The 3 Mandates of Leadership was something I learned from Tony Robbins in 2011. I attended business mastery with Tony in Fiji with 80 other companies, back in the days when those sorts of events were really small and personal.
I really recall one of the main lessons that I came away with. Well actually there were quite a few lessons, I adapted into my business when I got home, but this one was a key.
I’ll just share them briefly with you. They’re also available as a poster to download, via the button below. That way you can put it up on the wall or somewhere where it reminds you of what’s important.
The 1st Mandate of Leadership is two-fold.
It is: See it as. Not worse than it is.
That’s incredibly important. It’s about waking up to the reality of the situation, what’s really going on. Eliminating the drama spiral that is tempting to get caught up in. It’s not about being positive leaders. Leaders don’t need to always be positive. It’s just about being smart.
I could look at these words on my office wall when I came back and it let me breathe. I incorporated it into our Strategic Planning format to keep the team focused on where we needed to be going the next quarter, towards the yearly plan.
If there’s something going on, be it internal crises in the office or external issues, something that is a risk to the business. For me, it would let me pull myself back into a space, saying, okay, so hold on, Susan. See it as it is not worse than it is.
That just let me just take that first step towards coming up with where I was going to next. And then the next step after that.
Mandate No. 2 is See It Better Than It Is.
What’s the outcome I really want? You know, as you look at what’s been presented to you, eg. if someone’s walked into your office and they’ve got this going on, or there’s an email and that’s going on, or there’s something big in the news, that’s really going to impact your business.
If you can just get yourself centred first, even with your team, say ‘let’s go through mandate 1. Okay. Now, how about we see it better than it is, and let’s brainstorm it together and come up with what is it that we are looking towards (and not away from) to be our outcome?
What’s the main thing that we can Focus on to move forward with this issue?
It might not be something that you can solve today. It might not be the most pressing issue for you right now. It might be that you choose to schedule a time to get together and have everyone put their input to you.
Because once you’ve done that, you will have also allowed yourself space for Mandate No. 3.
And that’s Make It The Way You See It.
So if you can bring yourself around to establishing an outcome, and I’m an outcomes- or vision-focused coach, it will help you so much to use your time and energy more effectively, and that is such a calming thing.
Pull yourself back into the space of what is it we want to do? What is the outcome? What are the measurements? How are we going to know we got there? What’s it going to look like? How are we going to feel?
How are we going to make it the way we see it?
It might be that you set a timeline, and write out what it is you need to have done right before you’ve made it happen? Then what would you need to have done just before that, and before that, back to today’s actions.
That’s it, the 3 Mandates of Leadership. They have got me through so many times of really big crises, as well as small. I also applied it in my own personal relationships. My other roles include that of wife, daughter, mother of three adult daughters now, friend and aunty. I have applied the 3 mandates to the way I react to things, and practice listening without expectations, or applying my own story, to what’s going on for someone else.
I hope that helps you today. Be back soon! Remember to get yourself a copy of the poster before you get back to your day.