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Challengers and Cheerleaders

00285_00144I’ve been doing some deep personal leadership exploration over the past month or so. I attended a retreat in Wilmington, NC with Grinnell Leadership in May and last week I was in Michigan with the Edward Lowe Foundation. Each had a different focus and a different way of going about the personal development that took place.

I love this kind of stuff! I am a personal development and growth nut. I believe there is enormous value in developing myself as a person and a leader. Additionally, I am willing to take the long and hard way in order to get to the spot on the road that I want to go in my personal development journey.
Ironically, while I am outwardly a very positive person (based on results from “Strength Finders” as well as my “360 Feedback Survey”), inwardly I am an extremely self-critical and negative person. This information will likely shock anyone that knows me pretty well but not extremely well.
There are three symptoms that have resulted from my completion of these two leadership retreats:
1. I have dissected my strengths and WEAKNESSES more thoroughly than any President of the United States – leaving me with a lot of knowledge about myself, my feelings, my beliefs, my behaviors and so on. As you likely know, this kind of knowledge can be dangerous if too much attention is focused on negatives.
2. I know that I do not take negative criticism well (also based on “360 Feedback Survey”), even when it comes from myself. Actually, especially when it comes from myself.
3. I left both retreats with some immediate and important changes that I wanted to make in my life and in my company. I know that I’m weak in the area of being consistent. In itself this is a problem. However, when you combine the fact that the majority of my initiatives require me to be consistent and stick with something different, we have a bigger problem.
Unfortunately, this knowledge while immediately making me feel empowered has eventually resulted in the outcome of a mental, spiritual and emotional low for myself – exactly the opposite of what I’m sure the other retreat participants are experiencing. This low comes from the fact that I have not stopped focusing on the negatives that I’ve come to realize about myself.
What I’ve realized is just how much I need cheerleaders in my life. I need people around me who know me. I’ve seen that I’m not that unique in terms of needing cheerleaders. It’s important that I’m told often tangible and specific positive things that I’m doing, have done for others, or that I can offer the world in the future.
I’m not asking to be surrounded by “Yes” Men, especially not in my role of operating a company and managing a team of people or fathering a family of four. I’m definitely not calling out anyone in particular at work or home that challenges me because I have done a good job of surrounding myself with people that hold me accountable while building me up at other times.
I want to be challenged. I need to be challenged for the company to grow and my family to thrive. However, I have a huge need to leave the challenging behind that confronts me on a daily basis in order to put myself around those that cheerlead me. This need is true for everyone to a certain extent. If we have the confidence to challenge someone on a personal level, we need to have the love to cheerlead that person.
Gary Chapman wrote a book called “The Five Love Languages” which has become an important book to many people and their marriages since it was published in 2004. In this book, Chapman talks about how we all give and receive love in what can be boiled down into five different languages. For example, my primary love language is “Words of Affirmation” which means that I give and receive love primarily through hearing from and telling those around me how much they mean to me – using words to affirm my love.
It struck me that I’m not counteracting my self investigation with enough of these positive words. I have challenged myself. Now it is time that I escape to cheerlead myself.

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