Leadership Emotional Intelllegance

Bishop Martin Wilson, a life coach and author, emphasizes the importance of communication in leadership. He warns against becoming a people pleaser, as it leads to poor relationship skills. The emotionally strong person in a relationship often adjusts to difficult people, compromising their own values. Wilson advises young leaders to have a clear vision of where they want to end up and to objectively evaluate the people they are trying to please. He suggests studying successful leaders and their leadership skills to better understand how to handle people and prioritize goals. When the vision and goals don't align with those of others, it may be necessary to let go of old relationships and embrace a new way of living and leading. Welcome to Leadership Daily with me your host Helen Bailey. Today we have a very special guest. He's an author, he's a life coach, and he is a bishop in the Lord's Church. His friends refer to him as Bishop. Today I want you to help me to welcome Bishop Martin Wilson who is the Senior Pastor of Exalted Word Ministries in Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome Bishop. Thank you so much. I count it an honor to be here with you today to share. If a young leader was to come up to you, what would you say is the most important aspect of leadership that you could give them? I would have to say that the most important skill set that I would try to get them to grab an interest in and to want to develop is communication and having proper communication. There's so many people that come into leadership positions, whether it be pastoring or whether it be management, and they think that to be effective that means that you've got to make everybody happy. What happens is they don't realize that that is really poor relationship skills because what happens is you're constantly making others feel good and picking them up while you're feeling down. You literally become a people pleaser. Wow. I never thought about that. Which means that other people's behavior begins to control your life. Yes, that's powerful. I read a quote one time by Elmer Townsend and he said, the weaker person usually controls the relationship. What that means is that the emotionally strong person has the ability and what happens is they begin to adjust to difficult people. Compromising. Right, and they do that so that they can maintain that relationship. What happens is now the weaker person can't or won't change and they're literally controlling the relationship. Now, the implementations on that kind of dynamics is huge because the emotional strong person in the relationship unconsciously now is conforming to the other person's way of doing things. Whether it's conscious or not, you're choosing to passively adapt to the other person. What you've got to understand is as the emotional strong person, you can try to influence the dynamics of the relationship or you have the option to distance yourself. And I've seen that so many times where people are afraid to distance themselves and they become something other than themselves. There's a quote that says the easiest thing in the world to be is you. And the most difficult thing that you could possibly be is what other people want you to be. Don't let other people put you in that position. If a weaker person is allowed to control the relationship, then I have to take action or else there would be many times that I wouldn't reach my capacity. I wouldn't reach my full potential. Dysfunctional people want other people to be dysfunctional with them. Average people want you to be average with them. And high achievers want others to be achievers. So you've got to figure out where you're going to fall on that level of hierarchy. For that young leader that may be listening, what advice would you give him as it relates to relationships and not being controlled and moving forward to reach your full leadership potential? The advice that I would have to give them is to really get a picture in your mind of where you want to end up. Get a very clear, I like to say HD picture of where you want to end up in life. And then after you do that, take an objective look at the people that you've been trying to please. Really be honest with yourself. Where are they headed in life? What motivates them? Do they understand the bigger picture of life? There are some people that have a very narrow scope of the things that are needed to be successful in life. Do you have the same interests? A lot of times we're connected with people that don't even have the same interests that we do. After you look at that group of people, then I need you to grab some biographies. Listen to some documentaries on leaders and people that are growing and moving. If you're a minister, T.D. Jakes and people like Joel Osteen and how they're moving their ministries forward. If you're in the business world, you need to look at a Steve Jobs. You need to look at Google, Uber. You need to look at their leadership skills and how they grow and their success. What do they do? How do they handle people? What is their priority? You've got to look at all these things. When you examine and you compare these two groups, and for me there was a lot of people in the leadership group that I admired. Like my spiritual father, Bishop J. Delano Ellis. I modeled the way I handled people and caring for people, but yet having authority after what I've seen and how he handled me. You've got to look at that. When you begin to really see that your vision and your purpose in moving forward doesn't line up with the people that you're trying to please, then you have to understand that you have very different goals. When that vision and that goal doesn't line up, you've got to be willing to let go of old relationships and embrace a new way of living and leading. Bishop Wilson, this has been wonderful. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule just to share these quick nuggets with our audience. We do appreciate you. Thank you. God bless. Thank you for considering me for this great opportunity. God bless.