Whit Mitchell
The leading cause of death of an executive career is a lack of self-awareness. So, my Big Idea is for people in executive positions to make sure that they understand as much as they can about themselves by asking others to be open and transparent with feedback. I think we get ourselves into trouble by not understanding the impact and the intent of our behaviour. So, when executives need things done, their intent is usually pretty good. Their impact sometimes of how they ask for duties to be done or responsibilities to be accomplished, aggressiveness or their determination or their desire for results can sometimes come across to the employees that are doing the work as not caring and not sincere. So, if executives have a better understanding of the impact of their behaviour, I think that they can get a lot more done. So, the idea is become more self-aware, go out and ask the question. How am I doing? What could I do differently? By listening openly and understanding the impact and asking those kinds of questions, you’re going to open up the avenues of communications within your executive team, and once you build that, you’re going to build trust and once you build trust, you’re going to get results. So, go out and ask how you’re doing?
