Jakarta, 16 November 2022 — Who you see has implications for your leadership.

Story

It happened last week. As we were catching up over a cup of strong black coffee, a fellow leader discussed about his favorite way of seeing people in the workplace. What he said next made me sit up with curiosity. Rather than focusing on the other person’s behaviors and performance, he said, he preferred to “see inside them and look for their potential.” And, as he explained it, what he found by practicing this would invariably lead him to create new and better ways to support them in their career development. What a remarkable insight — literally — I thought.

Next, in another conversation, a trusted friend shared about her habit of “seeing the soul inside a person she was meeting, rather than their outside.” That, again, piqued my interest. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see someone’s soul? Elaborating, she shared how this had become second nature, allowing her to develop deeper connections with the people she met, with more insights resulting from the conversations. The way she put it, she could appreciate people more deeply, even when they showed up sometimes with a displeasing habit. Her story kept me thinking for several days.

From reflecting on these two insights, I realized how important it is for leaders to see more in the people we meet, so that we can consistently add value to each situation we find ourselves in. It’s not for nothing, I thought, that leadership is said to happen in relationships and conversations. In that light, who we see in the people we meet becomes a central question that can make all the difference in our work and personal life. So what is our challenge that keeps us from seeing more in people?

Challenge

What gets in the way for us to see the potential or the soul journey of the people we meet? And how can we get beyond our limited vision? That’s what I pondered this week. In my experience, we can unpack this challenge into three parts. First, what our conditioned mind makes us see. Second, what we can see by redirecting our minds. And third, what is revealed to us about other people when we practice using a coaching style in some of our conversations. I also reflected that the challenge is about how we manage our conditioning from the past, our openness in the present moment, and our leaning into possibilities for the future.

Clearly, our challenge starts with becoming aware of the limitations in what our conditioned mind makes us see. That is easier said than done, however, because our mind is ever busy to help us make decisions by categorizing the people we meet, for example based on visual clues of how they look, dress, behave and what they say. New inputs are instantly combined with the huge volume of stored ‘data’ about specific people and about categories of people that our mind has already processed from past experiences. Let me repeat that: from the past. Most of this mental processing happens subconsciously and it interferes with our capacity for openness for new information coming in from the present, and how this can create possibilities for the future. 

As leaders, our first challenge is, therefore, to cultivate our awareness of what is really going on when we meet someone, including in our conditioned mind, so that we can see the other person beyond the mental image that our mind is quickly conjuring up for us. What we say in the Grow3Leaders community is that leaders act from an expanded self-awareness. Making that happen takes continuous practice, which allows us to connect better and discover more about the people we meet. We learn how to intentionally redirect our mind and open ourselves to discovering more, for example by observing and acknowledging, by asking questions, and by active listening. In that way, we are able to connect deeper and become aware of the other person’s potential, and what we can do to help them along on their leadership journey.

Question

Building on the two stories and the challenge we unpacked, my question for you this week is this: when you meet someone, who do you see? Reflect on that for a while. And as you do, contemplate what internal processes are involved in your seeing other people. In particular, what the role is that your conditioned mind plays in determining who you see. Question, for example, how you are influenced by what they wear, how they look, what they say, and how that reminds of you of other people who dress in a similar way, look similar, or talk in a similar way. What comes up quickly in your mind, and where does that come from?

In Asia and around the world, we have developed many categories to apply to the people we meet. Our minds, ever trying to quickly help us make sense of the world, will use such categories all the time, even when that results in oversimplification, stereotyping, and discrimination. Think about tall and short people, dark and light, old and young, rich and poor, conservative and progressive. Consider who you see in this week’s banner photo. What comes to mind when you meet a person wearing a face mask, compared to someone who doesn’t. A person wearing a head covering compared to someone who doesn’t? What about an executive who comes to office in a jacket and tie, compared to an executive wearing a t-shirt? Think about it.

How about coming up with at least three more of such contrasting pairs yourself, especially those that may speak about cultural patterns of social exclusion in your workplace and community. Then consider how the involuntary judgments conjured up by your mind can quickly get in the way of seeing another person’s potential and their soul journey. As leaders, we want to release ourselves from the bonds of the conditioned mind. For as long as we remain stuck in these bonds, we can’t connect deeply enough with people to drive changes together in the present and the future. That is why we practice expanding our self-awareness during leadership coaching and in the Grow3Leaders community. If you are interested, book a free strategy call so that we can discuss what lies ahead in your leadership journey.