Avoid Autopilot as a Leader

This blog post is a reflection on Leadercast 2016, which our team recently attended.

In many ways, we tend to act on autopilot throughout the day.

Maybe it is when driving or maybe it just when getting ready in the morning. “That happens because our conscious brain uses lots of energy. We know this. If we learn something new that takes lots of attention, a musical instrument, or a new language, we tire quite quickly,” said Chris Barez-Brown from Upping Your Elvis, a creative capability company.

Barez-Brown explained even more about our subconscious: “Our subconscious, however, is very efficient. It saves energy by saying, ‘The thing that’s in front of me today, does it look familiar to something I’ve done before?’”

And if it does, then our conscious is able to, in essence, go to sleep. “It’s an important part of our programming, otherwise we could not survive,” he added. That drives efficiency, which is okay, but it’s not an ideal place we want to lead from, he argued.

“You cannot, from that place, say, ‘What’s needed here?’ Because you are not as connected, and you are not as conscious. I believe the trick to being a great leader, with real heart, is to get off autopilot.”

If we challenge this as much as possible—mix things up, try new activities and approaches, learn new ways of solving problems—we can be more engaged. It also means we can tap into our creative genius, lead with more meaning, and not just live our lives on autopilot.

How can we start to “wake up”?

Barez-Brown said we check in with ourselves, take a deep breath, put a smile on our face, look to have more fun, and say “What’s needed here?”

So it’s worth asking: are you awake today?