Articles by Alesia Latson

Disappointment is inevitable for leaders. At times your people will disappoint you, and there will also be instances where you disappoint others. So the fact that disappointment occurs isn’t the challenge. The real issue to address is how you respond to the disappointment.

William James, the famed American philosopher and psychologist, once said, “When two people meet there are really six people present. There is each person as they see themselves, each person as the other person sees them, and each person as they really are.” As a leader, how do you see yourself? And even more important… how do the people you lead see you?

Leadership is a tough job. Not only do you have to be adept at managing multiple priorities, but you also have to possess expert people skills. After all, regardless of industry, a leader is only as good as his or her team. Without the buy-in and respect of your employees, you’ll have a difficult time accomplishing the organization’s goals. The challenge, then, is figuring out how to be irresistible to your team—how to create the conditions by which people can’t resist your message and vision and therefore want to align and partner with you.

While you might think that having people fear you to some degree is good, fear in a relationship actually has many negative effects. In fact, research shows that when people are operating in fear, it impairs their analytical thinking skills, decreases their creative insight, and reduces their problem solving abilities—the exact things workplaces need to succeed in today’s marketplace.