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Annette Stelter
Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice. – Proverbs 13:10 (NIV)
As a leader, how well do you manage your button pushers? In our position of leadership, we encounter both positive and negative attributes from those we work alongside. We have all heard stories about button pushers. I have them myself. As a person in leadership, if you have an automatic, adverse response to a coworker’s behavior, this is referred to as “getting your buttons pushed.” Leaders who may be more hypersensitivity toward those negative inputs and, this get their buttons pushed.
Usually, these sensitivities have developed due to hurtful past experiences, such as repeatedly being reprimanded, criticized, rejected, or constrained. The strategy to deal with button-pushers is executing a plan to have the wisdom, experiences, and perspective to handle any button pushers.
Author, John Townsend, recommends identifying a “delta force or life team” to create a vision for how to handle difficult people (Townsend, J. 2007). This is a small circle made up of three to five people. In my personal “delta force” I have a team of three people, my husband Tim, my long time friend Lori and my small group leader Marlene. Thanks to these three people, I have grown and matured over the decades. These individuals have conquered their own challenges in life and have had a considerable amount of growth in their character. Each of their personal walks adds wisdom, experience, and empathy to our “delta force” and in helping me reduce the chance of getting my buttons pushed.
I do have button pushers. My “delta force” has helped me to better handle negative button pushers. I learned so many life lessons over the years by having the insights from my “delta force” that I feel stronger today. These three people give me the desire to be better for the world.
When I consider the wisdom of my life team, it makes me smile.
They have directed me and guided me toward an insightfulness about my situations in the past. All three have experience dealing with difficult people in their own lives and have come out stronger because of that. None of these individuals have had formal training. However, they don’t hold back on guiding me to see or hear the hard truths about myself or my experiences. It is almost unfair of me to take advantage of their wisdom but, the one way I can repay them is to pay it forward with someone else.
Lori has role-played with me on our weekly walks for years. She has an incredible way of staying focused on the main topic and won’t let me digress from the issue at hand. A few years ago, we role-played how I was going to bring up a tough subject in my annual review. Lori helped me run through the rehearsal of that conversation before having it. What a difference it made for me. I was prepared for multiple scenarios and their corresponding rebuttals and, because I was prepared, I was able to stay focused on the topic without getting