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management blog - staying calm as a manager
There is no doubt that as a manager, you are likely to get frustrated. If we are honest this could be reasonably often; people may not work the same way we do, and of course, sometimes people may have different values and work ethics, and we will get frustrated and angry. Of course, this is called life; we will always meet people who frustrate us.
Being someone who can naturally get frustrated with people I want to let you in a secret I have known about for a long time its called 'Staying Calm'. This secret is fantastic; when we are calm, we are in control and have full control of our actions. Being calm is a very powerful way to be, calm people are typically the ones who ultimately win.
Within our brains, we have an essential part called the Amygdala; this part of our brain reacts in three states, fight, flight or freeze. This part of our brain isn't very smart, it is very reactionary and will kick in when we get frustrated or angry. The resulting action is that adrenalin is forced around our body, and the resulting effect isn't beneficial. Watch people when they are angry or outraged; they look out of control; this is a consequent action of the Amygdala. By the way, we all have this or all have the potential to use it.
Staying calm requires control, and we achieve control by thinking. Asking ourselves really good effective questions can help us significantly in this area when we ask good effective questions such as "Why am I getting angry with this person?" or "What made this person do this?" we have to look for an answer; we really have to, and we can't help but look for an answer. The resulting action is that our thoughts move away from the Amygdala, and we start to use our creative brain to look for a solution using logic and reason.
What happens then is that our whole physical presence changes, our heart rate reduces, we don't look like we are about to attack someone, we look in total control. This is an excellent way of being! So the best way to stay calm is to think and how do we do that? We ask ourselves questions, great empowering questions.
Ralph Moody is the founder of Target Training and specialises in trainer and management development. You can read more about him here.