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3 Ways to Build Your Patience

3 Ways to Build Your Patience

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3 Ways to Build Your Patience

Summary: Patience is the fuzzy border which separates hasty decisions from smart manoeuvres during key times of need. Take a moment to breathe, zoom out and even wait and watch when you can’t do anything instead of doing something you would regret later.

When it comes to leadership, staying calm is a superpower, for hasty decisions can have long-lasting repercussions! In this article, we discuss how to gain this awesome superpower.

Making plans is one way to keep on track and achieve your goals. Yet, you are bound to come across hurdles. With your experience, preparedness, and resources, you may be able to comfortably jump across some of those hurdles. At other times, you need more than what you already have, or you may have to wait for another stakeholder to support you, or you may just need to pause because something unexpected happened! It is in times like these, that you need to harness your patience and wait for the right time to take the right actions again.

A classic case of panic affecting the quality of decision-making happened in 2011 to Netflix when they started losing stock value as well as customers due to the confusion and price changes caused by a split between their DVD rental and streaming services. The CEO Reed Hastings took a very quick, abrupt decision to rebrand their DVD service as “Qwikster”. The price hikes, the notion of having to go through two websites, search engines, credit card entries, etc drove away the customers further, and Netflix lost 800,000 subscribers1 before Qwikster even launched.

Netflix did finally prove its streaming services to be the bright future ahead, but if you want to avoid decisions made in haste then there are 3 things you can remember:

List out what is making you feel doubtful
At the junction of a decision that you are not completely sure of, make pointers on what you think could possibly go wrong and how they can be addressed. When you have your exact concerns in front of you, you can take a moment to pause and evaluate the severity of the situation. Knowing what the concerns are also helps you discuss them with your teammates and approach them with viable solutions rather than unfounded anxieties. This awards your actions and discussion credibility as well since you are approaching it with a fully formed idea of the big picture that needs to be addressed.
Channel away from anxious spirals

Studying leadership reveals that it’s very easy to get stuck in spirals, positive or negative with team performance, morale and energy. Don’t respond with what you should do or not do at first, but rather slow your brain down instead of letting it run away from you. This helps you realize that no matter how high the stakes are or how urgent the situation is, you don’t have to come up with an answer for the next 2 minutes. This decreases the fear response in your brain and helps the blood flow to more useful, problem-solving regions of the brain.

Concentrate on what you can control
Accept wholeheartedly that you cannot control everything, either people’s behaviours or situations. What you can do is pause to acknowledge and understand what is in your control and act accordingly. When you notice that there are specific situations and behaviours that annoy you, you must actively change your knee-jerk reactions to mindfully planned responses. Over time when you keep practising responding in calmer, composed tones to such situations, you will gain control and know what you should or should not respond to.
Impact on Leadership
Patience is the most profitable asset during the time of decision-making. Under tremendous pressure, leaders often have to make decisions, and it is always better to make decisions by weighing the pros and cons and managing the consequences brought by the cons. When a leader is calm and composed is when the leader will be effective in their responsibilities.
3 Immediately Applicable Action Steps
  1. When you are afraid of something going wrong, list out what you think may go wrong to ponder over what your reaction should be.
  2. When you feel your thoughts racing too fast, take a moment to slow down and not respond before collecting your thoughts.
  3. Identify components of the situation which you can control, versus ones that you have to just wait and watch for.
References
  1. New Leaders: Stop Downward Performance Spirals Before They Start. (2014, July 23). Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2009/01/new-leaders-stop-downward-perf.html
  2. Orem, T. R., Wheelock, M. D., Goodman, A. M., Harnett, N. G., Wood, K. H., Gossett, E. W., Granger, D. A., Mrug, S., & Knight, D. C. (2019). Amygdala and prefrontal cortex activity varies with individual differences in the emotional response to psychosocial stress. Behavioral Neuroscience, 133(2), 203–211. https://doi.org/10.1037/bne0000305
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