General Perception of the Situation

Your focus will be on asserting yourself to ensure your needs are met. You will be quick to make a decision and take action to ensure you get what you need. In doing so, you may set the tone for what others do so it will be important you lead in a way that others can follow and is appropriate both in terms of self-interest and others-interest. You may have a tendency to seek what you need at the expense of others or to be forceful around what you think others should be doing with little attempt to understand their specific needs. This may get in the way of you showing compassion towards others, particularly in a way that others recognise and feel.

If your underlying beliefs associated with this lens are limiting in nature it may cause you to create unnecessary fear, frustration, confusion and pain in others in your pursuit for obtaining what you think you’re entitled to. Stemming from the belief that it is everyone out for themselves, you may fail to see how are creating problems for others as a direct result of the choices you are making. Your decisions around what you believe you’re entitled to may be influenced by how you compare yourself to others and the assumptions and judgements you make as a result of that comparison.

If your underlying beliefs associated with this lens are supporting in nature it will typically result in you taking control of your situation and being quick to take decisive action. You will tend to find others will look to you to seek guidance around what they should do and choices they could make. You will be strong in your belief of what you need and will be persistent in your pursuit of obtaining items and outcomes, whilst being mindful of others seeking to have their needs met.

Key Questions to Ask Yourself

• When comparing yourself to others, what criteria are you using and what assumptions / judgements do you make?
• What advice can you give others to help them be decisive during this time?
• How can you set and lead a positive trail for others to follow?
• When challenged by others how do you tend to respond?
• How might your level of assertiveness work against you right now?
• If you deem your needs to be more important than others, on what basis are you determining that to be true?
• What would it take for you to be more considerate of other people’s needs?
• In what ways are you being the example you’d like to see in how others are responding and reacting right now?
• What outcome would occur if we all react and respond in the same way you are?
• What boundaries do you have in place for how you treat others and for how others treat you?
• If your power was completely taken away from you at some point during this evolving situation how would that make you feel and how might you respond?
• In what ways have you adapted your power or assertiveness in this current climate?

Motivational Driver Impact

Your view of the situation and choices you make will be influenced by your dominant motivational driver in the following way:

You may have a greater tendency to take any criticism or commentary around the choices your making and actions your displaying as a personal insult which may lead you to respond aggressively and get into unnecessary arguments with others.

You may tend to take extreme action and display overly assertive or aggressive behaviour to others in your pursuit of outcomes you deem important right now. This may cause rifts in relationships especially if the other person feels unimportant or insignificant.

You may be even more driven to obtain what you need and what you believe you are entitled to have that you may find you become more assertive or aggressive in your approach. This may catch you off guard and be unsettling if you struggle to control your emotions.

Action Level Impact

Your ability to adapt to changes and the pace at which you will respond will be impacted by your action level result in the following way:

High
In your endeavour to take quick and swift action you may make decisions based on limited information potentially causing you to be misinformed and subsequently acting in a way detrimental to the greater good. You may also find your alter your course quickly as new information arises which may cause you to appear chaotic.

Medium
You will tend to be ready to decide on a course of action and will pause before acting to ensure your interpretation of information available is sufficient enough to confirm your pathway forward. Once you have decided on a course of action you will be reluctant to change your mind irrespective of new information available.

Low
Whilst you may have clarity around the action you need to take you may hesitate until you feel 100% confident the course of action is correct. This may cause you to be more aggressive in your approach if you find you have waited too long and start coming up against obstacles difficult to overcome.

Recommended Action

Imagine you are the person responsible for leading everyone through this crisis situation. Think about the kind of person you need to be, the capability you need to display and the ultimate outcome to aim for in this current context.

To help you with this, consider answering the following questions:

• Who do you need to be as a leader to be worthy of the population following your lead?
• What key capabilities would you need to have in order to make effective decisions that address the needs of many?
• What kinds of considerations would you need to make to address the needs of individuals, businesses of all sizes, political agendas, financial and economical implications and so on?
• What criteria would you use to measure key decisions and actions against to know you are making a good decision?
• What compromises might you need to make on a personal level in order to be the leader the people need and deserve?

Read or reflect on your responses and ask yourself how your current behaviours, actions and decisions measure up against the type of leader you would need to be to help guide, support and protect others.

Identify where you might add value to yourself or others if you adjusted your current approach in some way. Commit to making these adjustments over the coming weeks and months to explore how the changes you make now can serve you in positive ways once we’re through the other side of this pandemic.