October 9, 2013
How well do you deal with difficulties?
If you are successful in business or in your career as a manager, there’ll be times where you are up against tough situations and how you cope with these can define you as a leader. The types of difficulty you face can come in a number of forms and they could involve problems with personnel or outside situations that impact your business. A strong leader will persevere when hardship strikes, grow in his or her knowledge, and discover how to get around the same problem later on. Our objective, then, is to give you the information you need to cope with any adverse situation, and grow and learn from it, whether it’s at your job or with your own organization.
Any challenges you are presented with in your own business or at your job are your responsibility to solve and overcome. This is the first step you must take to mastery of this leadership skill. If you begin to place blame elsewhere, this can be counter productive and would not help you to find solutions. This is not to say that you do not make others aware of their duties but you do need to look for a way forward. It may be necessary for you to analyze your company’s current procedures and system and make alterations, or possibly give the people who are responsible more effective training. Your goal should be on finding a solution to the situation, not just focus on the predicament and who may have “caused” it. This way you can be more assured that the problem will not repeat itself.
You’ve got no control over some adverse situations, of course. To illustrate, you can’t control a downturn in the economy or a drastic change in the market in which you operate. This can mean that you must make a few hard decisions that will help you survive in a new environment, so at times like these you have to show strength of character and you should not fall into the trap of avoiding what may be bound to happen. Rapid action is also needed when you are up against an unfavorable situation. You are going to stand a better chance of getting past the problem if you can expeditiously adapt to the changes. An essential aspect to dealing with problems at work or difficulty is how versatile you are in altering your approach and aligning yourself with new market conditions.
View whatever you are facing head on as a challenge, an opportunity to learn something important that will hold you in good stead in the future. Do not spend valuable time letting what went wrong, or changed, play repeatedly in your head. If you’re able to remain calm in difficult times, you’ll have more clarity in what must be done and how you are going to attain it. This means you must be able to deal with high levels of stress which can affect your health and efficiency if you let it. There are many cases in both business and other areas like sport where extremely stressful situations have led successful people to higher levels of performance and you want to see this as a goal for yourself. Think also of people who depend on you to lead them with calmness and wisdom. You need to stay strong in their eyes.
It doesn’t matter if you are a business person or the manager of somebody else’s business, you are inevitably going to be presented with adverse difficulties every so often. If you deal with these situations with the right attitude, it can help you to be more successful later on.