Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy
Here’s an idea to reinforce your sense ability and sensibility. Reading time: 3:58

You’ve been stabbed in the back –politically. By a “friend.” You’re hurt and confused.

Who can you trust –if not a colleague you considered a friend?

A Rock
Feels No Pain

You want to hide in your office. Slam the door shut (if you only had one). Shun everyone. Especially your so-called friends.

An Island
Never Cries

You’re angry!!! So angry you find yourself broiling and roiling in the frustration and swirling and whirling in the exasperation unleashed in Simon & Garfunkel song: I Am a Rock.

I have no need of friendship.
Friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.

I am a rock. I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries.

In protecting themselves from frayed feelings between colleagues and friends, even the most effective leaders are tempted to hide behind a rock or bury their heads deep into the financial reports as author John Steinbeck observed in Grapes of Wrath.

Steinbeck called the rock-hard, walled-off bosses in their offices — “owner men.” They “worshipped” their data, reports etc. because those hard numbers “mathematics” provided a “refuge from thought and from feeling.”

But the leader in you knows better: Feelings are the foundation of leadership. Even raw feelings. You can’t lead without trust and you can’t trust without feeling. Continue reading →