Have you ever had a small child approach you to tattle on another child? I’m sure you have, but I’m curious to know what did you say to the child who was tattling? In my former life as an elementary school teacher, I had lots of kids who were tattling. I would simply say to them, “Thank you for sharing, now what are we going to do moving forward?”
And even when they wanted to ramble on and on, re-hashing the past, as badly as I wanted to tell them, “I don’t care,” I would just smile and simply say, “Thank you for sharing, now what are we going to do moving forward?” Guess what? It’s the same for you in leadership, whether that’s working with your team or for yourself.
If you joined me on my last video, you know that I was recently struck by a Forbes article sharing their top tips for women in leadership. And over the course of a series of videos, I’m going to be sharing one of those tips and my own personal experience and take on those, with the hopes of helping you shorten your leadership learning curve. Today’s tip is focus on the potential, not the past.
Look, learn from the past. Absolutely! Take some time to figure out what went wrong, and why are we in this situation. But it’s about then focusing on the potential.
Learn from the past, but do it quickly – don’t linger on.
Stuff is always going to happen; there are always going to be mistakes, there are always going to be wrong-doings. But if you sit and focus on those, there’s nowhere to go. You can only stay here in the past for so long. Review, learn quickly, and then shift your attention, shift your focus on the potential. What are the opportunities ahead?
The more that you yourself as a leader and influence your team to do the same, to focus on the potential and not the past, the quicker and more successful you will be at moving forward.
Stay tuned in the weeks ahead, as I share another tip on each of the videos. And if you have your own leadership tip to help someone else shorten their learning curve, please post it in the comments below.