#21: Why Inconsistency Drains Your Influence and How to Stop It

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dawn:  Recording

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And eventually trust gives way to hesitation and momentum stalls. And here's what's interesting. We don't lose influence all at once. It's not one data point, one experience that undermines mm-hmm. That influence it's consistent data points. That are inconsistent, that communicate inconsistency, that actually drive this this  diminishing of influence.

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And those leaders who struggle with it, they don't often even realize that they're sending these mixed signals. But let me tell you. The team, we felt it. We felt that sense of unpredictability, like, which way are we going today? What are we showing up  for? So tell me your thoughts on this. How does inconsistency actually affect trust and performance?

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She likes things organized right? She's clear about the mission that she's on, what she wants to accomplish, what are the goals and objectives. She wakes up with like a to-do list in her head. Me not  even close. I'm like the other side of this continuum where I. Prefer to fly by the seat of my pants.

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eric: And then I draw a little  picture of a balloon and I say, isn't that that balloon with some helium? Beautiful. It's floating around in the sky.

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And where is it? Maybe it's gonna float away. We don't know. Right? And so there are some people that are more comfortable being the balloon up at however many feet, and they enjoy that broad, big  perspective. And they enjoy, and other people are more comfortable. They want to be the one holding the string and anchoring.

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eric: I've been learn this for years and as a, as a young leader in my twenties and early thirties, I did not realize how much the way I operated was sending a message that I did not want to send to the people on my  team.

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And yet when you start to build a team, because you've  made it through the entrepreneur phase. Those same skills are what can be your downfall. Yes. Yes. And so as leaders, we need to pay attention. I, I find always, but especially in some of those crucial growth moments as we're going from solopreneur to team or small team to large team.

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eric: Yeah. It's such a great question. Well, I, I said this before we jumped on to record the podcast. I, we, don and I were reflecting and I was saying, Meg, my gosh, this is a story of my life and leadership in my younger years.  I leaned very heavily into my natural preferences and wiring and temperament and and so yeah.

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Cars are moving at very high speeds. And why is it that there aren't more accidents than there already are? Mm-hmm.  Well, because there are laws and rules and parameters and expectations and boundaries on a freeway that people subscribe to submit themselves to. Yeah. So that everybody can get to where they're going more safely.

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eric: So that is just to maybe help our listeners have a, a more visceral experience of, of what people feel with us. Or I'm sure we all have our stories of leaders. We've worked for that, that we felt this with them where we felt like,  gosh, you know what? I don't think you mean to impact me this way, but by virtue of how you're operating, you are impacting the environment this way.

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eric: Well, we know that feeling, right? When you're on the freeway and people are moving lanes because there's traffic and everyone's kind of suddenly  acting very erratically. Mm-hmm. What happens? Well, I was listening to music. I was listening to a podcast. I was thinking about where I'm going and the conversation I'm gonna have or what I'm trying to accomplish, and all of a sudden now all of your energy gets reallocated.

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I'm not asking you to give up these other qualities of who you are, but I, I am  suggesting that for you to lead at a more significant level you have to learn how to create an environment that feels more predictable, secure, stable, so that people feel like they can follow you. And that, that rocked my world because it was not only in the workplace I was experiencing this reality, I was experiencing it in my marriage with my kids, with friends, with whoever clients, because I was not operating with a quality of predictability.

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Okay? I'm gonna get up at this time in the morning. I'm gonna do X, Y, or Z first thing. When I get up, I'm going to eat or not eat this kind of breakfast in the morning. I'm gonna have two cups of coffee. I'm gonna show up to work at this time, I'm whatever it  is. I'm gonna take this route on my way to work.

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dawn: Yeah.

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'cause we know where we're gonna be, what we're gonna do. We're not waking up every morning asking this question, what am  I doing today? I don't know. Mm-hmm. Secondly, it gives us a chance to begin to have expectations of the return and to measure, are these investments in fact giving me this particular return?

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Whatever the case is, we, we can evolve our patterns. But having those in the calendar, knowing when I'm gonna work out, when I'm gonna play golf, when I'm gonna hang out with my family, knowing when we're gonna have dinner, knowing these things  creates an environment where people are, are no longer using that mental margin.

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dawn: Because we aren't, we aren't using that mental margin, but we know these are the  bounds that I'm operating in. Now I get to, yeah, as you were saying, flex and see what works and, and tweak here and there, but without those boundaries, it's actually just chaos. Yep. And, and so that was really helpful for me as somebody who does identify as a creative to say, okay.

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eric: However, what it does is actually  create opport more opportunity for us, I think in the long run, which is very difficult for people, but we have to remember in creating predictable patterns.

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eric: Set  a standard for how you want to show up and how you wanna operate. In your home life, work life, wherever, define your follow through.

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Because of the turn signal, come on in, let's do this. And I think that's must be nice. I must be nice. Came back to California and was like, what just happened? I was terrified to drive on the freeways for the first six months. But the, the point is those turn signals are really important so that people again, aren't guessing.

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So we, we talk about learning to live in the tension between the, the organized and the organic. Mm-hmm. We need systems and structure, but only to the degree that they serve the organic growth mm-hmm. Of whatever it's that we're fighting for. We have structure and  spontaneity. Right. These are the, these are the tension points we want.

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And so here's what I would love to do. I'm just gonna own for our listeners that. Under a, a, a  radical amount of pressure, I defaulted to, to either or I defaulted. What's most comfortable for me is I'm gonna go back into my entrepreneurial mindset and I'm just gonna be like, we're gonna try this and that.

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dawn: Yeah. Interestingly, so as we have alluded to, you and I have similar wirings and, I have been a part of the Empower Team for our listeners for about three years in different capacities, and we, our, our organization did go through a, a significant transition about two years  ago-Ish.

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And so all of that work and energy that I'd done for however long Yeah. Was now.  Useless in a lot of ways. Yep. And now we're going in another direction. And even that was okay the first couple of times, but when it started happening consistently mm-hmm. It was like. At what point do I stop putting all this out?

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Yeah. Of you going, why isn't Dawn performing? And me going, I don't know what I'm supposed to be delivering.  Yeah. Yeah. And and it felt like it was, it was like we have gleaned so much learning from that season, but in that season it felt like a lot of wasted time and energy.

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Allowing our team to hold you accountable for staying in the lane. Yeah. Yeah. For, you know, because it, it can be it's tricky when you, obviously you're the CEO of our organization. You tell us what to do.  And in a lot of way, like in most organizations, it's like, okay, well let's do that. And so then, but then to be given permission to push back and say, no, Eric.

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Because it can all sound like, oh, we have hard conversations and then yeah, we did start to practice these things. With each  other, but what is the experience today, you know, versus them?

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One failure or one misstep doesn't mean Eric's gonna pull the rug out from under us. Yeah. And, and interestingly. What that ha The fruit that that has borne for our team is the ability, as we say on our team to try things and refine them. Mm-hmm. As long as we're going in the  same direction and has it has increased our ability to take risks, to be creative, to take chances, to try new things in the service of the larger vision.

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eric: Because my natural wiring is  vision, vision, vision, pivot, pivot, pivot, try new things, pivot, pivot, pivot, you know?

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Let's go. Like literally, I remember experiencing the, both, the pain of that tension, the discomfort of it, but also seeing the radical reward on the other side of the fact that my wife and I were able to partner in building a lot  of amazing things over the years. And so in this season where my wife is not a part of this team, and I think what happened is under extreme pressure with you guys, with my current team, I, I defaulted back to who I was in my youngest years. Like mentally, if you'd asked me, I know the value of having people that can push back and hold your feet to the fire and keep you on course. And I know I need that, but under extreme pressure I just defaulted to what felt most familiar to me.

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eric: And quite honestly. Really did run the risk of losing this team and which would've been terrible. Would've been a powerful learning experience for me. That's how I've learned most things through life, is through my mistakes. But I'm so grateful that we were able to have those conversations, determine how we wanna operate, so that we can live in the both and right at the framework and the freedom, the, the structure and the spontaneity, the balloon, and the string tied to an anchor  point.

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dawn: And I wanna point  out, I, I think your vulnerability in this is so powerful because as leaders. We are going to experience times of great pressure. Mm-hmm. And it is only natural in those moments. It's our natural wiring that we are gonna default to what feels most comfortable. We can know every leadership strategy out there.

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eric: A hundred percent.  Yeah. And that's really part of the power of our operating, our leadership operating system, is that it provides tracks for people to run on so that we're not having to reinvent the wheel over and over and over and over again.

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eric: Like you did at that Starbucks that, you know, on, on, on that one first session. And to resist the  temptation to blame or to become a victim and to say, okay I'm clearly not impacting the environment the way that I want to. So what's, what's a, or what are multiple predictable patterns that I can put into place that will create a more stable and secure experience for the people around me?

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That somebody has to step up and say, then how do I create an  environment in which people can experience that and operate well in the face of all of the world's insecurity and instability

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eric: To the things that we're discussing.  Next week we're gonna be talking about something we all wrestle with, which is what to do when insecurity, or what we call the imposter syndrome, starts to creep into our mindset, our thinking, our attitudes, and our behaviors.