Patience and Understanding
I believe patience is one of the most important virtues of a leader. And it seems that patience is waring thin in our nation right now - especially for those in the hospitality industry. The struggle to find enough staff members is causing many businesses to operate short staffed, reduce operating hours, and limit their offerings. Meanwhile, guests who haven’t been able to enjoy meals out, traveling and special events for the past two years are eager to have those experiences again and are expecting it to be incredible - especially in light of the higher prices that they are having to pay. This opens the door to a miss of expectations that many times leaves managers and supervisors to deal with angry customers. It also creates potential issues between team members who are left feeling frustrated and defeated by the situation at hand.
Patience can have the connotation that a leader may be slow to respond or not able to make quick decisions. While on the surface this makes sense, I believe that patience allows us to make more calculated and sound decisions. Having patience removes frustration and anxiety which actually allows us to move faster. Patience also keeps us cool, calm and collected, which allows us to better handle frustrations and challenges that come our way. We are able to see things more clearly and doors begin to open as we improve on this skill because people are drawn toward this type of leadership.
Patience also leads to more understanding and less judgement. When we are patient, we have the opportunity to truly understand all sides of the situation, or the perspective of someone else. This is a skill that must be practiced, though. Simply being patient doesn’t automatically lead to more understanding, we have to listen with the intention to understand for it to actually have the intended benefit.
To improve our patience, it’s important to have realistic expectations for change. If we come into a situation and we know that not everything is going to go as planned, we can better navigate the situation when something does pop up - think airline delays. Then when something does go wrong, we have to be reasonable with our expectations for how it will be solved. This prevents us from taking frustration out on the gate manager who is simply the messenger. We also can be aware of what triggers us into impatient moments. If you know you’re prone to being “hangry” you can better plan you’re eating to avoid an unintended outburst. Or if exercise helps you relieve stress, you can be intentional about incorporating that into your weekly schedule. Finally, simply slowing down, taking a deep breath and waiting to react (practicing patience) will actually lead to more patience in the future.
John Quincy Adams said; “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.”
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