Are you a ‘radiator’ or a ‘drain’? The importance of being self-aware
Author : Carol Rayner, eLearning Business Manager
To be effective leaders we need to appreciate how we come across to others. This may sound easy but how often do you stop and think about how your behaviour is perceived by those around you, particularly your team? How we behave affects everyone around us, and as leaders, we must encourage and nurture environments that are positive.
Here are a few hints and tips that may help make your role as a project professional a bit smoother.
1. Be self-aware – every time you find yourself in stressful situation try and come up with a way in which you can prevent it from recurring. Avoid taking things personally and jumping to the wrong conclusion.
Recognise your own stress triggers – things that will always ‘wind you up’, and plan out how to deal with them so that you can react differently next time. This one will probably always be a work in progress.
2. Moods are infectious – we’ve all seen what happens when someone, particularly a manager, comes into a room clearly in a bad mood, slamming things onto the desk, sighing a ‘hello’, etc. Everyone knows they’re upset and the mood of the whole team takes a dive. People start mirroring the high stress levels themselves and productivity dips. Contrast this with a person who enters the room with a cheery smile and greets their colleagues – generally spirits are lifted.
So, if you’re in a bad mood keep, try to keep it under wraps, you’ll be surprised how quickly it will dissipate and your team will actively want to work with you.
3. Be a radiator not a drain – we’ve all met them. ‘Radiators’ are upbeat people who radiate positivity when you talk to them and are just great to be with; their glass is always half full. ‘Drains’ are the opposite, they find something to moan about all the time, sucking the energy out of you, their glass is always almost empty!
We can all determine how we define ourselves, so try to always be a ‘radiator’. Of course, we all have down days, so build a network of close friends you can confide in when you’re not ok.
4. It will soon be over – no matter how challenging an upcoming meeting, or boring a technical steering group is likely to be, keep yourself motivated by thinking of the old adage, ‘this too shall pass’. Remember, the hard times will soon be over.
5. Reduce how often you say ‘sorry’ – most of us dislike having to admit we goofed or failed to deliver. Make a conscious decision to take proactive steps to learn from your mistakes.
Accept that things will always take longer than we hope, so get in the habit of being less ambitious about what you can achieve before your next meeting. Remember the old adages of ‘manage expectations’ and ‘under-promise and over-deliver’ and most importantly learn to say ‘no, I won’t be able to help at the moment’.
6. Stay focused on the things you can influence – it can be very easy to want to intervene in a situation because you feel something is wrong even if it’s not within your span of control. Tough as it seems, you need to ask yourself ‘is this affecting me, my team or my deliverables?’ If the answer is ‘no’, which it often invariably is, then you need to park it as ‘someone else’s problem’.
The key is to stay focused on the things you can influence and stop worrying about those that are totally outside your control. (You can learn more about this in Stephen Covey’s book – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
What do you do to create a positive team environment? How do you manage yourself when things get difficult? Share your tips below.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carol is a learning and development professional with experience of delivering wide ranging learning programmes to support business change across the public and private sector.
She is currently APM’s eLearning Business Manager responsible for APM Learning the online development resource for project professionals.