Changing Behavior to Achieve Goals
To paraphrase an often used quote, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” is what I believe is the definition of career stagnation. So often in coaching executives, a client and I come to a discovery; in order to grow, a person must give up a certain part of their business behavior to achieve their development goals.
When You Hit a Wall, Get Around It
Evaluating why you are not growing starts with determining where you stop, or “hit a wall” in your business comportment. This could mean anything from avoiding participation in important meetings due to too many strong personalities to not developing one’s own direct reports to “shape” employees to succeed. Finding these “walls” is the key to developing skills that can move you past the blocks and further your own, and your company’s, growth.
It Takes Courage to Face What Is on the Other Side
It takes a lot of courage and patience to look at oneself and outline what’s working and what’s not working. You may not like what you find. But once you pinpoint the behavior that isn’t working, the next step is to clearly understand the impact this behavior has on your image as a leader.
Why Do You Stop?
It’s valuable to list/notice where this limiting behavior manifests. The clearer one knows this, the easier it is to experiment with a shifted behavior. By doing this, you are creating “choice” in how you comport yourself versus the current behavior that isn’t working. Courage is needed because as you re-engineer your behavior, you must trust this shift in behavior and “sit-by-your-own-fire.” Let the new behavior develop for a while and see what results come from it. If it’s working, do more of it. If it isn’t, don’t return to the past behavior but adjust to a different, new direction that can bring the results you seek.
You must believe your transformed behavior will make a difference and people will appreciate it. If you don’t, no one else will. What walls are you hitting? What is one behavior you can identify and change that could get you past them? Let me know!
