I watched a TEDx talk called “How Not to Take Things Personally” by Frederik Imbo. He became a referee to teach himself how not to take things personally. Referees will always deal with judgment from spectators, coaches, and players about the decisions they make on the field. Not everyone will be 100% happy. This reminded me about how having a leader lead large groups and how difficult it is to ensure everyone is happy with the outcomes that results from decision making.
He spoke about two strategies about how to be mindful of how you view situations. The first way is to realize the situation is not about you. It can be hard to determine if someone’s intentions but if you are feeling hurt by someone else’s actions, you should reflect on why they are doing what they are doing. If you have done this and still feel hurt by it then you move on the second strategy. The second strategy is to realize that it may be about you. it may be how you feel insecure about the situation and you should speak up about it instead of assuming why. Opening up without blame will allow the other person to see how to accommodate for how you feel.
I think this applies to how leaders are not perfect. You can always try to accommodate for everyone by asking everyone’s opinions on decisions. However, the result still may not please everyone. Whether you lean one way or another, there will always be someone not happy about the decisions. In our country, we choose presidents between the usually two main political parties: Democratic or Republican. Whoever gets voted in leads a whole country of varying perspectives and world views. I can imagine what our presidents endure whenever they’re in office as not everyone is going to agree on decisions of policies or laws. I assume they have to learn to not take things personally as in our large scale societies, we are always going to have varying views and ideas of who we like better or who we don’t.
Here is the link for anyone who would like to watch: