Limitations of Reactive Leadership - A Focus on Belonging & Passive

The Limitations of Reactive Leadership – A Focus on Belonging & Passive

An Excerpt from Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results, by Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams (Wiley, 2015)

The word reactive is to be hasty, kneejerk, imprudent, combative, oversensitive, unthinking, touchy, volatile, or sensitive.

Reactive leadership focuses only the problems occurring in the moment. This management approach makes prioritizing and focusing on the long term more difficult. Instead of allowing daily activities or routines to control your day, you want to be more intentional and do the things that really matter and will produce significant results.

Reactive leadership focuses on problems and how to fix them as they surface.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, reactive is an adjective defined as “done in response to a problem or situation: reacting to problems when they occur instead of doing something to prevent them.” In this episode I will unpack belonging and passive under in reactive leadership regarding complying.

Belonging is about your need to conform, follow the rules, and meet the expectations of those in authority. It is the extent to which you establish a sense of worth and security from belonging to the group and living by the norms, rules, and values of that group. It is also about the extent to which you go along to get along; thereby, compressing the full extent of your creative power into culturally acceptable boxes. There are challenges with wanting to belong just for the sake of it. It is wanting to belong impacting your leadership authenticity. Is your quest to belong causing you to violate your personal beliefs and values? It is nice to belong but is belonging causing you to alienate your team and other leaders.

Being Passive describes the degree to which you give away your power to others and to circumstances outside your control. It is the extent to which you believe that you are not the creator of your life experience, that your efforts do not make much difference, and that you lack the power to create the future you want. Being passive creates significant challenges for you as a leader and in your life. Those who go through life passively will miss out on life, impact their mission, vision and destiny. Do not allow organizational politics, leadership infighting, turf wars, manipulations to cause you to destroy your self-concept, self-identify, self-esteem and who you are at the core. Be a leader or person who is courageous, bold.

Have a fantastic week and thank you for listening to Transformation4Change Podcast. Together, we make a difference.