Do You Want to Improve Your Leadership? Stop Pouncing on Others!

Cats love pouncing on their prey — a mouse or toy. It’s their way of playing and can reduce the stress or frustrations they may be experiencing.

But what happens when a leader pounces? It isn’t enjoyable for team members and can be very disruptive. Instead of alleviating anyone’s stress or frustrations, it creates mistrust, lack of loyalty, and loss of top talent. And, is often irreversible!

Here’s the definition of pounce: Notice and take swift and eager advantage of a mistake, remark, or sign of weakness.

As a leader, when you pounce, you are not only being ineffective but also being destructive.

Leaders pounce when triggered by:

• Mistakes made with no responsibility taken
• Deadlines missed due to mismanaged team conflict
• Projects over budget due to a lack of resourcefulness
• Teams stuck due to frustrations or upsets
• A situation perceived as making them look stupid

A good leader doesn’t use these excuses to pounce since they focus on building good, solid team performance.

The good news is, if you improve your leadership results, you will stop pouncing.

How to Stop Pouncing to Improve Results

Manage Self:

• Develop emotional intelligence. Take responsibility for your feelings, frustrations, and upsets.
• Work with an external executive coach. Address leadership and communication challenges when working with and through others.
• Use a job-fit assessment and 360-degree feedback assessment. These tools clarify challenges, why they occur, and how to work through them.
• Find and listen to an internal company or industry mentor. S/he can broaden your perspective by sharing others’ challenges and how they worked through them.

Manage Team: 

• Listen and be open to new possibilities. Manage problems by encouraging new solutions.
• Use mistakes as learning moments. Stop the blame game.
• Create a quality-focused mindset. Stop allowing mediocrity or consistent mistakes by ensuring job fit and providing additional training.
• Develop structured team reviews of a project. Get unstuck quickly with the exercise, What’s working? / What’s not working?
• Expand your team’s Listen to ideas and build on them.
• Manage team members to be resourceful. Engage them in critical thinking (e.g., ROI, impact on others, implementing change, etc.).

When you stop being triggered and stop pouncing, you will improve your leadership and, more importantly, your results.

©Jeannette Seibly, 2010-2022 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is The Leadership Results Coach. She has guided the creation of three millionaires and countless 6-figure income professionals. During the past 29 years, she has become an award-winning international executive and family business management consultant, and keynote speaker. Still unable to achieve the results you need to keep your customers, team, or job? Don’t wait! It won’t get better without help! Contact Jeannette for a confidential conversation.

A Note from Jeannette about pouncing: when leaders pounce, they are not managing their upsets, triggers, or frustrations. While it may seem like an excellent way to express and relieve tension and frustration, pouncing creates more stress and upset for everyone! When you feel stuck and frustrated, it’s time to work through it and not pounce! Contact me for a confidential conversation.

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