I was introduced to Kent Julian through Dan Miller of 48 Days To The Work You Love. Kent speaks to students around the United States. He uses a simple phrase to help students understand what will make the biggest difference in their lives.
I recently watched a webinar from Jandernoa Entrepreneurial Mentoring. Their guest was Tim Kight. Tim shared a message very similar to Kent’s. When he shared the same formula Kent shares on a regular basis.
This got me thinking… Why is this formula so important? How does it impact the way we lead?
The answer is simple. The formula contains the one thing that we can control in leadership.
By now, you’re probably wondering what the formula Kent and Tim share. The formula consists of three words that will forever change the way you think about leadership.
The formula looks like this: E+R=O.
The E stands for Event. The O stands for Outcome. The R stands for Response.
This is a great formula for leaders to remember. It helps us to understand what we cannot control, what we can control, and how to get the outcomes we desire.
Controlling The One Thing In Leadership That Will Make The Biggest Difference
The formula helps me understand how I can achieve the outcomes I desire in leadership. It can help you do the same. This is why I believe there is one thing we can control in our leadership that will make the biggest difference.
We really can’t control the events that happen. These are the things that happen because of other people, priorities, and general business practices. We can only control these to a small extent.
Next, while we would love to believe we control the outcome of our leadership, we really don’t. We cannot control how others respond, rising prices, or the myriad of other situations that arise in leadership.
That leaves the one thing that we can control that can make the biggest difference in leadership. We can control our responses to the events that happen. This means we figure out what we want our response to be and we respond in the way that we desire.
This does a couple of other things as well.
We control our responses by looking figuring out the outcome we want. We work backward from there and look at the possible events that could happen. We then use these ideas to craft our response.
Our response will change everything. If you respond positively to a negative situation, the outcome will turn toward the positive. React negatively? The outcome will turn ugly.
You have the power to control your response. In the end, your response can control the other things that are not so easy to control.
Work on your responses. They will transform how you lead.
