My teenage son recently told me he may have locked my keys in the car. Of course, this was only minutes after my parting words to him were "be sure to bring the keys back". My first reaction was an internal surge of anger around my inconvenience and his irresponsibility; that surge pushed hard to transform itself into words that I could “share” with him. I restrained from saying anything as he ran off to the car to look for the keys. Fortunately, the keys were not locked in, he apologized sincerely, and there was no inconvenience to our day (let's skip the responsibility part for right now!). The incident reminded me of some valuable business advice given to me: "You don't have the luxury of losing you cool".
Wait a minute...did you say a luxury? Luxury implies choice or preference. But anger is hard-wired, unstoppable, inevitable. Got it...you will get angry...no choice. But you can choose how to deal with it when it arrives. This is an important choice in leadership. Anger hides ideas, narrows perspectives, and limits options. The idea of leading and serving others goes out the window because anger is, almost exclusively, about you. And why would I follow you if you are not thinking about me? People will give you a break for that rare outburst, but if you make that choice too often your influence is greatly reduced. So the question is whether you really believe that you can make a choice on how to deal with anger (and reap the benefits of that) or whether you want to go down the road of “I’m just wired up that way”. Your choice. I know what choice I’m going to make…even when my son goes from lost keys to dented fenders.
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