to Michael about three significant words he included in his weekly blog post:
-Pause
-Intention
-Purpose
Michels response was: “Larry, PIP! What a beautiful catch word for great leaders.”
This week, I thought I would reflect upon the first of these critical leadership aspects, “Pause.” Next week I will examine the second part of this new PIP acronym. How does “Pause” relate to leadership skills and behaviors?
So often during the workday, we are prompted by outside influences to rush. We rush through conversations and we rush through projects. We rush through the review of documents and we rush through phone calls or Zoom conversations
We rush because we are in a hurry. Why? Because we want to get more done. We want to move onto the next thing. We want to be productive and effective.
Ironically, significant empirical research shows that we are actually more effective when we stop rushing and proactively make time to take our time. What happens?
-We are more thoughtful
-We are more studious
-We are more discerning.
When can we pause or, as we say in leadership coaching, when can we give ourselves permission to pause?
-When a key teammate asks us an important question, we can pause, say “that’s a really good question,” and let the silence sit there while we develop a cogent response.
-When we are in the middle of an important project and are not sure of the best way to proceed, we can pause and consider our options. We can even make use of the pause by consulting with a teammate whose judgment we trust.
-When we are asked to make a significant leadership decision that will affect other team members or current customers, we can pause and take the temperature of key colleagues to collect their insights.
-When we have important information to deliver to a particular audience, whether inside or outside our organization, we can pause to think about how they will respond to our message. We can look at things not from our own point of view, but from the point of view of the recipients, whether the message is delivered in person, via Substack, through email or Zoom.
Learning to pause at multiple moments of the workday is a critical tool for effective leaders. I encourage you to look in the mirror and determine how frequently you give yourself permission to pause – from the time you start working in the morning until the time you stop in the evening.
Pausing is a valuable leadership tool, regardless of where you are on your own leadership journey.
If you believe this content would resonate with a friend or colleague, please feel free to forward it along!
-Larry