Following on from my last, rather reflective, blog it’s now time to look forwards to this year. OMG! (to appear to be all down with the kids). How on earth are we going to match what we did last year?!?!? Exactly what I thought this time last year! Regular viewers will remember that one of our earlier lessons was ‘something always turns up’. But that doesn’t always help when you’re sat there BEFORE it turns up!
Anyway, it made me think about how emotions impact how we perform. As some of you may know I’m a Formula 1 geek. I watch the practice sessions just to see if a team have changed the end plates on their front wing. Exactly. However, last year it went down to the wire – four of ‘em could win the championship at the last race. Against all odds Sebastien Vettel won it. 23 years old, Formula 1 World Champion. Talk about commitment, potential and performance. Arguably Mark Webber should have won it as he was leading the championship with a couple of races to go, but he faded. The whole thing made me think about the unbelievable pressure that these guys must have been under. Forget the ‘I don’t feel any pressure’ statements for the benefit of the press. I don’t know about you, but if it was me, I’d have been awake for 6 weeks non-stop worrying about ‘what if’! Which, apart from being about 3 stone too fat, and not being able to qualify for a superlicence solely on the basis of owning an S-Max, probably explains why I’m not, and never will be Formula 1 World Champion. I worry too much about what might or might not happen. It’s called a lack of ‘reality testing’.
We don’t know the ins and outs, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that how these guys handled the pressure impacted their performance. Webber made a crucial mistake at one of the final races which cost him dearly. Was it because it was raining, or did he just tighten up too much under the pressure? This is not to be critical of Webber. Earlier in the season he crashed into the back of another car which made his car flip backwards at around 200mph. Check the crash out here and see how you would react if you were him..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOBKA9q_DWU. After the crash it showed him walking back to the pits. His reaction? He looked at the camera and shrugged. A bit. Vettel, on the other hand, had a clear objective – win the final race and let the rest sort themselves out. He won. Faultlessly. Ferrari blew it for Fernando Alonso as they chose to cover Mark Webber’s strategy in the race, assuming Vettel was not the trheat. Under race pressure they backed the wrong horse. And Ferrari have since announced an ‘engineering reshuffle’. So, imagine it. You’re in a position where this is it, you’re required to deliver the performance of your life. Heart rate is normally around 190bpm in a race anyway, but one mistake and that’s it, a lifetime’s ambition missed. Do you play defensive, or go for it?
As a leader, what can we learn?
Resilience is an important trait for leaders. Being able to handle the pressure is critical when big things are demanded from you under difficult circumstances. Fortune favours the brave...
But this on its own is not enough. You might be able to handle the pressure, but those around you are looking to you for guidance, support and reassurance. The people you manage/lead take their lead (literally) from you. How you behave impacts how they behave. What you do becomes normal for them to do. Like kids, your people will learn what’s acceptable, and what’s not, from you. The best leaders are able to manage their emotions. They recognise that how we feel impacts how we behave towards others and they manage this appropriately. We know of many (surprisingly senior) people who regularly fly off the handle with their people. The result being that people feel insecure as they can’t always predict how the ‘leader’ will behave that day, depending on their mood. No surprise they are also often left feeling demotivated - “what’s the point putting any effort in when they behave like that!”.
Bad news impacts how we feel. The best leaders don’t shoot the messenger, but seek to learn from it. They involve others in finding the solution and turn it around so that people see solving the problem as their mission, rather than moaning about the manager behind their back. We had a client last year where we did a piece of work which meant presenting some bad news. The bad news? Senior managers tended to blame people when things went wrong, didn’t communicate effectively, were perceived as being unfair to people etc. etc. I got shot. Which meant I spent ages worrying about what I could have done differently and what it would mean for the future.....
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