Sometimes Our First Impressions Are Dead Wrong!

I confess I am guilty of all of the above and more at one time or another in my life. I am working to get better but still have some room to grow and improve in this area of my life.

One of the things I am learning as I get older is that each person we meet has a story locked inside them. Sometimes that story is hidden away in places that are very difficult to access. Sometimes a person’s story is hidden by years of shame, pain, fear or other damaged emotions.

One of our responsibilities as leaders is to provide safe places for others to tell their stories. Our people want to not only be listened to but to be heard. John Maxwell states that, “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

For us to be effective leaders we need to listen first more often and look beneath the surface in many instances to make sure our “1st Impressions” are really accurate. As leaders it is important that we be very good at evaluating talent and making good people decisions for our organizations or we will be destined to fail. We also need to make sure we are not just looking for clones of ourselves to fill up our teams. Many times a person who looks & sounds different from us may be the perfect person needed to round out a more powerful team.

Even if we encounter people who aren’t a fit for our organization when looking for talent we can learn something from every person we encounter.

I saw the below video years ago as perhaps many of you have. Tonight I saw it pop up again on social media and watched it again and was reminded how much we all have to learn about being more open-minded when we first encounter someone new in our lives.

Watch closely the initial facial expressions of the panel and audience and then see how this unassuming lady transforms the place in seconds once she begins to sing. It is truly amazing to watch.