Leadership Is About Connection

Leadership has “physics that pushes you into a corner where there may be no connection,” but that’s something we must work against, said Dr. Henry Cloud, who is a leadership expert, Clinical Psychologist, and best-selling author, as explained in the recent Leadercast 2016 session our team attended.

“The question isn’t if people have power in our lives,” said Cloud in session. “The question is: What kind of power do they have?” According to Cloud, the power is in our connection that we have when we engage with others – what he deemed the “power of the other.”

During his speech, Cloud told the story of Navy SEAL candidate who had only about 50 yards left to swim. If he could finish that swim, he would be a Navy SEAL.

The man could get through the pain, but he simply didn’t have any energy left—he had reached the point at which his body had no energy reserves left whatsoever.

“He said he going down. He tried to will it, he tried to force it, he tried to do everything, but he was at his limit and he started going down” in the water, shared Cloud.

“He saw his life flash before his eyes, and then he says he’s going down, he looks up on the beach and Mark [another SEAL candidate who had completed the swim moments prior] is on the beach and their eyes catch for a moment.”

Cloud shared how the SEAL candidate in the water locked eyes with Mark, who then yelled, “Go!”

Despite complete physical and mental exhaustion, he made it to the beach, and he became a SEAL – a testament to “the power of the other.”

“How can something invisible and immaterial like a human connection actually affect the physical and material world?”

Cloud asked, explaining that psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists, chemists, physicists and theologians have examined what’s called the “mind body problem.” For decades, they’ve examined its power and impact on our performance.

“We don’t quite know how it works, but we know that it works, and we know that in this whole line of leadership, that all of the strategy and all that stuff is important, but it is this connection that drives performance.”

They may not know everything about how it works, but they do know that performance, thinking, creativity, problem solving, perseverance and judgment are all affected by our ability to connect with others.

So the question is: as a remote leader, how are you connecting with your team today?