The Important Role of Acceptance in Leadership
It is easy to get trapped into situations that are less than ideal. When you find yourself in these situations, it is easy to begin directing your energy towards resisting the circumstances. Yet, as a leader, we only have so much energy to go around.
What would happen if you transformed the energy you used resisting something that's beyond your control into energy that could be used to move your vision forward? How can you prevent yourself from getting caught up in something you have no control over?
Here lies the important role of acceptance in leadership.
What Is Acceptance?
It is often thought that acceptance equals resignation, giving up, or tolerating something that is not good for you. “Oh, well, I'll just accept this”. In the Lead True Model for True Leadership, acceptance is about being with a current situation wholly and completely - your emotional reactions included. It means being able to be at peace with the situation as it occurs.
““Acceptance means not being in an argument with reality. Something’s happening, it’s outside of my control. And I can either choose to be in an argument and wish that it was a different way or be frustrated that it’s not, or simply have the opportunity to accept like, oh, this is the way it is.””
Why Is Acceptance Essential In Leadership?
Acceptance plays an important role in leadership because it opens you up to connection and possibility. When acceptance is present, you feel a sense of relief and spaciousness as you let go of judgment. It allows you as a leader to bring a different kind of mental energy to what you're doing.
When you're in a place of acceptance, you're able to lead from a place of possibility and look at what you and your team can do moving forward as opposed to focusing on what went wrong. When acceptance is missing, you can feel resistant, tense, stressed, or upset. The risk is that without acceptance you may repeat patterns, work hard with no outcome or make anxiety-based decisions that further complicate an issue.
The goal is to get to a place where you can say “Okay, we're going to assess this situation. We're going to see where we are and then we're going to accept that this is where we are. And now how do we move forward? Now how do we explore new possibilities?."
How Can You Practice Acceptance As A Leader?
The most important thing is simply to recognize those situations, circumstances, people - whatever it might be - we find ourselves resisting. You may recognize yourself thinking the following:
How can it be different?
I don't like the way it is. I don't understand why this is happening.
What I’m doing isn’t working.
Once you recognize those situations for yourself, it is the time to pause and in a conscious, intentional way, practice acceptance.
In the Lead True Tool Library, we have an Acceptance Inquiry that can help you practice this skill. If you are a member of the Lead True Community Circle you can access the tool in your Lead True Tool Library. Not a member yet? Click here to become a member today and get access to this tool and more.
Keep in mind that this is a practice. It is not enough to know how to practice acceptance as a leader or try it once. You have to practice it more than once, and the more you practice, the more you get used to shifting towards acceptance. At a certain point, you find that acceptance comes up on its own without having to make an effort - almost like you can reach for it without even thinking about it.
About the Author
Lead True Global Leader Franciska Dekker is a systems thinker, both a pragmatic person and a visionary idealist. She is an expert in conscious leadership development: leading on a day-to-day from Presence. During 1985-2002 she has held a variety of positions with FAO in Africa and in the Caribbean, and with Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands. There after, starting in 2000, she changed her career to coaching and leadership development.
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