How has your current leader impacted you?
How have you evolved as a professional since working under your current leader?
Specifically, has your leader changed how you think, speak, and behave?
Every leader I worked for had an impact on how I thought, spoke and behaved, and it was not always positive. Let’s take the time to assess how you have changed.
Thinking
How has your leader changed your thinking?
I had experienced a change in leaders that went from a fairly calm, methodical, and open thinker to a driven, type A, assertive leader. What is your prediction on the impact that had on me?
Under the former leader, the team operated at a steady pace with a lot of collaboration. Under the new leader collaboration existed but was muted by competition and deadlines. I became focused on metrics such as time and return on investment.
My thinking became focused on delivering results at a particular pace. Time to stop and think was scarce. I had to keep up and deliver. For me, I was able to adapt fairly well as I was familiar with that type of environment. Others had a tough time.
Now evaluate how your thinking changed because of your current leader?
Specifically, catalogue the changes you experienced and give them a qualitative analysis. What changed, what was the impact (positive and negative), and how do you feel about the change?
What changed for me was my focus. I moved from primarily concerned with collaboration to meeting metrics. The positives were the pace and ability to deliver results on a larger scale. The negatives; interactions became transactional, relationships suffered, and my perspective of success changed. This new leader changed my thinking in ways I did not like.
What about you?
Speaking
What changed in your speaking? Every organization and career field has its lingo. Some are heavily influenced by vocabulary, acronyms, and expectations. The medical field, research, and construction have expectations and boundaries on how they speak. Within these career fields the culture is heavily influenced by your leader.
I transitioned from the United States Marine Corps to being an administrator in a school. Quite a change. My immediate leaders in both areas drove expectations of my speaking. For example, speaking with decisiveness, authority, and credibility was different in a school setting than the Marine Corps. Did I adapt? Absolutely.
How has the influence of your leader changed how you speak? Some leaders will influence direct communication, with only the facts, and maybe laced with cursing. While others will tolerate only softer, carefully curated proper speech.
Take an inventory of how your speaking has changed since the addition of your latest leader. Are you more thoughtful, precise, and guarded or open and free flowing with your communication? How do you feel about the change; is it positive, negative, and what about authenticity?
Behavior and Actions
Leaders will influence behaviors. If you want to know what is important to the leader, stay attuned to the behaviors they reward and punish. It does not take long for individuals to fall in line based on the degree of rewards or punishments.
Since your new leader came on the scene, what behaviors have you continued to do? What have you stopped doing? And what have you started doing? Are those changes authentic to you?
Summary
How has this audit informed your self-awareness? The overarching question to ask ourselves is:
How have I changed, what influenced the change, and was the change authentic to me?
We want to change to become better versions of ourselves.
Lucky for us we have a built-in warning system to inform us when we are changing inauthentically. We get triggered.
Our body sends signals when we are aligned or misaligned with our thinking, speaking and actions. The signals can be weak or strong. Positive feedback informs us to keep going, you are aligned. Negative feedback, you are uncomfortable with the change.
I have seen a change in leadership create a seemingly different person. A quiet introvert with little to say turns into an outgoing talkative socialite. Leadership makes a difference.
Now that you have evaluated your leader, consider the same evaluation with you as the leader. What is the impact you are having on those you lead?
Are you influencing individuals to make authentic positive changes or the opposite?
