Offering Comfort or Challenge: What is Your Default?
Fact: Every leader has a default tendency – a response to struggling employees (or family members) that either favors comfort or challenge. Both responses are important for a leader to have in their repertoire, but most of us have much stronger muscles around one response or the other. Knowing your default tendency gives you more choice around which response is most appropriate in any given situation.
Action: Spend some time reflecting on your behavior patterns when faced with struggling employees. Is your first instinct to comfort, console, to feel sorry for, or even to rescue? Or is your first instinct to challenge them to rise up and to overcome their adversity? Observe your default tendency in action and notice its impact on you and others. How might you become more balanced and flexible in your response?
