Emergency living personalities:
Is your profile affecting your leadership?
by Diane Sieg
Health care attracts high-energy achievers. After all, this exciting, demanding business requires creativity and innovation, as well as ability to shift priorities and problem-solve, sometimes from moment to moment. How we handle those challenges—managing the people, priorities and commitments in our life—can pave our path to success, but sometimes the biggest obstacle is ourself.
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| Diane Sieg |
Each of us has inherent traits that drew us to health care in the first place and that help us channel our energy toward positive outcomes. But what happens when personality traits become personality traps? Consider these five “emergency-living” personality profiles, and see which ones may be predisposing you and your profession to chronic chaos and crisis management.
The controller
Leadership is about taking charge, but what happens when you start feeling you are the only one who can get the job done—the only one who can write the new policy, interview the new administrative assistant or run the meeting? When your need to control starts controlling you, you end up doing it all. Pretty soon you’ll find yourself tapped out and exhausted, without the energy to think creatively about your organization’s future.
Empowered leaders know how to delegate.Ask yourself: “What can I delegate in my day to help me be more effective in my vision for this organization?”
The perfectionist
Of course you want things done right, but when you can’t say something is “good enough” unless you have struggled with it and reworked it several times, you may be a perfectionist. Perfectionism eats up time and energy. Each deadline you let slip because you can’t let go causes you to fall further behind—leaving you running that much faster just to keep up.
Empowered leaders strive for excellence rather than perfection. Ask yourself: “What do I need to let go to keep my staff, project or vision moving forward?”
The driver
Take a careful look at the demands you make on yourself and others. If you’re constantly pushing yourself to do more, work more, take on more, you may be setting unrealistic standards. This drive for “more” can lead you to become hypercritical—an emergency-living trait that produces burnout and disappointment, especially with the demands and pressure that plague today’s health care leaders.
Empowered leaders understand the value of meeting career demands with a healthy and balanced approach to life. Ask yourself: “Are my personal goals and expectations reasonable and realistic? How about the goals and expectations I have for my staff?
I was my breakthrough!
I’ve been working on my second book and too often felt like I was taking one step forward and three steps back. So when I heard about a class called Breakthroughs, I hoped it might help me with the process.
It was fascinating to hear about all the different breakthroughs my classmates wanted to experience. Each of us was faced with some sort of transition, including ending an old relationship or starting a new one; leaving a job or finding a passion; starting a weight loss program or writing a book.
Through interactive exercises and home study, I learned a lot about the dynamic process of breaking through. The most important piece for me was the realization that my potential “breakthrough” had nothing to do with outside forces, other people or existing circumstances; it had everything to do with me. I am the breakthrough, and my success is determined by how I choose to show up regardless of my mood, fear, doubts or pain.
With that realization came the chance to practice: I let go of my “I’m not really a writer” story that wasn’t serving me and made a conscious decision to take a loving, open and trusting approach toward myself and the process. I wrote 10 affirmations about my writing and repeated them out loud—for example, I am finishing my best-selling book—and I focused on this process 10 minutes every morning and evening through reading, writing and meditating.
After just two weeks of this practice, I felt as if something truly had shifted in me. When I sent pages to my editor, she e-mailed back: “What happened? You have had a real breakthrough in your writing!” I knew that I was the breakthrough. With these simple—but not easy—and powerful changes in how I show up, I have made more progress on my book in four weeks than I have in four months.
You may not be writing a book, but you are writing your story every single day, by choosing how you show up in the world. Where would you like to break through?
—Diane Sieg, from her “Take Good Care Tip of the Month” newsletter
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The adrenaline junkie
Hospitals are full of real-life drama and daily life-and-death decisions. Not surprisingly, this environment attracts people who tend to thrive on fast-paced activity and the chaos that goes with it. But what happens when you create stressful situations to meet your need for excitement? Attraction to “emergencies” is often characterized by unhealthy relationships, ridiculous schedules and impractical commitments. Adrenaline junkies are often procrastinators: You think you work best under pressure, when all you’re really doing is increasing your anxiety level, a sure way to sap energy and emotional reserves.
Empowered leaders are proactive instead of reactive.Ask yourself: “How can I keep enthusiasm for my position without risking burnout?”
The rescuer
By definition, leaders are problem-solvers. Health care is all about helping, but what happens when you make stepping in to help others your main focus? You may get kudos for helping the team—and find yourself behind the eight ball when it comes to meeting your own obligations and commitments.
Empowered leaders understand that making a difference in the lives of others means being strategic in how to offer and provide help. Ask yourself: “How can I give back without giving too much?”
Be honest. Do you ever lead like it’s an emergency? Stop running and start winning by clarifying the emergency-living personality traits behind your leadership style. Cleaning up your own act allows you to lead by example. Become an empowered leader and role model, and you benefit everyone in your organization. RNL
Diane Sieg, RN, CLC, has worked as an emergency room nurse in hospitals across the country for more than 20 years. Today, as a professional speaker, author and lifestyle expert, she helps health care professionals stay out of the emergency room of life, both at work and at home. She is the author of Stop Living Life Like an Emergency! Rescue Strategies for the Overworked and Overwhelmed (LifeLine Press). For more information, visit www.dianesieg.com
Continuing nursing education: The following course is offered by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International: Leading in a Globalized World, by Judith Oulton, chief executive officer, International Council of Nurses.
