Leadership lessons and your Landia
Prologue
Leadership learning is and
continues to be a challenge. The latest Atlantic magazine contains an article
titled: The Charisma Effect – How to bend
people to your will.
While the title sounds a bit subversive, the article approaches the
topic from a leadership perspective. The first paragraph states: “In tough
times people want more that intelligence, integrity or the ability to build
really tall walls. They want someone to
make a compelling pitch and inspire a sense of urgency – someone with
charisma.” This issue of UPDATE, while a bit tongue and cheek, explores one’s
inner self and the land they live in.
Years ago we would start our workshops with a short saying: “If you take
things personally, all opportunity to see the data is lost – you become deaf,
dumb and blind to everything except for your constructed reality.” We all have
a constructed reality – leadership involves knowing, controlling and managing
one’s constructed reality in world of other people’s realities.
Introduction
We’re going to depart a bit from our
traditional approach to things and throw out a concept founded on a beach on
the east coast of Africa in Kenya. It’s
a long story and these folks had time to think about “stuff.” They came up with an idea they coined as
Landia. What is a Landia, and what is
your Landia? In this tumultuous campaign season, we thought we might take a
lighter look at the world around us, but still in the context of leadership,
teambuilding and people working with people.
So here goes, hope you enjoy.
All of us have had times when we are in
our own world. A world that is only
ours, where we daydream about lots of things that may or may not relate to the
real world we live in. That is part of
your Landia. The other part of Landia
exists based on the factors listed below.
It is a more visible part of you, some of which you may not even be
aware is visible. A Landia is you – your
land, your borders, your topography, your shape, and everything in it and
around it. You own it, it is you. Your
Landia is your constructed reality of who you think you are or who you want to
be or who you think you should be. You are your Landia. Everyone has their own Landia; “the land that
is theirs.”
When we first heard about the idea, we
were intrigued because in our leadership programs we focus quite a bit on
understanding oneself in a rather programmatic manner; assessments, personal
interviewing and coaching, etc. The
Landia concept seemed to need some dissecting, so in the interest of doing
something a bit out of the norm, Larry and I thought we might try to zoom in on
the concept of Landia.
What makes Your Landia?
Several things can make up your
Landia. The below items are a sample of
the wide range of factors that make up ones Landia. Think about the list below, and how these
factors shape your Landia.
Your
MBTI (Myers-Briggs) type
– The
MBTI is a gauge of your personality type. It’s a good start in learning about
your Landia. There are other instruments
(DISC, etc.) that can also provide insights into who you are. We also learn how to effectively interact
with other “types”.
Your
self-perception – this is a huge
part of your Landia, because you own this.
It is who you think you should be, how people should perceive you, how
you want to be perceived. You are your self-perception. For you, self-perception can become your
reality. (We’ll leave it at this for
now. We could probably do a whole
article on this factor.)
Your
upbringing –
this too is another major contributor to
the formation of your Landia. The
influences impacting people at young ages stick and sometimes things play out as one might hope
they would, and other times they don’t, but be assured, what happens during
your formative years impacts your Landia.
Your
values –
along with upbringing, values are established throughout life, but begin at a
young age. Your system of values, what
they are and how you define and live them contribute to your Landia. Your values are influenced by your family,
your life experiences – both good and bad, where you live and work, your
friends and a whole host of other factors.
Your beliefs – building on
values, you form beliefs. How you
measure or compare your values to beliefs can cause internal strife or
reinforcement. This in turn contributes
to your Landia.
Your
desires – much talk is
given to setting goals. There are short
term, medium term and long term goals.
Your Landia is many times based on long term goals. Your desires, those stretch goals that you
construct in your mind, and believe in them, in your constructed reality. These
can be a driving force in the formation of your Landia.
Your
dreams – these are even more
difficult to achieve. Dreams and
aspirations impact your Landia in many ways.
The world of fantasy, dreams rule, and in your Landia, dreams can become
reality.
Your view of the world – all of the above
begin to paint a picture of the world as you see it in your Landia.
Your
work – while work may
appear to have a rather direct influence on your Landia, it does but only for
the time you are in that situation. If
your job changes in 5 years there is a good chance your Landia will become
reshaped.
Your
colleagues – colleagues flow
with jobs and work, some stay for a while longer than the job, but colleagues
have a similar effect on one’s Landia as work does because of the culture of
the environment.
Your
skills – skills are a
special case in the formulation of your Landia.
We all think we are skilled at certain things and not so skilled at
others. When we really believe we are skilled at something we tackle it with
more enthusiasm. When those skills are
real and applied appropriately, a person’s Landia becomes better defined. When the skills are perceived skills and
one’s Landia has convinced the person that those are well honed skills or
unattainable skills, then the efficacy of one’s Landia is suspect. Closely examining one’s Landia can reveal the
truth.
Your
attributes – while similar to
skills, the application of one’s attributes contributes to the success at
convincing oneself and others of one’s Landia.
When skills and attributes converge in a cohesive manner one’s Landia
takes shape in constructive ways. When
these two diverge the Landia becomes less defined from the outside looking in
and the constructed reality of the person becomes more distorted as does the
Landia.
Your
experience – experience is
applied using skills and attributes, so when skills and attributes converge and
experience is overlaid, the Landia takes on even more shape, and when they
diverge as discussed above the distortion becomes greater.
Knowing one’s
Landia
Is
it difficult to know your Landia – sometimes – actually most times, you are
unaware that you have a Landia, let alone know of your Landia. How often have others asked you where you
have been when you “check out” of a conversation or meeting? Or have you had someone ask you a question
out of the blue that doesn’t appear to be part of the conversation but it’s
based on what that person knows or perceives about you. It’s who you are, and without knowing who you
are, you really can’t know your Landia. Introspection and external honest
assessment can shed insights, but depending on how strong the influencers above
are acting, one can revert to their preferred Landia.
Can
others know your Landia and can they get to know it? It may be difficult for
others to know your Landia in any extensive way unless you openly share it with
them; short of you sharing your Landia others may only suspect they know how
and what you are thinking and why you think that way. People tend to know when your Landia is solid
or when its perceived reality is suspect.
If people begin believing that your Landia is suspect they will
challenge it, mostly indirectly, in the areas above.
What
happens when someone comes into your Landia and threatens your Landia? This
depends on the integrity of your Landia, and your understanding of your Landia. If you know your Landia, its strengths and
its limitations, and follow the rules, you are better suited to defend your
Landia or even allow people more access to it.
If you have become so much of a victim of your constructed reality, your
Landia is vulnerable, and you will tend to not let people in, try to defend it
or if very vulnerable escape the situation.
Their perceptions become their reality then honesty and trust are in
jeopardy.
Do
you protect your Landia? If you believe in your Landia, you protect it, like a
reputation.
Others Landia
What
about other people’s Landia? Everyone has a Landia. Consciously or unconsciously people tend to
look at other people’s Landias. They are
trying to understand the other people by trying to look behind the surface of
what the others are just saying or doing.
The difficulty is knowing the difference between what is real and what
is some form of a constructed reality based on the factors above. It has been said that “you have one chance at
making a first impression” which is quite true.
Knowing one’s Landia and assessing another person’s Landia can help
bridge gaps, break ice and build rapport.
Recognize that everyone has their own Landia.
Overlapping or colliding Landias
What
happens when Landias overlap or collide? A lot of talk has been devoted to
interpersonal relationships, team building etc.
We discuss ways to build teams based on personality profiles, as well as
other assessments. These are valid tools
and methods. But, they are only one part
of the effort. Landias include
motivations, positioning, perceptions, as well as very real competitive
issues. When Landias overlap the
potential for great things to happen exists.
This does not infer that everything goes smoothly, but it does mean that
people with overlapping Landias can work through issues, achieve defined goals
as a group, and build on that success.
When Landias collide, not so good things can happen. Suspicion, lack of trust and a host of other
non-constructive interpersonal things can happen. The interesting point here is, it is not a
binary situation. There are stages in
between.
Commentary
The situation is never one of all
bad or all good. All knowing or all
fake. The challenge is to know how to
deal with the strengths as well as the weaknesses. If one’s constructed reality is harmless, but
makes a person feel better about themselves, so what – let it go, and when this
person has a strength that can contribute and has value, understand the
weakness, reinforce the strength and move forward. There may be situations where it is
beneficial to let the person know that you understand their Landia and if
necessary call them out in a constructive manner. That tends to bridge the gap of trust and
honesty.
Human interaction is never entirely
smooth. The Landia is a somewhat
humorous attempt to show that there is so much more to how and why people think
and act the way they do. We all have a
complex set of internal factors that motivate us and cause us to act the way we
do. People we deal with regularly try to
get a better understanding of us, beyond what they see on the surface. That understanding helps them deal with us
more effectively. My Landia has
developed from so many factors in my life and drives how I act and what I say
to a large extent. My Landia also
provides me a place to go to, to escape all the pressures of life.
Landia Rules
Along
with the Landia concept, this same group came up with a set of rules. These rules we imagine were part of how to
begin living the concept of Landia.
Again, keep the perspective.
|
#1
|
Think
before speaking
|
|
#2
|
Revert
to rule 1, but think harder
|
|
#3
|
‘No’
is not an answer
|
|
#4
|
Don't
throw anyone under the bus
|
|
#5
|
Drive
your own problems
|
|
#6
|
[Open
– for your own rule]
|
|
#7
|
Coffee
at 10 and 2
|
|
#8
|
Don't
be a hater
|
|
#9
|
If
you outwork the other guy you will win
|
|
#10
|
You
will be dirty, sweaty and wet; embrace it
|
|
#11
|
Humanize
yourself
|
|
#12
|
[Figured
you’ll need one more rule sometime]
|
|
#13
|
Believe
in your own Landia
|
Takeaway
Perhaps
the most important take away here is to realize you have your own Landia as
does everyone else. Understanding that and being aware and tolerant will help
in preventing Landias from colliding and to allow you to better deal with those
who frequent your life. Cheers!
