What is the Mental Fit Under the Four Fits of Dynamic Leadership?
The Mental Fit under the Four Fits of Dynamic Leadership model focuses on the ability of a leader to demonstrate strength and sound-decision making under the increasing amount of stress of interacting, leading, and managing internal and external stakeholders. A leadership style capable of providing a connectivity is vital for nurturing ongoing relationships to accomplish organizational goals. The Mental Fit encourages leaders who embrace the Four Fits model to embrace the belief that mental fortitude is paramount to organizational success.
An organizational culture features diversity as a unique mix of people bring unique viewpoints, beliefs, and experiences to the organization. Due to a variety of backgrounds, beliefs, and ideals, creating an atmosphere of inclusion and empathy increases the probability of challenging your associates to perform at an optimal level. It is common knowledge that the workplace dynamics continue to evolve featuring associates who do not stay with an organization for an extended period of time. As such, it is incumbent on leaders to identify the strengths and challenges of the associates.
Developing and nurturing the strengths of your associates could lead to improved efficiencies of productivity, improved quality outcomes, and more team buy-in. In order to do so, leaders seeking to accomplish such a dynamic relationship should understand the benefits of emphatic leadership.
Emphatic leadership helps identify the strengths and challenges of your associates. As a leader or manager of a facility or organization, you may be in tune with the requirements of your average day to day operations; however, your associates may not understand the reasoning and rationale between some of the policies that are in place. Many people may surround you who have a mentality that something is not their job. Even if surrounded by energy leeches, you still possess the ability to motivate, lead, and influence those who have that mentality to buy-in to your stated and desired goals.
Possessing the inherent traits of understanding what proverbial buttons to push provides value to your team by understanding the challenges of your staff. Believe it or not, that individual who continuously believes that something is not his or her job is a leader in disguise, because that individual often does not prescribe to groupthink. I know this may sound irrational because not everyone it is a perfect fit to an organization; however, understanding this person may provide significant value to your team.
Even though no system, person, or process is perfect, that does not mean that you should stop striving to achieve perfection. The Mental Fit is a process that asks you to continuously seek perfection in a manner where you are able to monitor, evaluate, and reflect. Leadership is an ongoing learning process. Despite the material that you will find throughout this book, the concepts of the Four Fits will continue to evolve to challenge you to seek perfection as close you can. Possessing the ability to adjust, adapt, and grow despite your successes will continue to set you apart as a dynamic leader with a willingness to embrace the constant change you encounter.
Dr. Terrence D. Duncan holds a Doctorate of Business Administration and has published several blogs in healthcare, project management, personal motivation, leadership, and self-motivation. Dr. Duncan published his first book, The Four Fits of Holistic Growth, a personal motivation and self-development book to assist the reader to think more outside the box and achieve a harmonious balance. Dr. Duncan’s second book, The Four Fits of Dynamic Leadership explores leadership in the 21st century in addressing challenges in organizational structures involving turnover, emotional intelligence, servant leadership, team-building, and enhancing communication. Books can be purchased with the option to have each copy personally signed through his website: www.drtduncan.com. Books are also available on Amazon and Kindle.