Leadership - principle not personal

Someone once said to me “deal with the principle rather than the personal”. This gem of wisdom has remained with me ever since and saw me through some difficult situations.

Focussing on the principle helps us to avoid personal offence. Carrying offence can affect future decisions, relationships and leadership potential.

Focussing on the principle helps us to see beyond someone else’s hurt to help heal. Hurt people, hurt people. This is a true just as much as when we bleed it’s messy and we often bleed on to others.

Focussing on the principle enables us to see the person rather than being caught up in ourselves. There is always a reason why someone thinks, says and acts the way they do. It could be a previous traumatic experience, compound trauma over many years or ill modelled behaviour or relationships. One of my first jobs was in youth work which included supporting and mentoring secondary school students. There was one occasion when chairing a disciplinary meeting that the child’s parent shouted and stomped their feet. It was the exact behaviour we were encountering from the child. We were able to make progress and seeing the principle helped to depersonalise what the parent was shouting and see the young person as a product of their environment. Modelled behaviour is always more influential than spoken lessons.

We produce who we are not what we teach.

Focussing on the principle helps us to model the response, behaviour and attitude for progress rather than responding from a place of personal hurt and offence.

identify the principle and deal with that not by convoluting conflict with personal offence or opinion.

These would be some of my unformed, unrefined reflections based on some of my experiences.