The Risky Move of Playing it Safe in Relationships

Relationships feel risky.

That risk comes from fears you have about relationships that come from a legitimate place.

At some point in your life, someone let you down, lied to you, said hurtful things, or ended a relationship with you unexpectedly.

These experience leave memories that shape the way we engage with people in the future.

Leadership is about engaging and coordinating a group of people to achieve a mission.

To achieve something bigger than ourselves requires other people taking the journey with us.

Creating a culture that allows for big things to happen requires a set of standards that keep the team together and aligned on what's important.

Those standards come in the form of core values, agreements, goals and policies. The standards you create typically come from a good place and are there for a good reason.

If you want an organization that thrives, uphold your standards and boundaries that keep the environment healthy for everyone.

If you want a organization that does pretty well, ok, or terrible then ignore your standards or enforce them situationally.

You probably don't set out to be murky with your boundaries and standards but it's easy to second guess yourself when the limiting beliefs you have about relationships show up.

Limiting beliefs like:

• If I hold this line then people will quit (do you want them to stay?)
• If I hold this line then people won't like me.
• It's hard to find people so I need to keep the ones I have.

All of these scenarios have some merit to them but ultimately all you are doing is playing it safe with your relationships at work. I have never had a leader tell them that they were glad they were soft on their standards and didn't hold people accountable.

Take a look at your team right now, what's an area that you have been ignoring or not enforcing because you are worried about what people might think or do? What would it take for you to get back into integrity in this area?