Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge

hard on the issue, soft on the person.

People change their behavior and thinking not because they are “told to be different” but when the conditions are present that require and empower them to figure out what to do and to act on a plan. Try giving teenagers a lot of advice and see if it changes behavior. They probably don’t look at you and say, “Gee, Dad, or Mom, thanks for explaining reality to me. Now I will run out and do it.” But if you provide context—by listening, sharing information and positive examples, setting expectations and consequences, creating a healthy emotional climate, and challenging them to do their best—they will figure it out and implement it. That is a lot better than just “telling them what to do.

Being an open system means, basically, that you are not arrogant enough to think that you have all the answers, or that your organization has all the answers, or even that you should. You know that there is experience and energy outside of what you bring that can add to your personal and organizational infrastructure, and you open yourself up to it.

As a leader, you are always going to get a combination of two things: What you create and what you allow.

no excuses, no blame, and no explanations.

leaders get what they create, or what they allow.

One of the most important self-boundaries that leaders have to establish is against the tendency to put off changes that they know need to be made.

The law is this: the higher you go in leadership, the fewer external forces act upon you and dictate your focus, energy, and direction. Instead you set the terms of engagement and direct your own path, with only the reality of results to push against you.

But be aware of the fact that as a leader, your position carries much more psychological and emotional weight than you know. People want to please their leaders; they don’t want to let you down. As a result, they can often hear criticism in ways that you never intended, and that adds to the complexity of your job as a leader.

Good boundaries, both those that help us manage ourselves and lead others, always produce freedom, not control.

In other words, our brains need to be able to: (a) focus on something specific, (b) not get off track by focusing on or being assaulted by other data inputs or toxicity, and (c) continuously be aware of relevant information at all times.

Clarity leads to attention and attention leads to results.

The leader’s job is to lead in ways such that people can do what they are best at doing: using their gifts and their brains to get great results.

As a leadership coach, one of the questions I always ask myself is, “Does this leader lead in a way that is compatible with humans?” or some version of that. People are designed to function with energy and use their gifts and talents to work toward fruitful outcomes. They do that from the moment they wake up in the morning until they lie down at night. From making the coffee to making computers, people have what it takes to get it done, if the right ingredients are present and the wrong ones are not. The leader’s job is to lead in ways such that people can do what they are best at doing: using their gifts and their brains to get great results.

Are we paying attention to what is important, inhibiting the things that will not help or will hurt us, and keeping current?

Los buenos límites, tanto los que nos ayudan a manejarnos a nosotros mismos como los que nos ayudan a guiar a otros, no producen control, sino libertad.

What are boundaries? They are made up of two essential things: what you create and what you allow.

By “right kind of action,” I do not mean mere activity. Busyness is not action that builds momentum or results. The action you want is action that specifically drives results. And the accountability you want is the kind that drives success, not the kind that only measures results and keeps score.

The prevailing thinking patterns of a team or an organization—its norms and belief systems—will define what it is and what it does.

You must always hold people accountable for performance. But even if the day comes when you have to let someone go, you will be like the father in the example at the beginning of this chapter. You will say something like, “So sorry that you just lost your job. How can I help you?

How are we doing in what we said we would be doing?

the time and energy that you do invest in people issues should produce better results and create teams and a culture where momentum and energy thrive.

When leaders lead in ways that people’s brains can follow, good results follow as well.

Creamos nuestros lazos con gente que no es perfecta, y seguimos a gente también imperfecta, pero que está venciendo su situación.

distractions, or changes in the demands of the task at hand. Key Words: Begin and Maintain Behavior.             Flexibility: They can exercise the ability to be adaptable, think strategically, and solve problems by creating solutions as things change around them, shifting attention and plans as needed. Key Words: Adapt, Think, and Solve.             Execution and Goal Attainment: They exhibit the ability to execute the plan within the limits of time and other constraints. Key Words: Execute within Time.             Self-regulation: They use self-observation to monitor performance, self-judgment to evaluate performance, and self-regulation to change in order to reach the goal. Key Words: Monitor, Evaluate, Regulate.*

Goal Selection: They can choose goals based on priority, relevance, experience, and knowledge of current realities while also anticipating consequences and outcomes. Key Words: Choose Goals and Anticipate Outcomes.             Planning and Organization: They can generate steps and a sequence of linear behaviors that will get them there, knowing what will be needed along the way, including resources, and create a strategy to pull it off. Key Words: Generate Behaviors and Strategy.             Initiation and Persistence: they can begin and maintain goal-directed behavior despite intrusions,