The Impasse

Defined as the predicament with no possible out or escape.  A personal impasse in my mind is that feeling of I am stuck, unclear and downright frustrated.  You keep trying to gain clarity for yourself and yet you still feel that sense of impasse.

The last 90-120 days have been that for me in many ways.   I have allowed the externalities of life and work to make things hazy for me.  The picture above sorta describes how I have felt.  The picture evokes several emotions for me.

However, there have been some great learnings during this time of the personal impasse.  I thought I would share a few of my learnings:

* Stay clear on "You." In other words, go with who you are it is the best thing you can bring to life and work
* The cause is right in front of you each day.  Start there and build from there.
* Uncertainty creates anxiety, yet it also will result in passion, creativity and clarity if you can sit in it and let it do its work

How about your impasse learnings?

Crisis Leadership

Webster's would define a crisis as, "A time of intense difficulty, trouble or danger." We all respond differently to those times when there is great difficultly, trouble or danger.  Some of us would hide, while others seize the moment and try to create clarity for others.  Look at history and you see times where leaders would come to the table and create clarity for others during a challenging time.

For me, I would rather engage with people.  After all, they are the ones that will have navigate through the difficulty or danger and make something positive happen.  Here are a few suggestions as you deal with a potential crisis in your work or life:

* Run toward the issues vs. running from the issues
* Re-state the vision for the future vs. questioning the vision for the future
* Help those that want to run from the crisis find their way to engage in the midst of the crisis
* Be careful to blame others for the crisis. Make the problem a group problem to solve.

A leader finds a way in the midst of crisis to build stronger relationships and re-align others to the compelling vision.