The Quintessential Leader

I’m in the middle of writing my newest Quintessential Leader book, The Challenging Cast of Characters We Have on All of Our Teams: How Quintessential Leaders Use Self-Control and Self-Discipline to Deal With Them, which I plan to have available for purchase by the end of September.

At the core of each of these cast members we will inevitably have on all the teams in life – personal, professional, educational, social, and religious – is a verbal and/or behavioral manifestation of the character trait that makes dealing with them a real challenge.

The words we speak and write reveal what we are, who we are, how we are, and what goes on behind the walls of our minds and our hearts. I never cease to be amazed at how the challenging cast of characters that we have and will have on all of our teams reveal the truth about themselves time and again through what they say and what they write.

The seeming unawareness with which they consistently reveal malevolent attitudes, motives, biases, and thinking about things and people is puzzling enough, but with the advent of social media, it seems that all filters get turned off and these cast members go full tilt into making these characteristics evident to the whole world.

One category of challenging cast members on our teams is the “Ignorant Loudmouth.”

We are all ignorant about some things because no one knows everything there is to know about anyone or anything or any group of people or group of things.

The difference between us and ignorant loudmouths is that while we are aware of our areas of ignorance and accordingly remain silent while we get unignorant – if it’s something we care about – or skip over them – if it’s something we don’t care about, ignorant loudmouths are unaware of their ignorance and open their mouths loudly and continually about these areas of ignorance anyway.

Have you ever read something on social media that was written by someone you know and it made you cringe? And almost every time the person writes something, you cringe again?

More importantly, what’s your initial response to that person? Do you get into a vicious war of words with them or do you hold your peace?

When you’re dealing with an ignorant loudmouth, a vicious war of words is exactly what they are looking for. To do battle with an ignorant person is ignorant. It is the opposite of quintessential leadership.

Quintessential leaders see ignorant loudmouths for what they are and exercise self-control and self-discipline to deal with them. They hold their peace in the public arena.

However, there is much more to using the traits of self-control and self-discipline to effectively deal with this type of challenging cast member.

Want to find out more? Read The Challenging Cast of Characters We Have on All of Our Teams: How Quintessential Leaders Use Self-Control and Self-Discipline to Deal With Them when it becomes available for purchase!