Boundaries Blog — Boundaries for Leaders
Why Leaders Need to Set Boundaries in the Workplace
What do boundaries for leaders look like at work? They are made up of two essential things: what you create and what you allow. A "boundary" is a property line. It defines where your property begins and ends. If you think about your home, on your property, you can define what is going to happen there, and what is not.
As a leader in the workplace, you are in charge of the vision, the people you invite in, what the goals and purposes are going to be, what behavior is going to be allowed and what isn't. Leaders build and allow the culture. You set the agenda, and you make the rules. And what you find there, you own. It is your creation or your allowances that have made it be. Simply stated, the leaders' boundaries define and shape what is going to be and what isn't. In the end, as a leader, you are always going to get a combination of two things: what you create and what you allow....
How to Regain Positive Momentum in the Midst of Negative Circumstances
I (Dr. Cloud) was addressing an organization in the aftermath of a financial meltdown. We discussed why so many people were feeling down, defeated, and unable to perform at the levels they were used to. (It is amazing how just knowing that there is a reason for why you feel the way you do can be helpful. I wanted them to know that they weren't crazy.) But then, I heard the words that I never want to hear....
How Your Openness to Feedback Impacts Your Performance
Business management expert Ken Blanchard says that feedback is the "breakfast of champions." Indeed, learning how we are doing and how to do better are keys to great performance. In fact, the best performance situations are when we are getting the most immediate feedback, which is from the task itself, as flow researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found.
The problem tends to occur at the moment when we actually get the feedback, either from other people or from the outcomes themselves. That is when our leadership character shows itself. While Blanchard gets it exactly right about the kind of breakfast we need, truth is that not everyone has the same appetite for breakfast....
The #1 Reason Why People Hate Change
One of the most important boundaries that people have to establish is against the tendency to put off changes that they know need to be made. If you think about it, much "waiting" and putting off changes has nothing to do with "getting more information," or "waiting until we get finished with a, b, or c." Obviously, it's essential to gather data and do analysis, but many people allow too much lag time between knowing and doing.
I (Dr. Cloud) remember once when I had a decision to make regarding a significant investment. I had been reluctant to green light the deal because it was in an area that I was less familiar with than I wanted to be. The truth, however, was that my advisers were experts in this arena, and I really did trust their opinions. Still, I was putting it off. Finally one of them, the lead investor, called me....
Boundaries and Your Brain at Work
Remember the old saying "Come on, this is not brain surgery"? It was meant to convey the simplicity of an answer or a concept, and often meant to prod people to get off their butts and do what is obvious. That is how it is with a leader's boundaries. It is profoundly simple. You do not have to be a brain surgeon to establish the boundaries that are usually made by a great leader.
But at the same time, underneath it all, it really is brain surgery, because the reason that a leader's boundaries work is that they actually make it possible for people's brains to function as they were designed....