At VIM Executive Coaching we have often stressed the difference between an executive leader who feels “lonely” in making a decision that must be made, and an executive leader who feels isolated. The dynamics of the two are quite different and it goes to the idea of mindfulness.
Decisions, decisions
After gathering, analyzing, consulting and weighing information, there does come a time for an executive to make a decision, and it can get lonely. No one would deny that. Does it get easier? It can, but only to a degree. Perhaps the “degree” is for the best.
For example, we would not want an orthopedic surgeon working on a knee to look around the operating theater and ask the interns and nurses “what do you think I should do?” We would expect the surgeon to know enough, to have learned enough and to have performed enough to know the correct way to proceed.
The same model might apply to a test pilot, accountant, head of engineering or the general manager of a baseball team. In a sense, those folks are paid to be the final decision makers. After all, we wouldn’t exactly be filled with confidence if the pilot of our flight got on the intercom and asked for a show of hands as to whether we believed runway 19-Left was to the left or right of runway 19-Right.
However, the dynamic shifts quite abruptly when the executive leader has allowed themselves to become isolated. Decisions made in isolation could be catastrophic.
Isolation
There are many ways to become isolated in the workplace, no matter how that workplace is constituted. Making decisions in isolation, certainly living in isolation, is difficult at best.
We are well aware that what we do as executive coaches is not psycho-therapy but we would suggest that if you’re feeling isolated in your personal life, then help should be considered.
In terms of the workplace, how does an executive leader become isolated? How does it come about that the leader has no connections, no sounding boards or not even a support network? Isolation is painful, and while we would be naïve to say that it never comes about with intention, more often than not, an executive or executive leader who is isolated, has largely helped to create such a dynamic.
There are many ways in which an executive leader becomes isolated but most always it was the lack of mindfulness that led them to that place.
Mindfulness, that awareness in the moment, does not happen by luck, but is cultivated by awareness of the organizational environment, by you being authentic and, in the moment, by being compassionate and consistent with everyone.
Can mindfulness be taught? Of course, it can, and that is a key teaching of VIM Executive Coaching, however what mindfulness requires of all of us, is to be self-aware and real in the moment. If the executive leader is lacking in authenticity, it is a guarantee that others will see that lack. If the leader lacks or worse, rejects compassionate leadership, those she or he wishes to lead, will not be led.
There are, of course, several caveats to these statements. Being self-aware and real in the moment means to be the same person in that moment that you would be in any other. If you are compassionate to some, but unkind to others, it will lead to isolation. It is a matter of trust. If you are “compassionate” to those above, but unfeeling to those below, you may cultivate fawning behavior but it will not be genuine.
If nothing an executive does or says comes across as honest or supportive, he or she in turn will not hear honesty or true loyalty.
Isolation is unbelievably painful but the good news is that with supportive coaching it is avoidable.