THE BENCH: EGO versus CONFIDENCE

Have you ever been with either a person or a new boss or manager and felt, WOW, they are truly confident, they make me feel as if I should trust them and follow them? Versus, have you been around a boss, manager, or "leader" and the feeling you have is, WOW they think they know all the answers, they are not listening to anything people say nor are they even stopping long enough to hear what people say? This is ARROGANCE and EGO.

People struggle with this in leadership roles, as they know they need to be and show a level of knowledge and self-confidence for others to follow them. Still, I truly feel that if you lead with confidence the confidence comes from the willingness to learn, admit mistakes, admit that perhaps everything you do or decide is not always 100% correct, adjust and grow. This is learning but builds trust. Obviously, if you are wrong 90% of the time you should not lead.

People that refuse to listen or to debate are weak leaders, people that talk non-stop are poor leaders. These are all major warning signs that they are insecure so they are preventing the risk of being exposed as not knowing or having to confront what they know so they avoid the truth. If you see this you know immediately they are not the person to follow.

The BENCH is never going to tell me what to do, never going to debate me on what exercise to do or how much weight. The BENCH does remind me to reflect, I fail at a weight, it reminds me to ask myself why? Have I not worked hard enough? Do I have bad form? Am I just too tired from doing other work the body cannot handle it? These are all reflections learning's, if I stop, listen and learn I will get better. If my arrogance and ego drive me, I get hurt, I get angry and frustrated and fall backwards and end up worse off.

So what is the BENCH advice. FAIL, LEARN, LISTEN and as they say GOD gave you one mouth and 2 ears. This means listen much more than you speak.