Tom is a childhood friend of my brother’s. He lived about four houses from us since our junior-high days, and the guys have been friends for years. After getting his degree from Purdue, Tom went to work for a steel company. The guys have another friend, Mark, who, after graduating, wound up leasing a seat at the Mercantile Exchange and later buying it.
Fast-forward several years, when Tom is married with four sons. A couple other friends of their jumped on the “Merc bandwagon” and were doing quite well. By now Mark was a millionaire. Mark offered to help Tom get started working at the Merc. Of course, that would mean Tom would have to quit his job at the steel company, and still support four children and two adults.
I don’t recall how long he took to consider the offer. Eventually he quit the steel company job and headed to the Merc.
My brother’s friends said that for Tom’s first two months at the Merc he looked like a deer caught in headlights.
I recalled Tom’s story as I watched another episode of The Apprentice. Contestants who had watched other people in the role of the project manager on their teams seemed to forget everything they learned from observation.
They could have made actual lists (if not on paper then at least in their minds) of what had worked and what had not worked for previous project managers, and then applied what they learned when it was their turn to lead their team.
Rather, I saw deer-caught-in-headlights expressions. Then compassion would kick in and I cut them some slack as I thought, “Well, they’re on TV, so of course they’re nervous.”
But then I would think, “Hello? You’re on TV and you know it! Create a plan and act on it!”
The truth is, you don’t have to be on TV managing a team to get stuck looking like a deer caught in headlights while in a leadership role. You could be leading -
* a corporate division
* a small business’ distribution area
* a meeting of a dozen people in a conference room
* your kid’s soccer team
and just freeze.
So what do you do when you’re in a new leadership situation and you’re feeling as if every good idea just took a vacation from your brain? (Who told all of those good ideas they could leave now?)
1. Pretend you’re an actor. Let’s face it: Actors get paid to display emotions that aren’t real. The best in their field are skilled at making us believe they know something they don’t actually know or feel something they don’t actually feel. Some adult education programs offer classes called “Acting for Non-actors,” which teaches acting skills for real-world social situations (such as leadership). Get the mindset of an actor to help you act more confident (until you really are).
2. Put on your game face. Think about that deer-caught-in-headlights look you’ve seen on other people. Your “game face” should be the opposite of that look. Rather than looking lost, frozen, or fearful, your game face will be purposeful and assured. Stop by a mirror occasionally to check what you see in your eyes. Make adjustments if necessary. (If you don’t want people to see you do this, keep a small mirror in your pocket and take it to a place where you will have privacy.)
3. Take a couple breaks in the day to write, review, or adjust a brief list of important topics & ideas. These will be topics that tend to take a vacation from your brain at the worst possible moments. Keep the list handy. By reviewing it regularly, those topics and ideas will be more likely to “stay” in your mind even when you’re likely to freeze up.
Several years after Tom started his work at the Merc, I was headed downtown to a client’s office, walking through the train station around 11:30 in the morning. Passing me to catch a train to go home was Tom, looking confident. He was finished with his work for the day. Not bad. Life is good.
