Reserving Leadership Judgement

It’s difficult to hold back when we observe a situation where we believe it could have been handled differently. We have a human tendency (really a form of a bias) to go negative fairly quickly. We run our mental assessment engine which prompts a lot of thoughts around “why did they do that”, “what a mistake” or “what I would have done…” or “they are not the right person for this position”..

With this is the fact that when we go negative, we are shifting more of our brain functions to our emotional control center (Amygdala). We often do not make our best assessments/decisions in that condition.

What further complicates our judgement (and how it reveals itself through our resulting communication), is our belief that we are proficient in the area that we are assessing someone or that we understand what is going on in that persons mind or even life story. We love to 2nd guess people in leadership roles and most often we lack direct experience of being in their position or situation.

My advice is that we become more self aware of our negative thinking about a person in a leadership role. Leadership is highly complicated and multi-dimensional. Yes, we are entitled to our opinion. But opinions are not facts and opinions are insufficient to make informed assessments around someones decision processes. We “over extend” our level of knowledge of the persons position.

Practice reserving judgement for individuals in leadership roles-in sports, business, education and law enforcement. Unless you have been in the exact role under the identical challenging circumstances, your ability to accurately assess is minimal to non existent. Elevate your emotional IQ capability to have a more measured perspective and response.