Chapters of Leadership - Settling
Emotional Connection - Full Article
Connection in a Disconnected World
As much as technology, modernity and progress create instantaneous access to people and cultures around the globe, it has limitations. It attempts to create a sense of connectedness, but if we courageously look we will see it is simply a cubic zirconia - it looks and feels real - but it isn’t. It can certainly be a tool to foster it - taking this post as an example hopefully. But it falls short when compared to people talking face to face in meaningful conversation. Connection is something we all need, even crave, but the courage required to have authentic connection is often too high a price to pay for many.
You Don’t Have Leadership Without Connection
As we spend more time walking through the chapter of SETTLING the roller coaster paradox becomes more tangible. The uncertainty we experience in this chapter of our story does something that can be simultaneously paralyzing and liberating. It exposes the fraud in all of us. In the last ingredient of our chapter we find ourselves in need - not of education, money, title, power or notoriety - of encouragement.
Inevitably when we feel that fraudulent side of us - those moments when we realize we don’t actually possess what we thought - we will find ourselves at a crossroads. We can fake it or we can decide to pursue the real thing. Authentic encouragement from others becomes vital in this moment of our story and this type of encouragement doesn’t come without authentic connection.
The original Webster's 1828 dictionary defines encouragement as the act of giving courage or confidence of success. I would suggest most of what we call encouragement today is often nothing more than flattery at best and at worse disingenuous. We often resort to this “encouragement” simply because we haven’t taken the time to know and connect with those we lead and work with on a daily basis. In this moment we need courage & confidence, but only those who have connected with us and know us are able to do it.
If You Don’t Have Courage or Confidence, You Can’t Give It
For me this moment happened in a Chick-Fil-A with my mentor Chris Gigl. I was six months into a job at a construction company, sitting in a public restaurant with tears in my eyes telling Chris I was too stupid to do the job and that I needed to move on. Yet, there he was - a man who knew me and had taken the time to authentically connect with me - telling me I could do it and that he would be right there with me the entire way.
The day in Chick-Fil-A shifted something. Chris didn’t give me platitudes or self-help mantras, he gave me something he possessed - courage & confidence. I walked away from the meeting still feeling like a fraud and insufficient for the task ahead, but I had been authentically encouraged. He did something for me I had not experienced previously by infusing me with courage and confidence at one of my lowest points.
As we close with this last ingredient in our chapter of Settling there is something each and every well | rooted leader must know and confront. This story and journey of leadership may make you feel like a fraud, inadequate, shine lights on broken parts, but through this process you will need human connection with someone to give encouragement to you. On the other side of the coin are those of us who now lead others that must go deeper and strive to create authentic connection with those we lead. As you have needed the courage and confidence to step into more, it is now your turn to give it to others. To close this chapter we either need to find someone to authentically encourage us or we need to be the one giving it. Regardless, to be well | rooted leaders it will take authentic human connection.
Stay Rooted~
