Stop

Are you able to respond?

Let’s turn that word around.

If you are able to respond, you are responsible for so doing.

Responsibility

You are always responsible for yourself (your behaviour) so you are able to respond. Indeed, how we respond is the main way that we present ourselves to others.

This week we have been delivering the Hospital Major Incident Medical Management System (HMIMMS). How a hospital prepares for, deals with & recovers from a major incident. This course is a genuine pleasure to deliver. I continue to value the last session the most, we call it the “local application” of HMIMMS. Participants commit to actions to improve their own practice, their service/department and even their network or system.

When participants make their commitments, we take the opportunity to coach them through a nuanced view of these actions – ensuring maximum value to save and improve lives. A common example is “find the major incident plan”. With very little discussion, this can be evolved into: finding the plan, reading it, and then taking team members through their action cards to check they make sense and are possible/effective.

This week, one of our participants mentioned “Stop not countering the “it will never happen” narrative when setting training goals for the department.”

This stimulated a wonderful discussion around behaviours, challenging negativity & building growth/learning cultures.

What leadership behaviour are you displaying?

The discussion around creating learning cultures revolved around developing trust through being consistent. Authentic consistently means your team know you will respond supportively, meaning they will be empowered to be vulnerable – a critical element of learning cultures.

To help participants navigate the journey to trust, I offered a mantra that I used when in an executive leadership role: “What leadership behaviour am I displaying?”. Similar to last week’s blog about the power of words as an educator, the power of behaviour of a leader is hugely impactful.

How huge?

It’s not just huge, it’s everything, your behaviours from micro expressions to your body language, tone, and words whilst speaking transmits your intent deeply. So, how conscious of that are you?

At work, it really can be a challenge to be mindful of our behaviours. The mantra “What leadership behaviour am I displaying” can only apply if you take that moment to ask it.

Detach

Taking a mindful moment means you must be detached from what is happening. To detach requires effort from yourself. This can be an internal moment, ducking around a corner, it is whatever you need it to be.

Ingrained behaviour

Detaching is a skill, and just like other skills, must be acquired first then competence enhanced through practice, reflection, learning (and repeat).

Develop the competence to detach and ask yourself “What leadership behaviour am I displaying?”. This is work, and very worthwhile.