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Bryan Miles > Looking past face value
One of the qualities I look for in my leaders is their ability to look past the face value of a situation,
past the words coming out of someone’s mouth, a crisis, a challenge, or a problem. There’s usually more than meets the eye, and a good (or at least developing leader) will look past face value.
Looking past the face value of any set of conditions provides amazing motives, many ah-ha moments, and even clarity for a leader. Here are some ways to help your leaders look past the obvious:
- Words are just words, but there’s a ton of emotion behind them. By looking past face value, you can see if someone is in pain, nervous, feeling cornered, needs help, etc. Ask a deeper question and see where it takes you. Sit back and listen. Over time, if you do this enough you’ll gain a crazy amount of insight and intel on what to do next.
- A crisis usually doesn’t happen overnight. There are usually significant fault lines leading up to a crisis. Teach your leaders to look past the emergency and see who is currently in need. Then, work backwards and ask tough questions about WHY the crisis occurred. “It just happened” is never the real reason.
- Winning in a challenge or achieving a goal is great, but looking past face value to help a team member, a department, and other leaders see the WHY of the win helps you as a leader gain a deeper, longer view on the initiatives of a company. Taking five to 10 minutes to explain and teach this to a leader worth keeping pays almost mind-blowing dividends in the future.
- Look inside you. When you well up with emotion, STOP and ask yourself, “What is going on here within me? WHY am I acting or reacting this way?” Looking past the face value of your reactions can be a powerful remedy to a potentially potent disaster. As a leader, oftentimes how you react is a catalyst for what happens next.
Real-life leadership doesn’t happen on a resume or LinkedIn. It happens daily, minute-by-minute, in organizations all over the world by great leaders, good leaders, mediocre leaders, and crappy leaders too. The best leaders I know and admire have an amazing way of getting out of the fog of uncertain situations and are still able to be present and lead. They can look past face value to guide more effectively. Your career can grow rapidly by doing this well – or it can fail fast by your not developing a perceptive leadership skill like this.
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Books by Bryan Miles
About Bryan Miles
Bryan Miles is CEO & Co-founder of Miles Advisory Group (a parent company to the Brands of eaHELP and MAG Bookkeeping) and is blessed to run this company with his wife, Shannon. Prior to starting MAG, he worked for companies in the tech and construction industries including Cogun, a national church construction company as the VP of Consulting. Bryan obtained his B.A. in Business from Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Mount Vernon, OH (and where he met Shannon as well).
Bryan, Shannon and their daughter Rainey and son Harper attend church at the Browns Bridge campus of North Point Community Church and live in North Atlanta, GA. Besides playing legos, building forts, or drawing & coloring with his kids, or hanging out at the beach with his family, Bryan also enjoys backpacking, mountain climbing, writing, reading old history about Mount Everest climbs, and watching episodes of Goldrush on Discovery.
Find great resources from Bryan Miles at Amazon.com.
Connect with Bryan on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, or his blog.
