5 Deadly Leadership Sins – Part 5

20 Jun 5 Deadly Leadership Sins – Part 5

THE FIVE DEADLIEST SINS OF A LEADER.

Thank you for joining me and welcome to the final video that we’ve been working on over the last week of our series titled The Five Deadly Sins of a Leader.  And so if you have not been following us the last couple of days or the last week I encourage you to go back and check out our website, transforminglivescoaching.com; go to our blog page and check out our previous videos or go to our Youtube channel and you can subscribe to that where we post our videos on there daily, and check out the previous four, I think all of them are important, we talk about the deadliest of the five which was perfectionism, and then we had pride, so there’s a…we’re working through a series and today’s the fifth one. 

And so today’s video about the five deadly sins, the fifth the one is… you ready for this?  Cynicism. 

Cynicism.  Some of you guys if you’re watching this you’re probably going, “Cynicism?  Really!  After all those videos like perfectionism and pride, any of the other ones that we talked about, like cynicism!  Like I’m not cynical.  What’s he talking about?”

Well interestingly enough when I really dug into kind of thinking about this one, my first inkling about cynicism was how many leaders really show up cynical?  And then I really started thinking about what it is, what does it mean to be cynical as a leader, and then I realized man, this is more common than I thought. 

So here’s where I realize, our initial blink on the sin of cynicism as a leader may not be one that you see on your radar.  Maybe as a leader one of your blind spots, and I think you’ll understand more of what I’m talking about when we actually delve into the full understanding of what it means to be cynical.  So let’s look at it, like if you’ve watched any of my videos, coached with me or been attending any of my classes you know that I am very very keen on understanding the meaning of words.  So we always look to define the meaning first or understand what it means before we really start to dig into it and really portray or project this onto leaders as a deadly sin.

So first off when we talk about a deadly sin we’re talking about traits within us that could cause us to lose credibility with our people; that could cause us to lose credibility and validity within our marketplace, within our sphere of influence to the point where people no longer believe in you as a leader or believe in you as the vehicle to their success or even your mission and your vision of where you’re trying to go and how you trying to do it, so that’s what we mean when we talk about deadly. 

But let’s look at cynicism, being cynical.

Cynicism is defined by the traits of being skeptical around someone else’s intentions.  You’re disparaging, you’re skeptical, you don’t trust… there’s that word …you don’t trust someone’s intentions.  Now first off when we look at trust, I believe and there are many other leadership quote/unquote “gurus” out there that I think will back me on the fact that trust is the main ingredient to leadership, you must have trust in yourself, you must have trust in your decisions, you must have trust in your people.  And so cynicism tends to be an element that is the complete opposite of trust, we’re skeptical.  I don’t believe you can be fully trustworthy of someone if you’re skeptical of their intentions.   I don’t believe you can be fully trustworthy of yourself as a leader if you’re skeptical of your own intentions, and yes that does show up in leaders.

So here’s what it kind of looks like, some you guys are probably saying “Oh no I’m not that type of leader, I’m not a cynical leader, I don’t possess cynicism.”   Well let me throw some things at you to just kind of give you a different frame of perspective of how you show up as a leader and how cynicism shows up and then you get to judge whether or not cynicism is part of your world as a leader or a human being. 

So let’s kind of understand the brain, and I share with you guys a lot that I specialize in the psychology of success and peak performance.  What does that mean?  I understand psychology at a really high level and how it affects how people operate in order to achieve peak performance and the success that they’re looking for, and here’s one of the things that I know, there’s two main compartments of the brain, I mean there’s many subcomponents but two main compartment, conscious brain and subconscious brain.  Conscious brain is short term processing, stimuli, short term memory, it’s  just you know where information goes from your receptors, sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. 

Your subconscious brain, long term memory, that’s your filing index, that’s your database, that’s your central processing unit, that’s where everything about you lives, and there tends to be this liminal line…not tends to be, there is this liminal line between the conscious brain and the subconscious, that’s why it’s called subliminal, and on that liminal line there’s free filters that every human being has, it’s deletions, distortions, and gross generalizations. Here’s why:  The brain experiences over four million bits of information every second and yet it can only process a hundred and 26; not a hundred and 26 thousand or 12,600; one, two, six.  So it goes from four million to a hundred 26 every second.  How it does that?  There’s three filters, deletions, distortions, and gross generalizations, it’s how it allows your brain not to literally explode due to over processing of information.  But the one we want to key in on is gross generalizations.

Gross generalizations is the one where we start to hear stuff like “All cops are this …all people are that.”  It’s how we categorize the gross elements of people, that’s where prejudices live.  And so what we understand about gross generalizations is because it’s a natural filtering process of our brain from the conscious brain to the sub conscious brain we start to gross generalize people, there’s a small little segment of people that we experience and because of that we just say “All people… all elements of people are this.”

Why is that important? 

Because cynicism tends to show up in the gross generalizations.  You see I’ve seen leaders where they’ll say “You know hiring is this,” or watch this, ready? This is where I think for many of my clientele in the real estate industry you’ll relate to this, you’re ready for this statement?  “All buyers are liars and sellers are too.”  So two things happening there.  If you’re a real estate agent you’re watching this video or if you’ve ever known a real estate agent, seen a real estate agent, married one, whatever; if you’ve heard that hit the like button, I’d like to see just kind of some of the participation of our following today to see if they’ve never heard that before or have partaken in that statement. 

Well understand something, you’re gross generalizing all buyers and sellers which are people, and the reality is a large majority of our population have been a buyer or a seller of a home at some point, so you’re saying all people are liars whether they’re buyers or sellers and/or both.  And then you say, “No not at all of them, just once at work…”   now you’re starting to create some grey area and you’re clouding the statement.  But the reality is you’re being cynical there, you’re skeptical of their intentions.  If you’re saying as a gross generalization that all buyers are liars and sellers are too, what you’re saying there is “I’m being skeptical about what their intentions of buying a home are.  I’m being skeptical of their intentions of how they’re communicating with me about buying a home or selling a home.”

If you start talking about your people in a negative manner in a gross generalization, “I hire all the crappy ones,”  everyone that you’ve ever hired before you’re gross generalizing them and you’re skeptical of their intentions.  And so I won’t go through a laundry list of how cynicism tends to show up in leaders but just understand that when you start negatively gross generalizing people what you’re doing is you’re participating in cynicism because what you’re doing really is you’re being skeptical about their intentions, you’re not trusting.

Travis says “As far as generalizations when communicating, I don’t like the use of words ‘always’  and ‘never,’ these words rarely have a place in leadership.”  Travis I couldn’t agree with you more, they never should be and I’ll explain that more and a minute when we look at how do we transition from the sin of cynicism into being a more influential, impactful and stronger leader.  But here’s what we know about cynicism, cynicism I think tends to be a behavioral trait that is nothing more than us being vulnerable to our gross generalizations.  What it also does is it reveals somebody’s focal points, so if they’re saying all buyers are liars and sellers are too, if you are a real estate if you’ve ever heard that or if you said that yourself at some point in your career, what you’re revealing to people is that you focus on all the negative stuff, and where your focus goes energy flows.  And if you’re always focused on the negativity, the skepticism of people or the negative gross generalizations about people what you’re revealing to your sphere of influence, to those that you lead and those that are around you is “Hey I don’t focus on the positivity, I focus on the negativity.” Because let’s be frank, life has its good and bad, its ups and its downs, people have their pros and cons, whatever ,it’s part of life.  But if you only focus on the bad how can you make people good?  How can you be the vehicle to other people’s success when all you’re focusing on is the negative stuff and the energy is just flowing to the negativity?  See understand something leaders, nobody wants to be around a negative person; nobody wants to follow a skeptical leader.

Now I think where this really shows up as your blind spot is that you’re vulnerable to another part of your brain, the reptilian part of your brain which is more of the survival part.  See when it processes information your brain’s going to naturally go into survival mode and protect you because that’s what its natural design is is to keep you safe and out of stress.  It’s not designed to make you successful and happy so it’s when the survival mode comes in it’s the natural part of skepticism is about analyzing the environment and the stimuli to see what could potentially harm you or cause you stress, and so your survival mechanism. 

So what we need to understand to be a stronger, more influential, impactful leader is we need to recognize where cynicism shows up.  We need to recognize where we may be gross generalizing people.  We need to recognize where we are being skeptical about people’s intentions and start to give them the benefit of the doubt. See I believe when we start to give people the benefit of the doubt or ask ourselves “Where is the good in this?  What are their real intentions?”  If I say buyers are liars and sellers are too, I believe that’s actually a leadership fail, one, because you’re participating in the fifth deadly sin of leaders which is cynicism, you’re being skeptical of their intentions, but really where it’s a fail is you have not dug deep enough to fully understand what their real intentions are, or maybe someone’s intentions have changed.  Wow, what a concept! “People’s intentions change?  No way Chris.”  Yeah way.

Rebecca says “It’s part of our survival mechanism to protect ourselves.”  Absolutely.  Back in the caveman era, like I think people today have kind of lost focus of where humans initially evolved from.  You know we have all the nice elements of security and life and  the elements that we need to survive that we don’t recognize that we were primal individuals at one point.

So what I want leaders to understand is that if you recognize …

I think the first of all transformation is awareness, so hopefully we’re bringing awareness to you as a leader where cynicism could be showing up in your leadership, gross generalization, skeptical.  And recognizing that those elements could be the very reason why people stop following you, people stop believing in you as the vehicle to their success.  People break contact from your world and start following someone else.  How you can transition from a cynical skeptical leader to a stronger leader, a more influential, a more impactful leader is you ask deeper questions, you ask better questions, you turn your skepticism to curiosity, you stop moving towards a preset idea of what people are and you stay in curiosity.  Turn your cynicism into curiosity.  Ask better questions.  If you believe that your buyer is now lying to you or something changed where your blink is to go “Typical buyer is a liar, sellers are too,” well wait a second, let’s stay in curiosity, allow your cynicism to move into curiosity, ask better questions.  That’s what leadership’s all about it’s about extrapolating the things that are influencing people or our desires, our personalities, our intentions.   And so if we ask better questions and listen, I’ve done a video on this, then we can fully understand the elements that are influencing people and influencing the moment so we’re not influenced by skepticism and thus being a cynical leader.

So leaders leadership is conversation. 

Conversation brings the information necessary to fully understand people’s world because like I say time and time again if leadership is influence…John Maxwell says leadership is influence, nothing more nothing less, influence is the power to affect someone’s character or actions… I believe the very tenet of leadership and influence is if you do not know what influences someone then you can’t fully influence them.  You want to be a stronger more influential impactful leader?   Ask better questions, have conversations… have deeper conversations, peel back the onion, dig deeper, go higher… you have higher level conversations with them. 

See cynicism is just nothing more than satisfying your brain’s need for immediate processing of information through your gross generalization filter that is processed in that subconscious part of your brain files where maybe other people have harmed you in the past and your brain is saying “This relationship that you’re experiencing now is similar to one where someone harmed you so I’m going to give you a quick thought in fear and feeling based off of your past.”  See leaders here’s what I believe, if you allow your past to fully influence you, you’ll never be able to shape the future.

Travis says, “That one had me thinking too, he’s not saying avoid the gross generalization, that’s unavoidable because it’s psychologically natural response.”  Absolutely saying how you respond to that self-awareness, and then I can’t read the rest because it’s short so sorry about that Travis.  But absolutely.

Here’s the thing, you need to understand how your brain influences you and that’s why I say “Organizational leadership development coach and consultant that also operates in the field the psychology of success and peak performance,” because if you don’t understand how your brain is influencing you in every moment of every day in your leadership journey I promise you you’re going to have a ceiling of achievement, you’re going to have blind spots that are literally killing your mojo as a leader, meaning it’s reducing your ability to maximize your influence and impact on others and in the world.  See guys your brain is your central processing unit, greatest tool that God ever gave us.  He gave it to us to survive and He gave it to us to thrive.  See most people are just operating in their brain of survive and not understanding how to leverage it to thrive.  And what I’m telling you is cynicism is part of your survival mechanism in the reptilian part of your brain.  If you want to thrive as a leader you need to recognize all the elements of survival and how they play against you… how they play for you and how they play against you, and this is one of them.  Turn your cynicism into curiosity, dig deeper, ask greater questions, understand what is influencing them.  If something has changed then ask more questions, dig deeper, seek information and not just an immediate need for judgment, an immediate need to understand the stimuli and environment so I can move.  See I think what happens with leaders is we move so fast that we don’t have time to think.  I did a video yesterday, it’s in my personal video library on Facebook about thinking and how important thinking is to be a leader.  Slow down, think, ask better questions, listen, and I promise you, you will understand people better.

If you operate in gross generalizations you’re going to die in the world of leadership which is influencing people.  Why?  Because the death is not a physical one, it’s a relational one, people will not want to be around you.  If you’re cynical, you’re negative, you’re focusing on the negative, you’re revealing your negative frame to  world.  If you’re skeptical of people they don’t want to be around you because they don’t…people don’t want their leader to be skeptical of them. 

So empower yourself, empower others, stay in curiosity.   I promise you ask or do two things every single day, ask God, yourself and others better questions and listen.  Some of you on your spiritual journey you’re quick to go pray to God and tell Him something or ask Him a question but you won’t listen after you ask.  Same thing in your relationships with your spouse you’ll ask him a question but I think it’s just to kind of get your point across in a question and you won’t list it; and in your journey with people to be the vehicle to their success in your organizations around you or the ones that you participate in you’ll ask them questions but you won’t really listen to what they’re telling you and then when something changes or doesn’t meet your expectations you’re skeptical of them, you start calling them liars.  And that is just nothing more than a reaction of your inability to fully understand what influences people.

So hopefully this video brought value to not just your professional life but also your personal life.  Remember one thing about these videos I want you guys to take from this is this content, it’s designed to shape your leadership, leading yourself, leading teams and leading organizations.  And you must lead yourself before you can ever lead others, and it parallels in your personal life and your professional life, leading yourself personally and leading yourself professionally, leading your family and leading those that have families. 

So if I can be of any assistance to you feel free to reach out to me, chris@transforminglivescoaching.com.  Go to my website transforminglivescoaching.com, check us out, find out what we’re all about.  Go to our blog page, go to our Youtube channel, subscribe if you like this video, hit like, subscribe to or click the little bell that notifies you when we do our Facebook live videos. 

Before we go I’d love to ask you one question, how are you showing up as a cynical leader?  Where is cynicism showing up in your life in your leadership journey whether are you skeptical of yourself about going to the next level in a goal or personal area of your life?  Are you skeptical of your spouse?  Do you need to check their social media channels to see if they’re being faithful to you?   Are you skeptical of your people?  Are you being a control freak and making them check in with you all the time and write down everywhere… are you more control freak of their activities or you a control freak in their results because a control freak of activities is a cynical leader, you’re skeptical of their intentions when they come to work and what they’re doing.  I’m telling you, it shows up more than you think.

Guys thanks for joining me today, remember one thing, God loves you, so do I.  Lead strong.  Be more influential and impactful in the world around you and watch what happens.  Thanks for joining me today, have a great rest of your day. 

Be blessed.

About the author:

Over the course of 8 years, Christopher Hart went from an enlisted Private First Class to a Commissioned Officer-Captain. In 2005, Christopher chose to move on from his military career to focus on starting a family and embarking in the world of entrepreneurship. Christopher’s passion is now working to help others be the BEST version of themselves and helping them Lead others to the same!

To learn more about Christopher Hart or to get in touch with him regarding a coaching program you can email him at Chris@TransformingLivesCoaching.com

If you want to get yourself or your team on track and really dive into some Talent Management best practices checkout one of these online video workshops click here now: Lead Strong Video Program | Accountability Video Program