Comfort and Courage Zones - The Role of the Leader

We are all familiar with the term comfort zone, and it is often used as a derogatory term for someone who isn’t realising their true potential. However, there are times in our lives when the comfort zone is the right place to be. It’s a time where you can gather your energy in order to challenge yourself again in the near future - before you go into the courage zone to grow

and develop new skills and abilities. If managed well, a short stay in the comfort zone makes the move into the courage zone easier and before long, what was a challenge and in the courage zone now resides in new comfort zone. Courage is a life skill that we all need. It is where we can expand our capabilities in all areas of our life. It also makes life more interesting! But if we are always pushing ourselves to grow relentlessly, we burnout. Growth comes in all the different aspects of our selves. There are times when we develop our mind, other times for emotional, physical and spiritual growth. Sometimes all at the same time! It is also important to recognise the different areas of our lives:

• Growing from a professional perspective, in our jobs. Learning new skills to do the work better. Pushing for promotion or learning a new job.

• Home lives change. Relationships alter. Families extend and contract and present new challenges as we progress through different stages of our lives.

• Social changes like moving house, or taking new physical challenges create stress.

Sometimes a change in the home life, such as becoming a new parent, presents enough growth opportunity to meet all the courage zone challenge you can handle at that time. At this time, returning to the comfort zone at work for a while, may be exactly what is needed. This is where the role of the Leader and Manager becomes more challenging. At the same time as recognising their own needs and where they sit on the Courage vs Comfort Zone dilemma, they need to understand where each of their team members are in regards to their ability to move into the courage zone at work. Some will be ready for the challenge and to grow. Others will be content to do their role in the same manner and not need the extra push at this specific time (but could be soon). This requires the leader to develop and demonstrate the following attributes:-

• Observe how people are. How they interact with each other.

• Create an environment where the team members are comfortable with sharing their feelings

• Be available and listening to the feedback.

• Trust that everyone is doing their best, and recognise (and accept) that each person has outside influences which might impact their work.

• Don’t judge the persons situation. One persons stress is fully within another persons comfort area.

• Lead by Example. Show the team how you are feeling. Show vulnerability. Tell them about your comfort zone and courage zone journey as it happens.

Ultimately recognise when to push an employee to the next level, and challenge them to move into the courage zone. The leader facilitates the growth in the team members and is constantly creating challenges to mean that old courage zones become new comfort zones.