The more stressed people are, the more impatient they become. When impatient people congregate, mood and morale gets worse…and bad feelings accelerate.
Leaders know the value of patience. Those who exercise it regularly are rewarded by everything from diffusing people’s anxiety and bad moods to making better decisions.
The OMICRON variant of COVID is hitting different parts of the country in waves. New York City, for example, has suffered quite a bit as the level of contagion has been higher and more aggressive than previous waves of the virus.
To illustrate, at the end of December a third of the New York City Fire Department was out on leave because of the volume of people who had contracted the virus.
Leaders are faced with all sorts of decisions daily; some are innocuous, others significant. Most decisions are made primarily on autopilot. You’ve done something a million times, a similar situation arises, and you act on it quickly without giving it much thought.
Other decisions, however, take a lot more effort especially because they are out of your day-to-day comfort zone. This could be a decision to hire or fire a key employee or to embark on capital expenditures that are higher than you’ve authorized in the past.
I hope your first week of the new year is going well and has set the tone for productive, meaningful, and healthy weeks ahead. We talked about goals in December, and presumably you’ve come up with some that suit your outlook for the months ahead.
Goals involve identifying tangible factors that will presumably be achieved at some point in the future. Some people are successful working towards these kinds of objectives; others lose attention early in the process. Goal setting and achievement is largely a cognitive process, so you rely on your brain to get you to your destination.