High SiQ Leaders Choosing Exploration Over Exploitation

“So, how’s your day been?” asks a friend

“I work at a call center. How do you think it’s been?” Turning to the bartender, “I’ll have four shots of Jägerbomb, please…” looking back at her friend, “What will you have?”

I imagine this scenario among two friends sitting at a bar, one working at a call center, expressing her frustration and drinking down the pain.

Enough said, isn’t it? No one is a stranger to the way a call center works. It’s certainly not an environment for the weak-hearted. However, if you notice, most of the calls received are complaints about a service or a product. The customer is often angry and frustrated and in their unnerving mood, they tend to blame the call center representative incessantly.

Some customers are open to solutions limited to company policies. On the other hand, some customers, even though offered a resolution, do not seek the same. They often scream over the phone until they feel a great release of their frustration. It’s the call center representative who experiences the weight of that anger burdening them. It’s like a blame game to no end.

Much so is the experience of working with a low SiQ Leader who has issues with many elements at work. They feel pressured regarding work deliverables and so they pressurize those working under them. Low SiQ leaders react from the perspective of feedback and exploitation to get their work done whereas high SiQ leaders work rather differently.

“High SiQ Leaders are the secret sauce for a thriving organization, embracing collaboration over exploitation.”

~Krescon Coaches

A High SiQ Leader in a Low SiQ Environment

What happens when you are on the receiving end of feedback? Your mind goes into flight or fight mode because you know what’s coming your way. Feedback can be good too but be it good or bad, you notice the difference between a leader with a high SiQ and a low SiQ.

NEGATIVE Feedback Scenarios with a LOW SiQ Leader

From a low SiQ leader, negative feedback comes in a way that makes one feel like questioning their existence. The words are pointed and hurtful, and many times, personally targeted. The blame game begins when the leader blames the employee for not being sharp enough to understand the seriousness of the work at hand. This leaves the employee regretting ever getting hired at this company.

NEGATIVE Feedback Scenarios with a HIGH SiQ Leader

A leader with a high SiQ will understand the issue and think of ways to help the situation rather than focusing on pointing fingers at each other. They will work on exploring solutions to the problem rather than exploiting the employee’s weaknesses, making them feel guilty for their errors, and creating a trauma response for future incidents.

POSITIVE Feedback Scenarios with a LOW SiQ Leader

When you get positive feedback from a low SiQ leader, expect the unexpected. Low SiQ leaders have not yet dealt with their underlying personal issues. They have not yet enhanced their FIT score. This means that all their internal problems are spilled into the other aspects of their lives including their work lives. So, when they have an opportunity to acknowledge a person for work done well, they do it with a tinge of negativity. You won’t realize if you are being appreciated for your job or being told that your win was just a fluke. You come out of the boss’s cabin feeling underappreciated.

POSITIVE Feedback Scenarios with a HIGH SiQ Leader

On the other hand, when you get positive feedback from a high SiQ leader, expect the unexpected again, but this time, differently. If you are not used to your leader’s appreciation, now’s the time to understand how to deal with positive feedback. Some employees wait for the other shoe to drop but when working for a leader with a high SiQ, one can expect appreciation and guidance to expand in their strength zone.

The leader with mixed priorities

President Janie Orlean: “We’ve discovered something. Something truly miraculous. Peter… Peter?”

Peter: “Oh, thank you, Janie… As some of you may know, the most valuable minerals in the world are fast becoming those that are deployed in the manufacture of cell phones and computers. We’re running short, and the problem is exacerbated, of course, because China has her big panda paw firmly on almost all the mines that produce these valuable earth assets. So, you can imagine just how happy we were at BASH when our astrogeologists discovered and then determined that this comet, hurtling towards us from deep space, actually contains at least $32 trillion of these critical elements. Critical to technology.”

Dr Randall Mindy: “I’m sorry. Is that why you aborted this entire mission, is because you’re trying to mine the comet for rare minerals?”

President Janie Orlean: “Dr Mindy, I think we should hold all questions until the end of the presentation, and you might find that your questions are answered.”

Dr Randall Mindy: “Yes, Madam President.”

Peter: “When the other metals are factored in, the comet actually contains almost $140 trillion worth of assets.”

Dr Randall Mindy: “What do these trillions of dollars even matter if we’re all going to die from the impact…”

Don’t Look Up is a movie about two astrogeologists including Dr Randall Mindy who discover that a large planet-destroying comet is about to hit the earth in the next six months. They set out to warn the world but shockingly get an ignorant response, much like no response at all.

The movie goes on to show how people are distracted by their own agendas. Noticing the character of the President who uses the major issue of the Earth being annihilated to her advantage, she seeks to be the hero who saves the planet through technology.

The president’s leadership portrays her bluntness in showing how the other members of Congress or Dr Randall are sidelined instead of being consulted. No one is given much of a say regarding how their planet is about to be destroyed, rather the focus is more on how the president can work on creating a favorable public image, re-election, and deflecting blame.

If we could take her character and sum it up, she is a low SiQ leader, whose priorities clash with the urgency of the situation presented by the astrogeologists.

“Leaders with a low SiQ will focus more on self-benefit over the benefit of the collective workforce in their company.”

~Krescon Coaches

A high SiQ leader in a low SiQ environment will seek to offer a FeedForward approach. Unlike the president with a low SiQ in the movie, an actual savant leader will seek ways to approach a solution for the benefit of Earth and its inhabitants, which leads them not to exploit the conditions but to explore the possibilities of keeping them alive.

In summation, a high SiQ leader may not always be present in a high SiQ environment as most people working under them live with low spiritual health. Therefore, this leader may naturally bring everyone together to hope for a better future, and a productive present environment, while looking kindly at past errors of judgment.

As we move onward from the perspective of awareness, may we too find ourselves in the role of a high SiQ leader. With the limited resources blessed upon us through time, effort, and energy, it is only wise to channel them with a gentle feedforward and exploratory approach.

Therefore, I end my newsletter with these last few words

A High SiQ leader may not have an environment too favorable and yet

works to refrain from exploiting faults while exploring success

Channeling limited resources with a future-focused nudge, not a blameful grudge

And building a better tomorrow to unite rather than divide