Lieutenant Colonel Robert Adolph, known to all as Bob, endeavored all throughout his UN career to improve safety and security measures for staff in the field. As a result Robert Adolph is extremely well versed in Leadership. Recently, Robert has condensed his experience, over many decades of work in many different countries and cultures, into a book titled “Surviving the United Nations, which has an appendix of a short set of laws for leadership. When I sat down for our second podcast with Robert it became clear that not only were the laws so simple, but that we could talk about each one for hours.
I would like to look at three of these laws and how we can apply them to our lives and our leadership style. The three laws below speak of the same problem; EGO.
Law 3:
Self-interest, or the individual perception of self-image, which can be in direct opposition to the former, nearly always provides the bedrock rationale for individual decisions and postures.
Law 4:
People often develop logical excuses to justify irrational behavior based on their emotions.
Law 5:
One’s ego is frequently an impediment to learning the truth.
Our ego is ever present and very low key. We don’t normally spot it on a daily basis but it works to fuel out reactions and actions in our lives. The problem is that ego can lead us to justify actions we know are wrong because of our self interest or our perception of out self image.
So my question is, if we let go of our self image and our ego, could we be better people and much better leaders? The answer is , of course, yes, because leadership is about the team, not about us as individuals. Often we may have to fall on our swords or shield our team and sometimes we might have to apologise where we don’t think we should have to, but this is all about not letting our ego and our self image drive how we behave.
How do you think people perceive you? Does it matter? We can strive our whole lives to become what we think is perfection when all that matters is how we see our lives at the end. Would you want that one argument that caused your team to break up to be on you?. Each day take a note of your actions and then ask yourself, why did I act, or react, that way. Did I feel an emotion of guilt or attack that I felt that I needed to respond to? Did I take the time to consider the situation and respond? In Robert’s career this reflection meant life and death when dealing with different cultures and Clive Jachnick, our expert on the Negotiation Course, has spoken to us about how, as a hostage negotiator, this really does mean life and death for him and the hostage.
It’s important to note that the small things are what make the biggest changes and here it’s all about getting a handle on your ego, perception of self image and emotions.
Join the facebook group below and see what others have to say. Let us know how you are moving forward with this in your life.
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**Podcast Episodes to Note: Ciccone Prince, Robert Adolph, Ed Pallas, Daniel Lee, Mark Missigman, Dennis Mossberg, Brandon Dohman.
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