Have you ever heard of Col John Boyd? He was a fighter pilot back in the Korean war. He flew the F-86 Sabre. The Korean war was the first war that really had jet on jet warfare. The Americans developed the F-86 Sabre. It was a single engine, single seat fighter aircraft. Its primary mission was to shoot down enemy fighters in what became known as a “dog fight.” Although the Sabre was a fine aircraft, it did have some disadvantages. The enemy flew the Russian built, Mig 15. It was smaller, faster, and more maneuverable. Col Boyd knew this and had to figure out a way to defeat the enemy aircraft. He thought that if he couldn’t beat the machine, he could beat the human flying the machine. He would train his pilots to be faster and one step ahead. He developed what is called the OODA loop. The OODA Loop stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. He looked at the human mind and reaction time and he knew if he could make the decision-making process simple, he could speed up the reaction time. Basically, the way it works is once a stimulus happens the pilot would observe what happened, then orient themselves to what was just observed, then make a decision and act upon that decision. It turned out to be very effective and Col Boyd’s pilots had a 10 to 1 efficacy against enemy pilots. This OODA Loop has since been applied across the military and even businesses have used it. It has demonstrated an effective way to make decisions quickly when needed. This is definitely a good skill for leaders to have.
As I have mentioned, the OODA Loop can and has been used in business, but another part of leadership is emotional intelligence. If you read my other blogs on emotional intelligence, you will find that to have emotional intelligence means to understand your own emotions as well as other people’s emotions and use that to inspire them to do good. So how do you get in touch with your own emotions? This can be a personal thing. It is generally something that lets you be in the moment and understand your emotions. When I know I need to get right emotionally and deal with something there are two things that help me and that is riding my motorcycle or skiing/snowboarding. These things help me be in the moment and understand my emotions so that I can make good decisions.
Now, as a leader we can’t always go hop on a motorcycle or “shred the gnar” whenever an issue arises. So, what can we do to quickly get our emotions right and make an emotionally intelligent decision? Similar to the OODA Loop making a person mentally efficient and effective, I propose another process to make you emotionally efficient and effective. That process is the acronym SEE or Stop, Evaluate, Empathize. This process will help you in those moments when you need to make a quick leadership decision using emotional intelligence. Let’s say someone brings you a concern asking for your help or there’s a quick teaching moment where you can inspire and motivate someone. To make sure you react in an emotionally intelligent way use the SEE acronym. First, stop. Pause for a second so you don’t react in a way you’ll regret. Next, evaluate. Evaluate your emotions and the other person’s emotions. Last but certainly not least, empathize. Show empathy toward the individual so you can connect emotionally and resolve their concern or inspire and motivate them. This is a simple way that you can develop your emotional intelligence as a leader and become more effective overall. The more you do it, the more it will become second nature.
So, the next time you have a leadership moment, SEE. SEE yourself in their shoes. SEE an opportunity to teach and inspire and SEE them as the next great leader.