You Can be Great If You Really Want To

In today’s fast-paced and competitive world, stress seems to be something very general and constant. It has made an fatal omnipresence in our lives. Some people try to ignore this condition while many succumb to it. What is needed is to fight it. Though stress is present everywhere, working people or the ones searching for jobs are the most affected by it. Search a suitable job, compete to gain job and then retain and improve it…a few simple steps that are the most stressful. And today we all, adults as well as children, understand this fact.

The question then is, how to tackle this monstrous problem. How to kill this parasite that is gradually destroying our society? The solution is “Positive Self Development”. But how does self development help us in tackling stress and improving our careers? For this we first need to understand what self development is. Self development means developing one’s own self confidence that will help tackle the stressful situations and problems that we face. Self development involves understanding ourself and improving our weaknesses. For this we need to free our minds of all kinds of prejudices and negative feelings. We need to question ourself and critically analyze our strengths and weaknesses. We need to understand our good qualities and our bad habits, and then perfect our qualities while getting rid of our negative habits. This process is like a self-cleansing and self-healing process where the mind is being healed and rejuvenated. We need to understand ourselves – what kind of a person I am, what do I expect from myself and from others, what is the best in me and what are my flaws, what is it that makes people around me dislike me? All these questions need to be answered by analyzing ourself. Because it is these questions or rather problems that create stress in our lives and deviate us from gaining our ultimate goal – success.

For building our confidence further we need intellectual development. By being well-informed about the latest happening around the world, we can easily meet challenges at our work place. A stagnant mind is like a pubble of stagnant water where only diseases and mosquitoes can breed whereas an ever running stream keeps cleaning itself with every new rush of water that enters into it. The currents of new information will bring along a new perspective of seeing ourself. We can understand ourself with respect to the society and world around and thus accordingly improve ourself and our confidence. But along with this we need to keep ourself physically fit also. A fat and lethargic person, weighed down by fats and chemicals will not like to do anything for anyone, not even for his/herself. Such a person has no passion of any kind, no ambitions to materialize, no goals to achieve. Such a person lacks the most in self confidence. What makes him/her feel small in front of others is the ugly shape of his/her body and the lack of knowledge that has resulted due to his/her ignorance. Such a person ends up becoming the butt of everyone’s ridicule, which further demoralizes him/her and destroy whatever little is left of his/her self confidence. So mind and body go hand in hand in case of self confidence or self development. In fact various self development programs that are being offered today stress on the need of a fit and healthy body. The most important thing that we constantly need to remember is that nobody in this world is perfect but we can strive to become a better and stress-free human being because only such a person can have a stress-free career. Spend some of your life with Pilates workout.

Introduction 

In any organization, people are talking.  They talk about life, work, careers, and their bosses.  Yes, they are talking about you; count on it.   Are these conversations helping or hurting your ability to get results?  

What is Effective Communication? 

Leadership development efforts tend to focus on setting clear goals, hiring the right people, clearing obstacles, and communicating effectively.  But the leader’s ability to communicate is only part of the challenge.  How can a leader influence the conversations taking place when he or she isn’t there? 

Effective communications in a business are not limited to the leader’s ability to make good speeches, write effective emails and hold town hall meetings.  All of these things are valuable, but only to the extent that they impact other conversations.  After every speech or town hall meeting, people go off and talk among themselves.  What are they saying about your agenda?   

What if you could control all of those conversations? 

Well, You Can’t… 

Face it, control is a bit too much to ask for.  What you can have is the next best thing.  You can have confidence that people are talking about the things you need them to be discussing, and doing it openly.  To do that, you need to create a culture of dialogue. 

Culture simply refers to behavioral norms, so a culture of dialogue is one in which everyone is comfortable and expected to be engaging in conversations about their work, their work processes, and their leadership.  When the culture encourages open dialogue, it effectively shuts down destructive conversations, hidden agendas and other debilitating behaviors. 

In a culture of dialogue, it is safe — and you are encouraged — to say what you think.  People who tend toward silence are drawn in by peers who want to know what they’re thinking.  Key Opinion Leaders are identified and respected, and they make sure the leadership is getting honest, objective feedback on not only their leadership agenda, but on their behavior as well. 

Leadership Behavior 

Your ability to create a culture of dialogue is dependent on your own behavior.  What do you do when your plans are challenged?  What do you do when you make a mistake?   

Too many leaders have to be right.  They shout down challengers.  And let’s be clear, when you’re the leader “shout down” is not a literal term.  You can use your position to dismiss a challenger, and even ignore them.  It’s the same as shouting them down. 

To create a culture of dialogue, be willing to sacrifice your ego.  Your goals and agenda are important, your pride is not.  Be open to feedback.  Acknowledging critical feedback will have a huge impact on the culture, even if you don’t act on the criticism.  And you should only act on the criticism if, after careful consideration, you believe it is warranted.  You don’t need to be a wimp to create a culture of dialogue! 

For your part, make sure you criticize behavior first.  Don’t criticize or discipline people for anything other than bad behavior.  To create a culture of dialogue, your number one job is to make it safe for people to have important conversations, out in the open.  More than anything else, your behavior and the behavior of the other members of your leadership team will dictate whether or not people feel safe.