The Power of Patience in the Workplace

The value of Patience while building relationships at work is invaluable when aiming to build trust with your people. To have patience is to nurture, as leaders we play the long game. Nurturing is the long play. Below we will explore why patience is vital for the executive, owner, manager, and human being for earning strong relationships and results at work.

If you are at all like me…naturally impatient, then this may require some unlearning, relearning, and learning some new stuff. I have learned that I must actively work on being patient. Throughout my professional career, it was pointed out to me over and again how naturally impatient I am. Even though I have worked very hard on developing the skill of patience, I have also impatiently implemented many half-baked decisions and actions in my life personally, professionally, and organizationally.  How about you?

What causes impatience?

Let’s review what exactly impatience is:

Is impatience an emotion?

Impatience is an energy surge driven by other underlying emotions. or when it seems like something isn't happening fast enough. Wikipedia Sep 1, 2021

A lower EQ suggests higher impatience. The cause of much impatience is connected to the interruption of our habits personally, professionally, and organizationally. We are driven to impatience when matters do not unfold as we have planned… as per our habit or expectation. We get knocked for a loop, jolted from our expectations. Poor behavior tends to result from frustration.

Time, priorities, people, tasks, and the success of others, all contribute towards feelings of impatience. This is why we are often patient with certain items and impatient with others. Do not ask me about other drivers… not enough time!

What makes you impatient? 

Learn your triggers. Learn to control what you can control and adapt to the current moment without judgment or disappointment. Your team will appreciate this approach. Move the ball in your work environment, and every stakeholder wins!

In this ever-changing fast-paced world we live in today, patience can be a difficult task. The rate of change today is considered to be 10x that of the last one hundred years. 

How I combatted impatience by changing my habits

In my own life, I realized that I had formed a habit to simply keep moving forward.  I was constantly focused on getting to the next urgent or important task without necessarily considering the options I had available to me. It was a good mantra no doubt to accomplish tasks, but not for building work relationships or focusing on the right things.

Once I began to change my habit and add a bit of self-restraint, I noticed calmness, understanding, empathy, self-regulation, composure, and balance all followed. 

It turns out that habits we form have an impact on our patience or lack of it as we execute.

-Jeff Rogers, CPMBC

Positive work and life changes can be preempted with patience

Improve relationships and increase clarity

When we get down to it, patience allows us to flush matters, and situations out to get past the obvious in the work environment. The ability to stop chasing symptoms and find root causes is critical for leadership success. Patience allows for gained clarity–without clarity, how can one be effective with anything one attempts to accomplish? Especially building essential relationships. To analyze a situation and engage in proper action or decision-making is key to seeing clearly and achieving success. Enabling the right people, empowered to do the next right thing is trust building, and without trust no relationship can thrive.

Oddly this requires many of us to exit our comfort zones and push to the uncomfortable as we wish to get it done and move on. This may seem counterproductive, wasteful, or even disheartening at times if left unchecked at work. I get it…maybe that is why patience is as much a skill as it is a virtue.

This is big stuff right here:  to implement patience without getting angry or upset. This also means not to suppress or hold in as well. This leads to frustration, resentment, anxiety, and an assorted menu of negativity. Mindfulness plays a key role here as well.

Here is an interesting thought as well. Many of us are patient with certain matters but impatient with others. Patient with certain individuals and not others on the team. This comes naturally to us as human beings, we must be intentionally disciplined to overcome this tendency. What separates the good from the great here is consistency in application. To be dependably patient yet balanced, fair, and nimble.

PERMA+ Theory on a happy life

To get a better handle on this virtue idea, let’s take a quick look at Positive Psychology and the PERMA+ Theory.  The PERMA+ model is an evidence-based approach to improve “happiness” and decrease anxiety, depression, and stress.  It is made up of 5 components that can define the type of life you want to lead:

The Pleasant Life

Focus on: Positive Emotion and Feeling well overall and in balance.

The Engaged Life

Focus on: Positive Character building and Strengths enhancement.

The Relational Life 

Focus on: Other People and building overall social capacity. Building others.

The Meaningful Life

Focus on: Core internal motivations. Emphasis on purpose and meaning of life. Why do you do what you do?

The Accomplished Life

Focus on: The striving to achieve and attain goals. Forward advancement to what is of value.

How to have more patience?

What can I do to work on becoming more patient at work?

This is the real question, right? It has been made clear that patience is a skill and a virtue… so how do you practice patience better in the workplace and hit the deliverables that you are responsible for? 

Working to develop the skill of patience, business leaders must embrace thinking over feeling. Remember, skills are learned attributes. Self-regulation is key for appropriate response. In this fast-paced world, in which we operate, that is not an easy task for sure. 

To wait without judgment is to discern. This intentionally requires cognitive inputs, not emotional outbursts. To wait without getting frustrated is true patience. Frustration is a choice. In the end, developing patience in our leadership approach elevates our decisions, actions, and relationships in the work environment.

As I have pondered this question for many years knowing I lack this naturally, I have outlined a few “Patience Tips” for your review. In the work environment, this skill, and it can be learned, is vital for organizational success. Better understanding PERMA has allowed for my personal growth with patience.

To be clear, it is not that I have personally mastered these “Tips”, but I do find value in my awareness of them and a guide for optimal patient performance at work.

JRCI “10 Tips on Implementing Patience at Work”

Let's review each of these in a bit more depth... 

Self-awareness and personal reflection are fundamental elements for personal, professional, and organizational success. In your reflective process add in what triggers your impatience. Specifically what flicks your switch to rash, intolerant, frustration, anxiety, annoyance, dissatisfaction, and shortness?

Here you have only so much time, financial resources, and energy…apply them where you have control. Much of what drives impatience is the non-controllable. Accept them and work with what you can influence. Avoid the traps and rabbit holes of the uncontrollable.

Consistently implementing the PERMA Theory principles in daily life will only lead to good things. That is all.

Hope is the lifeblood of optimism and positive outcomes. To have hope is to plan, expect, desire, dream, and to yearn for. This supports a positive movement forward.

Practice makes perfect. To develop a skill one must practice. To be in and accept the present moment without judgment is the deal here.

I would bet most everyone is under stress in the world today. Engage others from a state of empathy and compassion is a good practice while working to be patient.

Emotional Intelligence EQ requires high levels of self-regulation. Applying the appropriate response and resources at the right moments. Be careful not to over or under-react to situations or people.

Maintain a regular check-up on your priorities. They change and so must you to the moment and situation at hand. Know what’s important now.

To judge or wish for an alternative and not accept what is, is never a good idea. To accept without judgment to gather all information for the best decision or action is always the best patient move.

You know when this happens to you. When you are feeling rushed, pushed, pulled, and otherwise not right…slow down. It is okay…your outcomes will be better as a result of a deep breath or sleeping on it.

Work on being more patient to gain results

I don’t know about you but I always have more clarity in the morning about a matter with a good night’s sleep. The urgency settles and focus and clarity are found. I understand the idea to get it off your plate and sleeping without burden. Often, there is more burden with impatient action.

Building work relationships requires nurturing skills. Building work relationships is not easy. Individuals behave uniquely and are not always naturally aligned. This is normal. To intentionally apply patience will better support relationship building at work.

Knowing ‘when’, is critical. Balance is your friend. Use these helpful thoughts in your day-to-day as you work to become more patient building relationships at work. I do believe I am remarkably more patient today than when I was a younger man. As I have worked on it, even more in the last 5 years for that matter. Patience is indeed a learned skill. You know what to do…