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This does not mean you let their anger
fester. You absolutely must deal with it. After all, you can't motivate
angry, resentful people to be your cause leaders.
But there is another angry person you have
to deal with. If you don't deal with that person, you won't be able to
get the results you're capable of. That person is you.
For just as people get angry in a challenging leadership situation, so
do you. It's only natural. You may get angry at their not understanding
the challenge, or their not taking the action you want, or their not
listening to you, or their not being totally committed to doing what you
think is important, or their disobeying you, or their trying to
undermine your leader, or any number of things.
Just as you must recognize that in the give-and-take of leadership
encounters, you'll occasionally get angry, you should also recognize
that such anger is your great opportunity. An opportunity for you to
achieve great results.
To understand this, I want you to remember David Coffin and Aristotle.
When writing my book, Executive Speeches: 51 CEOs Tell You How To Do
Yours, I interviewed C.E.O. David Coffin who said, "I'm patient,
reasonable, even tempered. But once my patience runs out, I give my best
talks. .... Something has to be done. You want to get it done!"
I counsel leaders that great results happen in the realm of the free
choice of the people you lead and that to give people choices, leaders
should be "patient, reasonable, even tempered." They should also be
great listeners and adapt at asking good questions
... most of the time.
Occasionally, however, leaders must let their patience run out. They
must get angry and show people they're angry ... because something has
to be done and they want it done!
However, just getting angry and communicating that anger is not enough
to seize the opportunity that anger can provide. That's where Aristotle
comes in.
Aristotle wrote in Nicomachean Ethics: "Anyone can be angry. That is
easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the
right time, for the right purpose, in the right way -- that is not
easy."
If you get angry, think of David Coffin and Aristotle. Be angry with the
right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right
purpose, in the right way -- and you'll find you're getting increases in
results.
By Brent Filson
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