'I thought I was great but my staff didn't'

Q: Being a Christian, I practice my faith diligently where I try to live out the act of compassion whenever I can. But it was really shocking and disturbing that my boss said that I did not show enough of this to my people during the recent performance appraisal dialogue with him!
He just said that I am opinionated and rather fixed in my ways and refused to accept views from others. This to him is the reason why I am causing setbacks at work, where there are misunderstandings, miscommunication and ill feelings between me and my people.
I am still trying hard to come to terms with this reality and whether I am what he said I am. Can you help?
Disbelief

A: Somehow as I am reading your case now, “lack of compassion” and “opinionated” come to mind. So I asked myself ‘How these two can come together?’
What emerged was the world “listening” or a lack of it. This is probably the place to focus on now and I will share a little more afterwards.
On an even bigger picture, I wish to stress that there is an enormous difference between understanding a concept well and living it out. Compassion is indeed a big act, larger than the word itself. It requires sincerity, authenticity and effort to really live it out.
It is more than feeling sorry for a beggar that makes you gives a ringgit when you are passing by him. It is much more; it is about sacrifice and efforts.
The Bottom Line: As I mentioned earlier, listening perhaps holds the key to showing your compassion. When you listen with compassion, it really means that you are prepared to down your ego and suspend judgement while appreciating their views and opinions in the purest sense.
Doing this will enable you to show your greatest respect to people because you honestly feel they have the right to think or feel in the way they want, even though you may never act in the way they do.
You will accept this because you compassionately understand their special circumstances, why they choose to do things in a particular manner. Hypothetically, John wants to work in a particular way, which, if you were lacking compassion, may offend you as you believe he is going against your wishes.
This may agitate you and result in you pushing your views on him because he is not going to do things your way. No matter how he explains his actions, it is going to fall on deaf ears. So where is the compassion here?
However, if you were compassionate you would deal with this differently – build rather than destroy the relationship.
Powerful Questions: What goes on in your mind when you are listening to others? How is this helping you understand and respect their views and ideas? What needs to change with your listening processes that shows more of this? What will you say to yourself to listen with compassion?

Managing ambiguities
Q: Deep in me I regret taking up the promotion to be the departmental head here. The reason is this. Since getting into here I really have to swim with the sharks and it is pretty scary, as I do not know when I will be hit.
By this I mean that I am totally left on my own to make decisions without any help. I am not used to this, as I felt so much safer in my previous company where I got clear instructions from my superiors on what I needed to do.
In here there are just too many ambiguities and no clear instructions or messages. If I am lucky, I get 50 per cent clarity and have to guess the other 50 per cent. How in the world will I know what to do or even what these bosses really want?
Time Bomb

A: It is a hard reality that this new world now requires everyone including leaders to change their way of leading. For one, we need to accept and be comfortable with it.
Secondly, learn skills that will allow you can adapt and handle the unpredictable world outside.
In my early days, we could plan for our business over a 10-year period with a fair amount of accuracy. Life was indeed easier because it was stable and predictable.
Now, we can only plan for perhaps one year at the most and there is no certainty that we will hit our targets. The cycle of life is now far shorter, faster paced and can be highly disruptive. This is the new way of life.
The Bottom Line: One of the qualities of a good new-age leader is risk-taking so that you can manage ambiguities with success. Moving forward, there are a number of steps you can take to achieve this.
Firstly, you need to distinguish where the clear and unclear areas are as this will tell you what you need to focus on.
Secondly, share this with others so they are aware of what is clear, unclear and where to place their attention.
Finally, work with them on devising a common strategy on how to manage this. Remember, more heads are better than one. In this way, you need not “swim with the sharks” anymore.
Powerful Questions: What are you willing to accept about the new work environment? What changes do you want to make to your current leadership style? Which parts of your leadership style still serve you well? How will following my advice benefit you and the organisation?

Corporate Coach Academy is a coaching school in Asia to certify leaders of all backgrounds to become manager-coaches or professional certified coaches in this region. Log in www.corporate-coachacademy.com or email [email protected] for details.