How Focused are you?
A primary task of leadership is to direct one's attention towards the tasks and challenges at hand. Keeping the system focused on purpose and channeling people's efforts to deal with their real adaptive issues automatically create resistance and avoidance. Unless managers learn to focus their own attention, they will fail to catch that of groups they are leading.
Three modes of attention
According to emotional intelligence expert, Daniel Goleman, leadership requires cultivating focus on yourself, others and the wider world, and striking a balance in achieving “this triad of awareness: A failure to focus inward leaves you rudderless, a failure to focus on others renders you clueless, and a failure to focus outward may leave you blindsided.”
Focusing on Yourself
How self-aware are you?
How conscious are you of your internal physiological signals?
How attuned are you to your feelings and emotions in a given situation?
To which extent do you find yourself running on autopilot, wandering from one thought to another?
How capable are you of putting your attention on your ultimate purpose and keeping it there?
Focusing on Others
How empathetic are you?
How easy is it for you to build rapport with others and focus on their issues and needs?
How aware are you of how others see you?
What are you learning about yourself and your team when you take the time to observe their behavior and relationship with you?
The word “attention” comes from the Latin attendere, which translates into “reach toward.” How much of your time and effort are put in the service of others (as opposed to remaining solely focused on yourself)?
Focusing on the Wider World
How strong is your outward focus?
Do you take the time to look for trends or patterns and question their meaning and consequences?
How capable are you of sensing how the choices you are making today will play out in the future?
How open are you to the data around you? Do you welcome it or filter/suppress it?
How can you expand your views to gather more information on what is happening out there?
Putting It All Together
“Although the link between focus and excellence remains hidden most of the time, attention is the basis of the most essential of leadership skills—emotional, organizational, and strategic intelligence” Daniel Goleman.
Unless managers expand their ability to get in touch with their inner feelings, widen their awareness of how others see them and what they need from them, and become receptive to data from the wider world, they will struggle in exercising leadership.
“Learn to master your attention, and you will be in command of where you, and your organization, focus” Daniel Goleman.
Source: HBR - The Focused Leader, by Daniel Goleman
https://hbr.org/2013/12/the-focused-leader
