First and foremost, great teachers are great listeners. They are keen observers of the world around them. Yes, they love to lecture and impart information and counsel, but one of the most important aspects of teaching is listening to the diverse needs of students to gain an understanding of where the student is, so they can be met where they’re at. A great teacher knows when to talk and when to shut up, observe, and listen.

What’s the minimum bar for success for this self-reflection exercise? Were you able to connect with your breath and feel the rhythm of your heartbeat? If yes, then AWESOME! You just took a few huge steps forward.

Turns out that the answer to the question are you coachable is more difficult than most folks realize and it will take multiple sessions of self-reflection to make meaningful progress toward the answer.

The point I’m driving at is that while you as a leader may do just fine with the ambiguity of unfinished goals—simultaneously cleaning up last year’s mess and rolling out shiny new initiatives, many of your people detest loose ends, unfinished business, and incomplete goals.

What do your people want (other than more money)? They want clarity, autonomy, empowerment, respect, and organizational accountability. They want to make a difference and do good, meaningful work. They want to know that leadership cares and that everyone in the company is rowing in the same direction with the same commitment and vigor that they apply to their own work.

To illustrate how this course will be different, on the first day of class, we’ll be discussing the concept of the accidental manager, and the importance of aligning one’s personal purpose with a chosen vocation. We’ll have a group discussion on several concepts that are essential to building resilience and a healthy relationship with work. Those concepts are self love, curiosity, courage, compassion, gratitude, agility, situational awareness, and self-awareness, just to name a few.

This urge to do it yourself is one that comes naturally—at least for some of us. Remember class projects in high school and college? Were you the Type A high achiever that jumped in when deadlines approached and “took over” to prevent a failing grade or substandard outcome? I played this role many times in college and look back on my behavior with a cringe.

A balancing act all leaders must grapple with is the short-term benefit of moving fast with minimal drag from a personally curated “Team Yes,” versus the long-term satisfaction that comes from building a diverse team that will simultaneously challenge, support, and push the boundaries of your current state positions and thinking.

Second, here’s a reminder to hiring managers everywhere to hire veterans. Why? Veterans are resilient, they know how to persevere, they understand collaboration and teamwork, they’ve acquired valuable skills from one of the best training and human development organizations on the planet.

Far too often, when confronted with a challenge, we talk. We talk to deflect. We talk because we don’t know what else to do. We talk to release nervous energy. To make matters worse, when we start talking, we usually start relaying a story of a similar challenge that’s happened to us. The individual who’s going through the challenge doesn’t want to hear about our suffering or similar situation, they want to be heard.

Applied in a business context, a team that possesses a strong sense of balance performs well under pressure and is not buffeted nearly as violently by the winds of change and external competitive pressures compared to a team that lacks a keen sense of balance. But what does balance look like in business?

So today’s lesson is this. Yes, as a leader, people are going to talk about you. Someone is probably talking about you right now. The good news is that you have control about what they’re saying and the irony is that you’ll sleep better and your ears will stop buzzing if you’re transparent, authentic, clear, and structured. Oh, and sprinkling in a bit of humility, a sense of humor, and a dash of vulnerability won’t hurt either.

Mentors in my life would often tell me: “Nobody likes a complainer,” and I’m sure you can close your eyes and think back to a former or current colleague who’s poisoned the team with their incessant complaining about every gory detail of their existence.