One of life’s biggest challenges is being able to control how our emotions and feelings affect out moods and our behaviours.  Great Leaders have the ability to do this – that’s partly what makes them great Leaders.

I previously blogged, in November of last year, about how our attitude, negative or positive can impact our behaviour. If we don’t know how to assess our mindset and then do something to address it, when negative, then we can’t possibly be a good or even great Leader.

Everyone needs a strategy to assess their mindset and then subsequently adjust it so you don’t remain in a negative place.  A great book to read and subsequently a great assessment tool to use is The Green Platform by Declan Coyle.  In this book, Declan talks about the positive feelings of being on the Green Platform and subsequent actions of these positive feelings which are obviously positive and effective.  He also talks about the negative feelings and subsequent actions of being on the Red Platform which can be detrimental to yourself, your family, friends and colleagues around you.

A participant on a recent course I delivered said that when they get into a negative mindset, they ask themselves this question ‘what can I do to make sure this client walk away happy?’  They said using that question helps them assess their mindset, which helps them get back into a much more rational and objective mindset. The result is that they can then calmly discuss whatever issue is at hand with their client and their client walks away from their discussion happy.

Another person told me that their strategy was to go for a walk for 10 mins and focus on getting their head back into the right space. This strategy helps them to address the issue that pushed them into a negative mindset and helps them refocus on what they are trying to achieve.

Regardless of what strategy or tool you use, you need to know how to assess your mindset, refocus and then subsequently take action when you are moving in to a negative state of mind.  Without having and implementing a strategy, you’ll find your Leadership journey will be a tough one and difficult to get respect, ‘buy-in’ and co-operation of others.

I’d love to hear your strategies for assessing your mindset and how you re-focus to achieve a better outcome.

Until next month,

Laura.