High Performance Leadership

We are all good at judging. We ascribe motives to other people all the time. We judge their driving, their performance, their communication...judging is natural. But how useful is it? Do you like to be judged? Do you want other people judging your motives, your desire, your intention? Probably not -- and neither do other people want that from you. We do have other choices. My favorite is to stay curious. Whenever I catch myself about to judge (maybe 99 times a day!) I've learned to pause, breathe, and stay curious. What's really going on? How much of whatever I'm about to judge has anything to do with me? And if it is all about me, how much have I contributed to what I am about to judge? If I've contributed a lot, then maybe judgment isn't what I'm looking for because that means judging myself as well. And, if I haven't contributed a lot, maybe it is time that I did...BEFORE I feel empowered to judge. Before you judge, see what other choices you hav...

Centered leaders do not judge people for being imperfect. -- Doug Smith

Are you a fan of your inner judge? We all have an inner judge (sometimes called inner critic) who wants to assess everything. To the inner judge, nothing is ever perfect. To the inner judge, there is always fault to find. How annoying. We grow up with this inner judge and let the judge drive us when we're not paying attention. When we lack focus on what is truly most important our inner judge tries to decide for us, and usually makes poor decisions. As Don Miguel Ruiz has said, "our inner judge lies." Judging a creative idea too soon is not fair to you or to the idea. You'll have time to judge. You'll have time to decide. But imagine how many more possibilities you'll have to work with if you first choose to stay curious. I promise to work on that every day from now on. How about you? -- Doug Smith

I've said this many times - be careful about judging. I've judged people without knowing the whole story. I've judged people without the compassion that it requires to be human. If you're a judge, go ahead and judge. If you're not a judge, you might want to ask questions and suspend your judgement long enough to figure out what's really going on. We seldom have all the answers and very often we lack the very answers we need to make a true assessment. I regret little, but one thing is every time that I've judge another person. I don't like being judged. Do you? Then what gives us the willingness to judge others? Judging actions is fair. Judging motives is tricky. Judging people is going too far. Judging people is God's work, not ours. I'll do my best to resist every impulse to judge today. How about you? -- Doug Smith

How many times a day do you judge other people? It might be more than you realize. We judge people all the time: their clothes, their hair, their weight, their gait, their intentions, their pretensions - there's so much to judge we spend an inordinate amount of time doing it. And for what? Does it help? Does it make them better performers? Does it make us better leaders? I know, some people judge more than others. If you are the type of person who manages how much they evaluate and judge others well then good for you. My point is that we can all judge less. The world doesn't depend our judging to keep spinning. Our judging doesn't create better quality. It's what we do to help that makes the meaningful changes. It's what we do, not what we judge, that helps us evolve. Judgment is seldom rational. It's not based on realistic expectations or planned development, but rather more based on how we were raised, who were our friends in early childhood, what ...

When was the last time you judged someone or something? For many of us the answer is minutes ago, maybe even seconds ago. We're good, and well practiced at judging. The problem is we judge too much. We judge when people aren't expecting it. We judge when people don't need it. We judge when it doesn't do us any good. We could all judge a lot less. We can keep a sensible manner about us without all of that evaluation. We can learn to accept some things and some people for what and who they are. Especially when they have not asked us to help them change. We should be careful about becoming a self-appointed judge. If no one elected us to that position, chances are they won't care about our judgments anyway. And without the pretense, we could be much more free to enjoy people the way they are. Successful supervisors, centered leaders, and high performance leaders use judging sparingly. -- Douglas Brent Smith