I started with the intention of providing daily updates on progress to document my journey and obviously I fell off a bit. However, this has been an extremely productive and exciting month. Over the past several weeks I went through a lot of the leadership articles and several burnout and stress related articles that I'm still going through. Once I have a solid list of tips and tricks I'll be sure to post them. Bear in mind there is A LOT of information to go through.
Probably one of the most eye-opening things I've done is go through the book "Leadership and Self-Deception" by the Arbinger Institute. It's a book that deals with issues that most people (leaders or not) deal with on a regular basis. The first part of the book primarily deals with identifying people with this "Deception" problem. I'm going to give my take on it but I HIGHLY recommend you read through this at least twice so you can get the most benefit. I've provided the link below.
Leadership and Self-Deception
The first time I read through it I found that it focused primarily on
seeing people as people with dreams, thoughts and goals rather than
objects meant to produce numbers. "That doesn't apply to me, my people
know how much they mean to me and I'm always mindful of that" was my
reaction in addition to thinking how stupid it was that I was reading
it. However, the more I got into it I found that some of the things may actually apply to me. Part of it identifies self deception as having to find justifications for your action or inaction which I'll admit I'm guilty of. The other part of helping to identify these things is if you have a tendency to blame others. In my head, I found that I have a tendency to blame other for my inability to accomplish things because of time constraints or questions when in reality it has to do with the me not training them or telling them they have the authority to make certain decisions on situations. If someone has a question they need to research it first, then ask someone else on the team before bringing it to me. That's my understanding because that's just the way my brain works, but as I've been told before, not everyone thinks like me. So this begs the question, have I actually told my team this? If not, then I need to. Have I set guidelines on how certain situations need to be handled and how to proceed? If not, then I need to. This book was a HUGE eye opener for me. I have since implemented these things on my team and have seen a good amount of progress from it. Granted, I need to remind a few every now and again but it's not frequent. In fact, this book's theories were so (at least to me) revolutionary that I went through it a few more times and took good notes on the main points and stories related and will be putting together a training for my team and maybe the other leaders in my department. I CAN'T have been the only person that has encountered these things.
It all came to a head when I had a discussion with my department manager after working another 12 hour day. We had finished wrapping up everything from the previous month and I was giving him an update. He had proceeded to tell me that he just wish he'd have known sooner about the situation my team was in. Thousands of thoughts flooded my brain on how I could justify not knowing but I knew in my heart it was because I hadn't done my job. For the first time since I had been at the company, I had failed to excel or even succeed in doing the job I was being paid to do. The only move I had left was to apologize and told him I hoped he had a great weekend.The only thing I could do is get in my car and break down. Aside from a death in the family the last time that happened was when I realized the rage in my previous life had pushed away everyone I held dear.
One of the main expectations that I have my team is to be
honest with me (obviously) but mostly to be honest with themselves. If
they're overwhelmed, burned out, stressed, frustrated, behind in their
work, they need to admit this to themselves and me so I can get them the
help they need. I realized that I was being a hypocrite. This is what I
expected of them but I wasn't doing this for me. Once I started being
honest with myself about my situation I was flooded with emotions. "How
did I not see this?" "Why didn't I do anything sooner?" "I've failed
those that I look up to and I've failed those that look up to and depend
on me." "If I can allow something like this to happen, how can I
possibly deserve this position?" These questions and thousands more
entered my brain, it was like a dam broke and all the negativity that I
thought I had eliminated came pouring back with exponential force.
The more I read and the more research I did the more I realized that I
needed to be honest about my situation and I needed to analyze it. The
core of my being exists to help others. I never considered the toll that
it takes on me, I give and give and give. The more I analyzed the past
several months the more things became clearer. I didn't see it because
my focus wasn't on me (per usual), it was on getting my team where they
needed to be. It was on trying to help two friends repair their marriage
through all the pent up issues they both have. It was attempting to
reconnect with family and through all that trying to put energy into my
marriage. I had mentally spread myself entirely too thin. My focus was
on so many different things that I never stopped to consider the impact
it had on me.
Once I was honest with myself it was overwhelming and reassuring at the same time. It was overwhelming because I knew I had a lot of work to get back to normalcy but reassuring because I realized that a lot of the negativity I had wasn't created by others (my team, my supervisors) it was all in my head. I've conquered my own brain before and I can do it again. The more I thought about the next step the more it nauseated me. I knew that I needed to be honest with my supervisors. I had come to the realization that they weren't disappointed in me because of my failure to do the job (if they were they wouldn't have given me 4 new people). They were only concerned about my team and me, they person they put in charge of all of these important tasks.
The meetings I had with my supervisors was the most awkward I had in my life. I couldn't face them at the same time so I had to do it separately. I did this after I had identified the issues I was dealing with and my current plan on how to get back to normal. If I had done it beforehand it probably wouldn't have made any sense. I explained to them both what my situation was, the things I had identified as the problems, what I planned on doing to maneuver over this brick wall and said I'd give them updates as I had them. They both seemed relieved that I finally said something, I only assume it's because they knew something was up but didn't know how to help or approach it. I did make sure to include the bit about me feeling like I had failed them as a leader since that was more soul-crushing to me than just about anything else. They're reactions were very similar in that they assured me that wasn't the case and I was a valued member of the team. I left those meetings and felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I couldn't believe I had just done that and still had a job. I mean I could believe it because that's not the type of people my supervisors were and not the type of company I work for. If it were any other company I can tell you with a fair amount of confidence I'd have been walked out of the building as soon as the first meeting was over. This was weakness and they don't have time for that. Scratch that, it wasn't weakness, it was vulnerability.
I created a plan. Keep in mind this plan is going to change as I go through it. This is just my preliminary thoughts as I'm going through things. Also, I recognize, much like re-wiring your brain, this isn't going to be an easy or a quick process. The articles I've read said this could take anywhere between 6 and 18 months and the longer the better because it's more likely to stick.
Phase 1: Identifying the problem
1. Analyze how it got to this point. What lies did I tell myself that contributed to it? What prevented me from being focused on recharging myself?
2. What "truths" am I telling myself that aren't contributing to my recovery? How can I re-frame these "truths" to something that's accurate and also contributes to recover?
3. What are you trying to accomplish and why?
4. What happens if you stop trying to accomplish and pour your focus into something else?
Phase 2: Renewal
1. Create habits that assist in recovery. Do SOMETHING daily that makes you happy. It need to be something that makes you genuinely happy, not feel accomplished. Being happy is a way to fuel your soul, accomplishments fuel your ego and at this point your soul is more important.
2. Since you've identified the problem, put your focus in how to alleviate the issues that cause the problem. In my instance it was a lack of time due to an abundance of questions from my team. So I created a process for them to follow that requires them to rely on their team rather than me.
3. Get a mentor, accountability buddy, someone that you're comfortable with and can talk to openly and honestly about whatever the issue is and someone that will help you through this process, even if it's just listening to you and letting you work through the problem on your own.
4. More good stuff to come.
Phase 3: Changing your thought process
to be determined
Phase 4: Maintenance
to be determined
This is all I have for the time being. I hope to have more great information on a regular basis.
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