🤯 This article by Samantha Julka at DORIS Research literally stopped me in my tracks. Are you a closed-minded or open-minded leader (read below / article before you make your declaration)?
I guarantee you'll be able to look at this list and recall the leaders you've worked for/with and be able to put them into one category or the other....but can you objectively put yourself into one (closed- or open-minded leader)?
Rachel Pritz, MSN, RN recently highlighted self-awareness as an area of self-leadership that she's found to be most impactful for her clients (see comments), noting that working on self-leadership is where leaders should spend a good part of their energy. I couldn't agree more.
So, if you're a leader, I encourage you to do some reflection on this list and take accountability in the areas where you're a closed-minded leader and make strides to be a more open-minded leader.
Open-minded leaders do these things:
👉🏻 They ask why—a lot. They approach challenges with curiosity.
👉🏻 They are engaged in meetings. They listen more and talk less. They set their phones aside and resisting the urge to check emails.
👉🏻 They empathize with vigor. They care about their employees’ negative experiences.
👉🏻 They separate themselves and their identity from the challenges.
👉🏻 They take time to reflect and ask for help. They lean on other leaders or their people to devise ways to address the challenges within their capacity.
Closed-minded leaders do these things:
👉🏻 They dismiss or diminish what is presented, saying it doesn’t reflect reality. They fall back on their own experience as evidence that different experiences are invalid.
👉🏻 They disagree and want to fight the relevance of the presented data. This often looks like asking, “How many people really said this?”
👉🏻 They focus more on justifying why things are the way they are instead of accepting that change is possible.
👉🏻 They argue that they’ve tried fixing the problem before and nothing ever works.
👉🏻 They cannot separate the challenges from their intentions and see everything as a personal attack.
