Leadership and Personal Boundaries: A Guide
Taking a moment to determine what you want to cultivate in your personal life will have spill-over effects in all areas that concern you. One of the biggest punches in the gut that can throw your leadership game out of whack is feeling personally attacked by gossip from someone who doesn’t know you, or worse, someone who does.
In this article, I will share a technique that has saved me a lot of guessing when navigating old and new relationships alike.
Being the most authentic version of yourself can put you square up as a target for hurtful remarks and criticism, so how do you decide what to filter and what to take to the arena for a session with some personal growth?
If you’re already taking a blow, best thing to do is lick your wounds and gear up for some serious ninja moves so you can take back control.
Safety is a really important factor when it comes to letting new people into our lives but also in navigating the changing landscape of old friends and colleagues. There are times when we really do need to take stock of who’s making withdrawals from our energy bank and who makes regular deposits.
Safe Zone Technique
You will need a piece of paper for this one: something you can keep with you.
Draw three circles like so.
The first circle represents your core safe zone, those closest to you; the ones who always make sure you’re well taken care of. These are the people that are privileged to know your most intimate challenges and don’t mind taking you into the arena to duke it out on some critical core issues. Write their names in this circle.
Your next task is to determine your critical core values (i.e. empathy, loyalty, freedom, etc.). These are non-negotiable facets of those you let in your closest energy field.
Zone of Safe Friends
This list is comprised of names of people that you love to be around although they aren’t part of your core zone.
They’re fun and you like associating with them because they represent an extension of who you are. You think of them as ambassadors of your own personality.
Determine what distinguishes them from your core zone and list the core values essential to this placement (i.e. honesty, integrity, cleanliness, etc.).
Zone of Safe Acquaintances
The third circle are people who you meet in passing, they don’t know much about you personally, but you still manage to say hello from time to time and you don’t mind spending 5 minutes with them for a friendly chat.
Write in the names you can think of and then determine what qualities place them in that zone (i.e. funny, beautiful, sexy, etc.).
Well done, you are well on your way to creating clear safety boundaries for yourself.
Why is establishing these safe zones important?
The next time you hear a piece of gossip or get information from someone that something awful has been said about you, you can take out your handy little safety circles and find out where that person is on the list.
Are they on the list of safe friends? Are they violating one of your core values for a safe friend?
If they are then you have some homework to do in establishing even more defined boundaries about what is right for you and what isn’t.
If the person relaying the gossip, or instigating it does sit in your zone of safe friends, you’re going to have to be pretty blunt to determine if they can keep that honorable place.
If you’re catching wind of low lying gossip that often murmurs around the zone of acquaintances, take heart, none of it matters because they know nothing about you and you’ve already decided you won’t allow it into your core zone.
Why Do This Anyway?
You are the leader of your own life which means you get to set the culture for your own beautiful and meaningful existence.
You have the opportunity to consciously cultivate who you want to be in the world by surrounding yourself with others who empower your culture, who are growing the same ideas and beliefs with you and not overpopulating your space with junk that isn’t part of your vision.
We are all so vastly different and must lead our own lives or guaranteed the low-level buzz of gossip and turmoil will do it for you.
The Takeaway
It’s critical when meeting new friends and acquaintances or courting someone into your core safe zone that you don’t skip over the details that make you cringe a little bit, the qualities you tend to look over for the whole.
That’s like buying a dish with a crack in it and expecting it to never break.
As soon as you come head to head with another person’s idea, personality trait, or habit that challenges you to adapt to maintain equilibrium, you need to act swiftly. This will get easier over time.
It’s your cue to revisit your values and to determine right off the bat which zone you should operate from.
If you can quickly spot that a person is in your zone of acquaintance, then you know to take what they say with a grain of salt.
It gets easier to determine where people are after establishing norms in this exercise.
Negotiating personal boundaries aren’t easy especially when we come face to face with confronting our own values in real time. With a little bit of work though we can become better leaders for ourselves and for those we lead.
