Competition In The Cycles Of Leadership - Your Mindset Will Determine Your Trajectory

Within Leadership, many Types of Cycles exist.

I've discussed some of the Different Ways Cycles Play Out for Leaders.

They can be Broken Down into Two Main Categories.

Vicious Cycles.

Like a Whirlpool, Pulling you into the Abyss.

Virtuous Cycles.

Like a Staircase, Ascending to the Heavens.

Now, How you approach things as a Leader can tremendously Impact which Form of Cycle You Encounter.

One of the Challenging Areas that Leaders face comes in the form of Competition.

How do you See Competition?

Be Careful.

How You Answer may be Sending You into a Vicious Cycle.

How So?

Well, let's think about it like this.

Is Your Competition Your Enemy?

If you say "Yes", then you're Off into a Vicious Cycle from the Start.

Why?

"Enemy" Implies War.

War, even just the "Thought" of War, already begins to Hinder your Leadership Capabilities...

From a Psychophysiological Perspective.

War puts us into a Fight-Or-Flight Form of Thinking.

The Problem?

We are Literally Unable to Think Clearly in this State.

Our Problem-Solving Capabilities Decrease.

Our Ability to Innovate Decreases.

As does our Productivity and Ability to Learn.

On top of this, we Lose the Ability to "See" the Other Side.

We Lose Empathy.

We Stop Seeing "People".

Instead, We See "Enemies".

It Creates Fear.

Forces Us to be Reactionary.

It also makes the Ecosystem we Exist in a Battleground.

Nothing Flourishes in War.

It is Worse than this though.

Why?

Our Mindset becomes Habituated to "Seeing" things as War.

So, it Begins with the "Competition" being the "Enemy".

But over time, we see "Everything" as a Potential "Enemy".

This is Why we see Many Businesses Collapse into Internal Warfare.

One Team sees another as the "Enemy" of their Potential Budget.

Another Team sees an Upstream Team's Work as an "Attack" on their Efforts.

Employees see Colleagues as "Enemies" to Promotions.

Leaders see Employees as "Enemies" to Goal Attainment.

What happens when Everyone Views Each Other as an Enemy?

Chaos.

We see this Playing Out All Over in Businesses Today.

The "Enemy" is Everywhere, meaning "Nowhere" is Safe.

It makes Burnout Occur More Frequently and Spread Faster.

The Result.

Nothing Positive.

Especially as Burnout "Exasperates" All of these Problems.

Burnout, from a Psychophysiological Perspective, is a Lack of Energy (Mg-ATP).

Energy (Mg-ATP) is Perhaps the "Most" Prized Resource of the Human Body.

When Resources are Low, the Body Fights to Survive.

It's "Never" Pretty.

When Everyone in an Organization is Literally "Fighting" for Survival the Organization begins to Sink into the Abyss.

Is there another way to View Competition though?

Absolutely!

Competition can "Instead" be Your Ally.

How does this Play Out?

In One Respect, Good Competition creates a Challenge.

Challenges are Not Inherently Bad.

Often, a Strong Challenge Drives us Toward Excellence.

Flow States can "Frequently" be Accessed Through Challenge.

In fact, Flow States can be triggered by what is called the "Challenge-To-Skill Ratio".

To hit Flow, you want to hit around a 4% More Difficult Challenge to your "Current" Skills (which will Vary from Day to Day).

Having a Strong Competitor can help you "Push" into the 4% More Consistently.

But it is More than this.

Competition usually Exists "Within" an Ecosystem.

What does this Mean?

A Strong Competition Can Drive Ecosystem Health.

As You "Compete", you are Not Competing to "Beat" Each Other, but to "Improve" the Ecosystem.

In Business, this is usually called a "Category".

As the Category Improves, All Businesses "In" the Category Improve.

Competition Creates Ecosystem Health.

Instead of "Destroying" each other, you "Build" each other Up.

You will likely have certain Strengths that are different from your Competitor(s).

Those Strengths Build Upon Each Other in the Overall Ecosystem.

There are Likely Also Weaknesses that You Have.

A Strong Competitor will help Reveal those Weaknesses to Help Inform You of how to Proceed.

These Play Out as Virtuous Cycles.

These Concepts can go Even Further.

Who do you think Suppliers want to Work With?

The Organization that treats the Supplier like an "Enemy" by pushing the Supplier to Reduce Profit Margins so that the Organization can "Win" their Own Profit Margins?

Or the Organization Who is Striving to Improve the Ecosystem so that Both They "And" the Supplier can Improve their Profit Margins?

The Supplier is going to choose an Ally over a War.

What about Customers?

Will Customers Choose a Product or Service that sees them as a "Cash Cow" only good for how much Money they can Produce?

Or will the Customer be more likely to Choose the Product or Service that sees them as "Humans" with Real Problems, and Offers them Real Long-Term Solutions to Overcome those Problems?

The Second is where Customers will begin to Move Toward.

The Reality is that "Everyone" wants to Live within a Healthy, Flourishing Ecosystem.

All Flourishing Is Mutual.

People want to Move Up in a Virtuous Cycle.

Any Ecosystem that is in a State of "War" is where People will Flee From.

They want to Escape the Abyss of a Vicious Cycle.

Now, sometimes that "Escape" is Slow.

There may not be a "Viable" Alternative.

The Alternative May Not be "Accessible" Yet.

But I Assure You.

As "Soon" as there "Is" a "Viable" and "Accessible" Alternative, People Flee from the War Zone of a Vicious Cycle.

This is Why so many Organizations are Terrified Today.

Why so many Leaders are "Demanding" Innovation and Solutions.

In the War Zones they have Created, and the Vicious Cycles they are Trapped In, People are Fleeing.

New Alternatives are becoming both "Viable" and "Accessible".

The Problem for most Organizations and Leaders though is that they are still "Trapped" in the Vicious Cycle.

Their "Solutions" are to Entrench Themselves into their War Zones.

It is Driving the Organizations further into the Abyss.

The "Tactics" Create Enemies.

They are Discovering that they Have No Allies.

They are Being Abandoned.

The Best Employees.

The Best Suppliers.

The Best Customers.

All are Leaving.

As long as Organizations "Remain" in Vicious Cycles, their Destiny is Doom.

This is Why Leaders "Must" Dedicate themselves to Developing Virtuous Cycles.

The Best Employees.

The Best Suppliers.

The Best Customers.

Are already "Seeking" Virtuous Cycles.

The Leaders who have Developed Virtuous Cycles will be where "Everyone" Sprints to.

Leaders in Virtuous Cycles have "No" Enemies.

They only have Allies who Drive the Ecosystem to Become Better.