Written by Coach JoyGenea with editing assistance from executive assistant Gloria. Image from ChatGPT.
It is good to have boundaries with others that are clearly expressed and lived. I have a great story about that one in practice, that I will save for later. It is great to have a routine. Routine can be fundamental to maximum productivity and reduced stress. I could go on and on about the value of systems. Systems make the actions repeatable and easily teachable. All of this is true AND as leaders, especially leaders who avoid being uncomfortable, those systems, routines, and boundaries can create rigidity.
Why does that matter, you ask? Because rigidity can be its own box that doesn’t allow for growth and in particular other people’s growth. While we might be comfortable, at peace, and aligned with our system, if it causes unease in the people who work for us, in our families, or amongst our friends, that is when we have gone too far. We have boxed other people out.
Rigidity
- inability to be bent or forced out of shape.
- inability to be changed or adapted.
I was recently talking with the CEO of a larger company, and for years she had been dealing with the same problem. As CEO of a family-owned company not all of the owners get along or even see the vision for the company the same. One owner in particular refused to agree with one of his siblings out of spite and malice. They had been dancing around this one person, who was so rigid in his stance that the company was starting to show signs of extreme decline. She was frustrated and used many four-lettered words in our coaching call. I pointed out that maybe he wasn’t the only one being rigid, maybe because of all of the years of fighting with him, they had all become unbending and unchangeable. Again, that is how powerfully one WRONG person can impact your organization. It was a total “aha” moment for her. And she was honest, at this point she couldn’t come up with any new ideas on how to get this stand off to end.
That is when I posed this question.
“Have you looked at it to see how it might be an advantage?” Now I got back a look of bewilderment. I went on, “What if this was ‘colleagues’ company? Argue for me the advantage this could be for them.” I stated all the “facts” she had given me over the years and clarified the goal as being to achieve a three percent profit increase this year.
Outside of her stuck and rigid thinking she was able to create a list of solutions. Some of them really good. One was simple, she needed to use a whole different approach to engaging the one sibling, one that is outside her comfort zone and her structure.
I know you want to know what it was, ok, I will tell you. She is going to have special updates for him on a project that really matters to him in the company. She is going to give it a hundred percent effort, and those updates will be phone calls after hours, because that is when he is doing his best processing.
Another example of all or nothing rigid thinking.
Having a daily routine where when one thing doesn’t happen, none of the rest of the routine happens.
Let’s say working out in the morning is the start of your routine and after that you sauna and meditate. If you don’t workout you might then not do the rest, well that doesn’t serve you or others. Instead, pick up the routine where you can and don’t carry any guilt or shame about what was missed. You made a wise decision, and you need to move one.
I point out that last part because I hear it over and over again from leaders about how they dumped a whole routine because one thing didn’t get done.
That is just a sign you forget to bend with the wind.
Watch Out for the Cousin of Rigidity; CONTROL
Control is the close cousin to rigidity and I promise you, not one person on your team wants to feel controlled. This is a gentle reminder to keep an eye out for this and shift it as soon as you are made aware of it.
How does ADHD, dyslexic, or autistic ways of processing fit into this?
What I find is when clients first come into coaching with me and they don’t know a whole lot about their processing, learning, and engagement styles, they are really rigid about staying comfortable. They want change so badly and it can be scary to have someone challenge what they believe about themselves. I have had clients fight me trying to prove how unsmart they are, as they are running a thirty-million-dollar company. That is how strong and unbending a belief can be.
I had an autistic client that just could not change the time he went to lunch each day. If a meeting went over, if he needed to meet someone at a little later time it would make the whole day a mess for him. Once we talked through what was happening and the emotions he made a different choice. Two days a week are now lunch at a new time days and that is when those meetings are planned. The whole team is grateful at the new flexibility he is showing. My job is to help guide people through seeing the blind spots, exploring them and then seeing if there are new options available and then shifting.
From Rigidity to Flexibility
The whole goal in knowing yourself better is to do better. If you are realizing that you are maybe a little more rigid about some things with your team and other leaders, explore how you can shift that to flexibility and turn the situation into a win-win.
What is an area in your life where you are growing more flexibility?
You don’t have to stay stuck, remember change is always an option.
Coach JoyGenea
Video Transcription:
So, this week’s video and article is all about, ‘you can’t lead from rigidity,’ and sometimes unconventional leaders have a blind spot for rigidity. And, what rigidity is, is the inability to bend or to force, to be forced out of shape. It also is an inability to change or adapt, so when I say it like that, you can see where most of the time that would not be the best thing in a circumstance. The funniest thing is, this happened to come into my conversation from a client, actually, and in the end I had to chuckle, because my own circumstances right now are requiring me to be tested on some of my own ways, that I may have boxed myself in, and I may not be allowing the people that I love the most to actually access me or reach me or um, get assistance when they need it, because I’m really busy or I’m doing certain things. It creates a rigidity. So, in the article, I talk about actually a client in particular who um is running a company, and there’s a um, she’s ceo, there are- it’s a family owned organization, and one of the participants in that family for years has been very rigid about their way of doing things, and it’s it’s- I’ll get back to that story in a minute.
So, one of the ways we can get rigid is in boundaries, which are really good to have, and having healthy boundaries is really important, I’m never gonna discourage that, when our boundaries though, completely block out progress, growth, kind of reality, that’s when we’ve gone too rigid and too far. Routines, another fabulous item. I can’t tell you enough, unconventional leaders, neurodiverse leaders, routines are good, like they are a huge help. So, often when clients start out with me, zero routines. They want, oh man the list of what our goals are working together are long, and all of them are gonna require some routines, and becoming too routine can also leave you unavailable for kind of, some of the miracles in life, and to some of the amazing people in your life. So, that’s another area, another area that I notice rigidity can sneak up on leaders. Systems sometimes, either they create systems in our super- like it needs to be this way, or they have a team member, I’ve seen this a few times, where they have a team member who’s everybody’s kind of afraid of even because they’re like, “oh, if we mess with that system, if it doesn’t turn out perfect, like so and so be all over us.” I, by the way, I’ve probably been that person at least once or twice with clients so I’ll own that, definitely early on, and, I mean what I would say is we, we left that one behind. Definitely doing better, rigidity in those areas though can again block people out. It blocks your progress. It actually blocks your growth. You have to be available for flexibility, and that means being comfortable with uncomfortable at times. It also means hiring people like coaches, counselors, psychiatrists, those types of things, to help you identify and notice your blind spots, and not stay fixed on those blind spots, just embrace them and figure out how to work around it, how to add a little more flexibility in there, cause flexibility is lovely again. I meet lots of clients, super flexible, and we gotta add in some of the structure. Sometimes we can go too far. They get so comfortable. They feel how amazing it is to be so regulated, and to have so many less choices, and how calming that can be, that they’re like, “nope, I’m never letting that happen again.” It’s okay, it won’t, you now understand the difference between those, so it’s okay. It’s okay, just my reminder if you, if you’re sitting in that situation right now, just my little bit of a reminder on that.
Back to my CEO I was talking about where I recognized that in the conversations, as are have we- as we’ve been coaching, that possibly she and some of the other family members had become very rigid in their dealing with that person, and in their thoughts and ideas. Like how that has been going? They’re now rigid and inflexible, so now it’s two immovable objects, and that’s really the key problem when that comes at both angles, and so I asked a really, I posed a question for her. Have you looked at this situation to see how it might be to your advantage? And after she got done laughing at me, I said, “No, I meant that really seriously. Have you done that? Let’s do it right now. How could this be, think of a colleague, think now let me repeat it back to you. Take a breath, it’s not you. It’s a colleague. Here’s what I’m saying.” I repeated a lot of the facts in her situation, so forth, I’m like, “How could this be to their advantage? How could they make this useful?” She found it, she found actually three or four options. She’s going with one in particular, and it does mean that she’s going to get out of the extreme boundaries she’d placed, because of this person’s lack of boundaries. She’s going to just give them one space um to have a little more freedom and and encourage that and participate in that differently than trying to restrict it to the point of, what I will also remind you is that a cousin of rigidity is control and when things slide over into that and people feel that as though they’re being controlled, as though um, they’re being managed extremely, that gets into a whole another set of leadership challenges, and you just you don’t want to go there. So, if you’re noticing the rigidity, that’s the early signs of things that can wander into control, and this is my hint that it’s time for you to reconsider how you’re managing that, and increase your flexibility, which I’m excited to say she’s working on. We just had this conversation recently, but definitely she’s already implemented part of it and informed the person and they’re really excited. So, remember, rigidity happens. It really kind of, I see it happen to all of my clients. It happens to me from time to time, notice it though, like I’m bringing this to your attention so you can notice it, and then the great reminder is, do something about it, make it a lot easier on yourself.
So, if you want to read the whole article, I highly recommend. There’s more stories in there, I can’t tell you all that come on it’d be so boring.
I’m JoyGenea unconventional leadership coach, international neurodiversity coach, and champion for those people that just, thank goodness are not working from in the box, they are way outside the box, so don’t be too rigid with your creation of your own box, or you might get stuck in it. Bye now.