Is Your Boss Making You Sick?
Sarita is a dream client. Her desire to be a 'best' leader is driven by her philosophy that …
The #1 job of a leader is to create more leaders.
In other words, creating more leaders is her real job. Her job is not just about completing left brain tasks but to leave the finest legacy of having nurtured the greatest of new young leaders who are equally task-oriented as they are people-oriented.
Over the years Sarita has attracted bosses who practised command-and-control leadership. Driven by egos and ambition versus what's best for their direct reports and end-user clients, these types of leaders are found in every city, in every country in the world. That's a lot of command and control energy floating throughout our planet. No wonder our world needs healing.
The Universe always falls in love with a stubborn heart!
Therefore, there is hope!
Just imagine if all leaders gave us hope. Just imagine the possibilities if the notion of a 'Values-Based' leadership style was more than a tagline. Imagine an environment where leaders showed true caring, compassion, devotion, commitment, acceptance, and honesty (plus all 76 leadership Values) to their direct reports and customers. We wouldn't have to spend so much time defining these Values because they would be alive. They would drive our organizations instead of power, greed and control.
There is an art to practising/modelling and surviving a Values-Based style amidst a table where self-serving agendas are the primary drivers. To survive and kick out the command and control styles we must be grounded in the 'right thing' to do.
Sarita's boss was making her sick. As she deeply developed her leadership competencies, her employees sang her praises. This was because Sarita courageously worked to look deeply at herself. For sure, she didn't always like what she found but what she didn't like, she changed, in order to better the world inside herself and around her. She began to naturally demonstrate competencies such as how to create an inspiring environment where people can grow. Her employees became strategic thinkers, excitedly basking in their collective innovative abilities. Sarita knew that if she was to maintain such an environment she needed to shield her direct reports from her boss.
Paleo, an old school manager, put his own ambitions ahead of everything else. Somewhere along the line his heart turned to ice. The innovative ideas spawned by Sarita's team were rarely accepted. Paleo took great pleasure in attempting to squash her team's enthusiasm. Whenever they would laugh, he would tell them to get back to work. Whenever they would stand strong at the front of the room giving a presentation, Paleo would rarely acknowledge their strengths and would poke holes in their work almost as if it raised his own self-esteem to demoralize others. He almost always took credit for their work. In short, he found satisfaction in shutting people down.
David Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo, in their book, Why CEO's Fail: The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb to The Top and How to Manage Them, present 11 cogent reasons why CEO's fail, most of which have to do with hubris, ego and a lack of emotional intelligence. High EQ leaders practise Values-Based Leadership.
Imagine if the King of a country showed respect to everyone. They would adore him, pray for him and the kingdom would be a happy place. If he didn't respect them, he would have an empty throne. In our homes, if we abuse our kids and control them chances are they will run away. But if we love our children, they will shower us with an even greater love.
Sarita ended up depressed. Her doctor, not having the training on how to help a patient heal emotional and spiritual pains, put her on anti-depressants. She became more and more depressed as depressants often can do. Her focus and her enthusiasm for the job went out the window. Science today tells us that in order for depression to be kept at bay we must discover the root cause(s) of that depression and change those negative beliefs causing the depression into positive ones.
It is not just polluted air and bad food that are toxic and can make us sick. Work environments become toxic when the leader(s) doesn't listen, squashes innovative thinking and thinks s/he is better than the rest.
Are you wondering what Sarita did?
She took back control of her life because she was allowing Paleo to control her life. She searched the internet for positive thinking tools and started using many self-coaching tools like The Brain Walk® which helped her turn her negative thoughts into permanent positive ones. They gave her the strength to positively and fearlessly confront Paleo to give him the opportunity to change. He refused to change. We are speculating here that he was too afraid to change because it could mean that he would lose the 'power' he had worked so hard to create.
For her own good, Sarita left the organization and weaned herself off of the meds despite her doctor wanting to keep her on them. Today, this vibrant, witty and highly intelligent woman is free from a depressing environment and free from a medication that was also causing her to stay sick.
If your boss is making you sick, here are some things to do:
1. Change your beliefs because you might very well have some unconscious beliefs which attract situations like this. Like Sarita you may be giving your power away to your boss. Take it back! Here are two positive belief systems to anchor into your subconscious mind:
I, [type in your name], now work in an environment which nurtures and frees my spirit and therefore a healthy me arrives at work every day.
I am now connected to the greatest positive power in the universe.
2. Do positive thinking exercises every day. Remember that through the Law of Attraction you have attracted these situations and blaming the boss is not the noble thing to do. Dig down deep into your own subconscious to find out why you are attracting toxicity into your life.
3. Pray hard for the mind-controlling boss to wake up to see their own behaviour. It is highly possible that he has many blind spots and cannot see how he is acting OR he may be thinking his behaviours are normal.
4. Book an appointment to have an open-hearted conversation with the toxic boss. Share with her what you see and hear.
5. Celebrate your courage to stop a global epidemic of command and control leadership.
