3 Bits of Terrible but all too Common Leadership Advice and What to do Instead

Advice from a qualified source is rarely bad. People tend to give the advice that they need to hear and if they have been or are in a similar situation to you then its likely good advice.

If it’s the advice that they need to hear though it probably means that a. It worked for them but b. They weren’t able to stick to it.

This is what neuroscience teaches us.

Most often we know what to do, we just can’t get ourselves to consistently do it.

What follows is 3 examples of Good Advice that we struggle to take and what to do about it.

Be more Empathetic

Empathy is the new buzzword of leadership and for good reason. Having the ability see and understand the feelings of others really does help people to feel seen and valued. Leaders are told that they must master it as a skill and apply it. The truth is though that empath is a natural byproduct of being in what we might call the human parts of the brain. Rather than mastering it as a skill the real focus should be noticing that if it isn’t present then we are actually in a state of THREAT that is pulling us out of the part of the brain that we need to be in in order to empathise. Until the threat is removed the empathy cannot emerge, when it is removed it will naturally appear.

Don’t Micromanage

Most leaders recognise the logic of this. When you coach they connect the dots in their brain, understand and fully own the task. Micro managening is less likely to create clarity and ownership as well as making you a bottleneck and them feel controlled. However, coaching requires a greater bandwidth, coaching is effectively lending someone your Prefrontal cortex. If you are worrying about anything then the part of the brain that needs to be online in order to coach cannot be. A leader needs to place their attention on creating their own clarity around those things that are causing them to worry. Coaching is all about YOUR state.

Take time to relax

Better advice was never given. Of course we should take time to relax. On the surface it sounds like good advice but the reality is very different. We cannot relax on command any more than we can fall asleep on command. The nervous system is always responding to the environment. 6 environments make up our state of relaxation. If relaxation isn’t naturally occurring it is due to the brains perception of the current environment. Take the time to audit the environment to discover what needs to be removed in order for relaxation to happen.

If your natural Empathy isn’t appearing, if you’re Micro-managing and struggling to relax its probably not because you don’t have the knowledge.

It’s because your brain and nervous system are making it also impossible for them to come out. Which ones disappear first for you?