A thought by John Townsend from his
book, Leading From Your Gut (p. 88). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click
on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
You really can’t!
John goes on, “In fact, they are
critical to your success. I have to challenge many leaders about this because
they are concerned that talking about anything negative will diminish their
effectiveness. They would much rather be positive, energetic, and focused on
taking the next hill. I’m as much a take-the-hill person as the next, but a
team that doesn’t learn from the defeat on the previous hill is in jeopardy of
repeating that defeat.
“Every competent leader will look at
things like negative financial reports, market problems, and sales issues, and
dig into them, as the saying goes, ‘eating problems for breakfast.’ The same
needs to be true with negative feelings. They’re just information, and they
mean something.”
John says, “Don’t minimize your negative
emotions and say, ‘That’s too much of a downer.’ Figure out what the data says,
and you will be better off.
John says that anxiety is one of those
negative emotions. He says, “Anxiety is
a sense of unease, fear, or dread that signals you to move away from something
or someone. It is a sign of danger or a lack of safety. Sometimes it is
experienced in physical ways, such as a queasy stomach, sweaty palms, or a
rapid heartbeat. Anxiety is a helpful emotion because it warns you that you may
be in a situation that is not good for you. Many leaders have experiences in
which they ignored their anxiety and made an error as a result. Other times,
leaders misinterpret their anxiety, assuming a threat or a problem that doesn’t
really exist. Either way, anxiety is a signal to take self-protective action.”
He then says, “There are other times,
however, when anxiety signals a real-time, actual, and objective danger to be
avoided. In these instances, instead of powering through, we need to stop, feel
the feeling, understand the source, and take the right action steps.”
John tells of an opportunity he had to invest
in a sure thing, but he had some anxiety in it.
He says, “It turned out that my anxiety did me a favor, as the company
didn’t fare well. Anxiety says avoid this or go the other way, and I did. But
again, the anxious feelings weren’t the issue. They simply pointed to the
reality I had to face, which was that I was being asked to rush to judgment.
For many of us, the fact that someone doesn’t give us a lot of time to decide
is a warning sign that there is trouble. Maybe it should have been for me.
Regardless, the experience demonstrates how helpful your anxiety can be, if you
listen to it.”
We need to evaluate our negative
emotions, don’t we?
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