The movie begins. It’s another typical day for Cliff, our aspiring young leader. Today he’s at company headquarters for a day of meetings with his peers, his manager, and his functional counterparts and a slew of project teams.

No time for a workout today. Though he pops up in his hotel room at the customary 5 AM alarm bell from his smart phone, the air is already heavy. Yesterday’s meetings once again expanded Cliff’s inventory of challenges, and the late dinner with fellow leaders added even more things to think about. He robotically starts the in-room coffeemaker and opens his e-mail. He knows that if he doesn’t clear the deck of tasks that accumulated while he was spinning yesterday, he’ll have no ability to think clearly once the circus starts again today.

This coffee is awful. Cliff grinds toward the bottom of his inbox by invoking the 1 minute rule. Answer each message or file it in 1 minute or it hits the trash. He thinks briefly that the senders must have spent much longer drafting their request, but that’s not his problem now. He has 2 hours to start over again this morning. Get ahead of his work. Make himself beautiful, or at least less terrifying than he looks right now. Eat another ritualized, on the road breakfast in the hotel lobby. Stride into headquarters looking fresh and ready. Khaki slacks, white shirt, navy sport coat.  The maniform. He knows the drill all too well. The model of efficiency and poise. Powered up and all put together.

Finally, a decent cup of coffee. A short hallway conversation with Cliff’s boss, Walker. He needs to see him at 10 instead of 11 now. Really? He’ll miss that catch up meeting in Marketing and forget about the 15 minutes of prep time he planned just before. He’s delivering a presentation that will lead right up until his meeting with Walker. That’s OK. Cliff has the talk track down pat. He’ll just replay those tapes and try to look like he’s on top of everything.

First meeting. That project that he mildly supports. He’s only in the room because he has to keep an eye on the team and make sure they don’t make a dumb decision. He thinks about his flight home tomorrow. He decides he should move that up. He stays at the ready with something intelligent to say. Oh it’s Bill. He’ll need to disagree with the first thing Bill says so he doesn’t lead everyone down a rabbit hole. Time for next steps? He’s out of here.

Cliff walks to the next meeting. The movie morphs into a sequence of slow motion scenes. The din of undecipherable conversation and presentation blends together. His eyes glaze as the running internal commentary on the people he interacts with jousts with his desire and ability to remain completely present in his interactions. He finds himself at another restaurant in the evening with colleagues. The table seems to be one collective exhale accompanied by mildly enjoyable conversation. Some business, some personal. But he has made it. Survived. Another day is in the books.

The cookie cutter hotel that he regularly criticizes for being, well, a hotel, seems very attractive to him now. He sets the alarm for 5 AM…

This was my movie. But I wasn’t always watching.

As you spin from task to task, meeting to meeting, airplane to airplane, is anyone filming you? Is anyone documenting the story of your struggle? Presenting you with the pictures and sounds that make up your movie?

You need to get outside of yourself on a regular basis to understand your behavior from the outside. What pace are you keeping? Is your leadership talk matching your task master walk? Are you telling others to keep a healthy work-life balance while you are out of balance? Is your career trajectory arcing as you intended, or are you simply going as fast as you can and hoping for the best?

You need to bring your best self to everything you do as leader.  Mind, body, and soul. You can’t do that without a 3 dimensional feedback mechanism to inform you of your genuine external self.

I watch NFL quarterbacks like Peyton Manning when they come off the field. After his first sip of water and a quick seat on the bench, he grabs his sideline tablet or photo prints from his coaches. He studies them. He compares what the camera saw with what he saw from his own eyes. He reconciles his perceptions of defensive sets and his receivers’ routes with what actually occurred on the field. He uses that knowledge to be more perceptive on upcoming plays, and extends his understanding of situations before him so he can make better decisions. He takes the field again stronger and smarter than when he left it. He’s watching his own movie and he’s paying attention.

Who is taking the pictures of your scenes and reviewing those with you? If you don’t have a cameraman or camerawoman working for you, get one.

You need trusted people who are in sync with your intended behavior, your desire to improve, your career aspirations. You need a crew who can critique your delivery of a presentation or your participation in an important cross-functional meeting. Somebody who can repeat back the guidance you gave to an employee with commentary on the impact it seemed to have on both of you. Someone who can tell you what you actually said to that customer during the sales call.

In addition to these trusted advisors and mentors, you need to be two people. You are already the active participant in your movie. The star of the show. You say your lines and act your part. You instinctively know if what you do feels right or wrong, and you self-correct when you feel yourself adrift.

But there’s another you. The person who can float up to the top of the room and observe everything while you are actively playing your part. The person who can mentally move to the back corner of the room, and see the effect your words have on people. The observant you.

Before and after any significant meeting with an individual or a group, you need time for intention. For contemplation. For reflection. You need to imagine the field photos of the plays you just made. Are they as you wished them to be? What can you improve upon? What decisions will you make and what actions will you take in the future as a result of that outside vantage point?

Don’t just star in your own movie. Direct it. Edit the scenes you don’t like and create the ones you want. Build them into the feature film you will be proud of.

A film that others will want to watch with you.

Tell them to get their popcorn ready.

Lead well.

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