Your emotions will deceive you and cause you to fall short of your calling as a leader.
I felt like roasting him! He was one of the most irritating peers I ever had. He was stubborn and full of himself. And in this case, he did not know what he was talking about. When I challenged him, he came back with a personal comment. I almost came across the table. But, I didn’t….this time. Unfortunately, I did let my feelings get the best of me a year earlier.
In a very similar exchange, I got up from my chair and started moving towards his side of the table. My good friend and colleague, Mike, quickly stood up and brought calm back to the situation. It was an embarrassing moment for me. One that I vowed to learn from.
Emotions can be a leader’s downfall if they don’t learn to control them. A leader who allows their emotions to make their decisions may get people to comply with their demands. But that leader will never be the Leader of Character those people want to commit to following. That leader will be inconsistent and cause people to walk on egg shells and not take risks.
Your emotions will deceive you and cause you to fall short of your calling as a leader. It may not be as stupid as a physical altercation, but operating based on emotions will cause you to make unwise decisions.
- Anger: Will cause you to say the wrong thing at the wrong moment.
- Self Pity: Will cause you to turn inward and not pay attention to others.
- Frustration: Will cause you to roll your eyes or make hasty decisions.
- Impatience: Will cause you to jump in when others are figuring it out.
- Fear: WIll cause you to micromanage to avoid a loss of control.
There is power in the pause. Taking that moment to step back from our emotions and ask ourselves, “What would a Leader of Character do right now?”
At that moment, it is a leader’s moral obligation – Duty – to fight against an emotional choice.
Duty: Taking action based on our assigned tasks and moral obligations.
It is your Duty to filter your emotions and decide if emotions will make the decision for you or will you exercise Courage, Humility, Integrity, Selflessness, Duty, and/or Positivity despite how you feel at that moment.
It will not be easy to avoid those emotional responses if you are in the habit of letting them win those battles inside you. But, when you pause and make the choice that a Leader of Character would make, I promise you it will get easier the next time you do it. Pretty soon, you will have a new habit that will make you the leader you and everyone else will want to follow: A Leader of Character.
Question:
- When was the last time you made an unwise decision based on your immediate emotions?
Audiobook sales have taken over for ebook sales. When we first published Becoming a Leader of Character in 2017, people were predicting ebooks were going to kill traditional hard copy print books.
That didn’t happen. In fact, print books’ percentage of sales are very similar to what they were in 2017 when we first published. What has changed is that audiobooks have eaten away at ebook sales.
Therefore, if you have been waiting on the audiobook version of Becoming a Leader of Character it is now here! You can get it on Spotify, Audible or any other major platform for audiobooks.
While you drive or workout, marinate your brains in the Six Habits of Character – Courage, Humility, Integrity, Selflessness, Duty, and Positivity.
Order now on your favorite platform:
(Audible is coming soon!)
Audible: Will be available in the coming weeks. We will let you know as soon as Audible makes it available.
