Thoughts Unlocked – Reactive Leadership Will Destroy You

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00:00 Intro
01:28 Putting out fires: the trap of constant reactivity
03:03 The psychology behind reactivity (Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 vs. System 2)
04:18 Shifting from a threat mindset to an opportunity mindset
05:08 Reactive vs. Proactive leaders (the difference in behavior)
06:48 Weekly challenge (Catch yourself in a reactive moment)
07:36 Outro

I’m Skot Waldron, and when I’m not hosting Unlocked, I’m speaking at events all over the globe, helping leaders and teams communicate better, build trust faster, and actually enjoy working together. I know, who would have thought? I’ve spoken for companies like The Home Depot, I’ve spoken at national architectural firms, at their sales trainings, off-sites for major pharmaceutical companies, and industry associations.

A thousand of attendees who have read my sessions. With 99% of them saying they found the sessions valuable. 97% saying they’d actually attend again. I’ve had caterers come up to me afterwards and thank me because they actually got something they could use when they went home or when they went back to their own jobs. I mean, if every keynote delivered those types of numbers, nobody would secretly be refreshing their email under the table. And let’s be honest, that’s a little bit of my nightmare, maybe a little bit of yours. Yeah, something that keeps me up at night.

If you’re an event planner, looking for a speaker who’s easy to work with and delivers actual value that people can take away and use on Monday. Let’s make your event unforgettable.

Welcome back to Unlocked, the podcast where I talk about leadership, without all the fluff, the jargon, or a 47 slide PowerPoint. No, I don’t do that. Today, I’m going to talk to you about something every business wrestles with, and this is being reactive versus proactive. I know you know what I’m talking about.

Many of you out there are busy. You’re putting out fires. We call them fires. You’re always putting out fires. You know, a competitor launches a new product, and suddenly your team is panicking, asking, “well, should we do that too” or client complaints and everyone scrambles to “fix it” and duct tape it instead really stepping back and solving the root issue. It’s like running a business with the fire extinguisher permanently strap to your back. Yeah, it can be effective at times, because you know what, there are fires. I’m not going to deny that there aren’t fires. But is everything a fire? Really? And if everything is a fire, then you have other problems that you really need to address. But is this exhausting? Absolutely. And I would think all of you would agree with me that it is extremely exhausting.

Here is the funny thing. Or maybe it’s not funny. I don’t know. Being reactive, it feels productive, right? Like you feel like you’re doing a lot. You feel like you’re solving problems. You’re busy. People see you putting out fires and assume you’re the hero and you’re taking care of things. You know, Skot will get it, or Jerry will get it. I always use Jerry. I don’t know. Jerry just seems like a person who would fix things. But, in reality, you’re just running on other people’s timelines. Isn’t that what we’re doing? We’re just kind of reacting to everybody else’s fire and then we’re actually having to put that out, so competitors are setting the pace, clients are setting the agenda and you’re not leading anything, you’re just chasing everything, and social psychology backs this up.

Daniel Kahneman’s research on System 1 versus System 2 Thinking this was interesting. System 1versus System 2 Thinking shows that we default to reactive quick decisions under pressure. We default to that. That’s our accidental behavior, y’all. But those decisions rarely set us up for long-term success. They just make us feel good in the moment. We trade long-term growth and success and satisfaction for the short-term satisfaction, the quick hit, the dopamine hit that we all are looking for, or the “I’m the hero” in this moment type of thinking. So how do you break this cycle?

Let’s start by focusing on unique strengths and opportunities. Not all the competitor’s shiny objects or the competitor’s new thing or that one client that we lost that one time because they did that one thing with the competitor. And now we have to do that thing. No, that’s not what we have to do. That’s not strategy. Those are tactics and tactics are just, Yeah, they’re temporary. Here’s one shift worth writing down. You ready? Only if you’re not driving.

I want you to move from a threat mindset to an opportunity mindset. Instead of asking, how do we keep up with these people? Ask, what are we uniquely positioned to do better than everyone else? And when I ask this question, I was doing this in my brand strategy days, and I’ll ask this sometimes of people now, what do you do uniquely better than anybody else? And people have a really hard time with that. And I understand it, and that’s why you have to process it and really, really go out on a limb and really think about this thing. Maybe ask other people.

Here’s a practical tip. I want you to block time for strategy. Block time for strategy. Literally, put it on your calendar. I call it gear five time, Focus time. Block it out. Turn your alerts off. All your everything, notifications, turn them off, close your email, whatever you have to do to make sure you can focus. Because reactive leaders, they live in their inbox. They wait for that other email to come through and then they just react to it, react to it, react to it. I know you know what I’m talking about. I’m going to say that again because it’s true. You know what I’m talking about.

Proactive leaders, they carve out space to think about the future. New markets, new client needs, new ways to serve, ways to build your team. That’s what they do. When leaders shift from reactive to proactive, the culture changes. I mean, I’ve seen it. Stress goes down. Confidence goes up. People stop playing defense and start innovating. I’m doing some strategic planning stuff right now with teams. And that is proactive. That is intentional. That is being ahead. That is setting the pace. And that’s what I want you to be thinking about.

Your competitors, when you do this, your competitors become less scary. In fact, you focus less on your competition because you’re focused on your advancement. You’re focused on your vision, how you’re going to innovate. We need to be aware of our competition. I get it. We need to understand what’s going on, but we don’t need to center our entire strategy around what our competitors are doing. Because, you know, here’s the thing. While we are chasing noise, there’s a lot of things going on in the background. I don’t want us chasing noise. I want everybody else chasing noise. While they’re chasing the noise. What do we build it? We’re building something that lasts. So, let’s be those people. Let’s not be the ones chasing the noise.

Here’s your challenge. This week, catch yourself at a reactive moment. Before you hit reply and before you chase the competition, I want you to stop, and I want you to ask yourself this question. Is this a fire to put out or an opportunity to build something better. Okay, that’s your question. That’s your question of the week. I want you to think about it.

Thank you for tuning in to another Thoughts Unlocked episode. If this episode sparked an idea, share it with your team, or you know what, that colleague who’s always looks like they’re about to pass out from carrying what? A fire extinguisher. That’s right, y’all. Let’s unload the fire extinguisher. Let’s put it in the cabinet where it belongs. Make sure everybody knows where it is because there are fires sometimes, but let’s not carry it around. Okay? Until next time, let’s keep unlocking what’s possible.

If you want to find out more information about me or check out the show notes where there’s going to be more information and links to the things referenced in this episode, visit skotwaldron.com. And lastly, I’m asking for a little bit of love, just a little bit. So please take a moment, follow, rate the show. The algorithm is like that; it helps me get the word out. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And until next time, stay on Unlocked.