{"id":7054,"date":"2014-06-16T12:09:38","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T12:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/magazines\/vanderbilt-business\/?p=7054"},"modified":"2017-08-08T15:17:58","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T15:17:58","slug":"the-elephant-in-the-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/the-elephant-in-the-room\/","title":{"rendered":"The Elephant in the Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Elephant<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a leader within us that is at odds with our inner elephant. That conflict impacts our growth and ability to lead, says Richard Daft, the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Professor of Management, Emeritus.<\/p>\n

The leader is objective, rational and responsible, while the elephant is emotion-driven, impulsive and habitual. Daft believes that successful leaders must recognize both sides of themselves and use them to be effective.<\/p>\n

Daft has studied leadership and business for decades. Going on what he calls a type of spiritual journey to India in 1995, Daft returned with the concept of the inner elephant and inner executive. He explored the tension between the two in his book, The Executive and the Elephant: A Leader\u2019s Guide for Building Inner Excellence<\/em>. He\u2019s also used it to prepare students for leadership and to help executives looking to vault their leadership skills forward.<\/p>\n

In addition to his emeritus role, Daft continues that work in Vanderbilt\u2019s Executive Development Institute, where he teaches the bulk of the courses that make up the Certificate of Leadership Excellence, a popular series of four programs.<\/p>\n

An elephant doesn\u2019t forget . . . and that\u2019s bad<\/h2>\n

Daft says the elephant literally grows from almost the time we\u2019re born.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we start interacting with the world, these interactions make an impression on the nervous system, and over a long period of time, we develop a way of responding,\u201d Daft says. \u201cHow we respond\u2014that\u2019s the elephant. The other part of us is the executive\u2014our higher consciousness that can see and offer guidance to this elephant and go higher, above the elephant, to have better experiences with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our inner elephant never forgets\u2014and there lies part of the problem. \u201cWe avoid what we\u2019ve found painful and go toward things that we found loving and what feels good,\u201d he says. \u201cOur memory bank guides us. \u2026 But what about that person who avoids conflict because he had bad experiences early on? Unfortunately that\u2019s a decent amount of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leadership begins within<\/h2>\n

So how do we become more of the executive and less of the animal within?<\/p>\n

Daft offers some simple exercises that can help anyone become a better leader. The first is to simply calm your mind. \u201cI tell people to breathe and think clearly,\u201d he says. \u201cThey usually have their mind wander within a few seconds. Then they breathe again. Now it takes a little longer before they wander. They try to breathe again \u2026 Throughout, it\u2019s the elephant that keeps them from concentrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another aid is self-talk. \u201cIt\u2019s a self-hypnosis,\u201d Daft says. \u201cTake someone who is quiet and doesn\u2019t participate in meetings. You say to yourself 20 times in the morning, \u2018I am becoming more outgoing and participating in meetings.\u2019 Then, in the evening, do it 100 times. Lo and behold, in a few days you are rewiring your elephant and participating more. It\u2019s amazing how well it can work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dick
Decades of students and corporate executives have benefited from Dick Daft\u2019s leadership expertise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Living with the elephant<\/h2>\n

As much as anything, being a better leader is also about avoiding common blind spots. \u201cThe biggest may be when a person is negative to others,\u201d he says. \u201cSome speak strongly and don\u2019t realize how they\u2019re pushing people away. They also tend to want to fight things out. You need to resist this or you\u2019ll have a hard time motivating people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although some change can happen quickly, you can\u2019t expect to transform all your negative traits overnight. Daft has even wrestled with a few of his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, I would have sometimes liked to have been more visible on campus,\u201d he says. \u201cI became better at this as time went on, but I know firsthand change doesn\u2019t happen easily. \u2026 The funny thing is many executives I\u2019ve met know what they need to do but they find it hard, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the world\u2019s most highly cited authors in the fields of economics and business, Daft held the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Chair in Management and focused on teaching leadership and change management at Owen before being named to emeritus status last year. A fellow of the Academy of Management, he frequently works with corporate executives (his clients have included Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Ford Motor Company) and tested many of the ideas and techniques in The Executive and the Elephant<\/em> on them. He continues to share his leadership expertise in a series of popular courses in Vanderbilt\u2019s Executive Development Institute.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every leader has an executive and an elephant inside them, says Dick Daft. Successful leaders must recognize both sides of themselves and use them to be effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":10635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-7054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-submain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8460,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7054\/revisions\/8460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}