Being ill-informed often means that what we think might be right is, in fact, not the case. And, when we find out we have been ill-informed, it’s usually not a great feeling. It often means we have to adjust our thinking, approaches or actions. 
Ill-informed doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, though. In March, I had one of the worst colds I have had in a very long time. It wasn’t fun, and I didn’t feel great. In this context, however, “ill-informed” became a positive. I could genuinely consider how being ill (even with a cold) can provide us with great information and reflection time and help us become better leaders and learners. Here are four lessons I took away from that week (in between blowing my nose).
Listen to your body, as well as your mind
When you aren’t feeling well, your body and mind can tell you different stories. You might be moving around just fine, but your head feels like a construction zone. Or you might be able to think clearly but feel like you are dragging yourself from place to place. As I shared, I haven’t been sick for quite a while, and my cold was intense. At times, my head was in better shape than my body and at others, it was the reverse. If I had listened to only my head or body, I would have been working with conflicted information. Instead, I needed to gather info from both to truly understand how I was doing (and what actions I needed to take). Listening to my head and body also helped me realize that I needed to give myself additional time for sleep, something that I regularly struggle with. Awareness is always important. The more aware we are, the more capable we become of making appropriate decisions. If we only decide with brain power and never utilize our gut, we risk being too static and inflexible in our methods. But, if we only decide with our feelings and intuition, we risk missing important evidence and details. Recognizing that our awareness of our bodies and minds allows us to make more informed decisions is necessary learning for all leaders.
Ask for help when you need it
I’m not the best at this part. Not because I don’t see the value of assistance when needed, but rather because I don’t want to impose on anyone by asking for help. We can’t always live by that frame, though. When my cold was at its worst, I was getting tired easily and didn’t have the strength and motivation I usually do to engage in elements of my job and family life. Happily, there are structures in place to help; I just needed to avail myself of them (which, in this case, I did). Members of my team were available to take on more responsibility if needed. At home, everyone in my family was willing to give me space and help me get work done, something that I was both grateful for and apologetic about. Of course, we needn’t feel bad about these situations. We must become more comfortable reaching out for help when parts of our lives require it. As leaders, we may think that it is our job to always be on the lookout for answers to help our team members solve the challenges they face. However, it needs to be more about assisting people to navigate choices to find the answers they are seeking and giving them the space they need to succeed; in any of these cases, asking for help is never bad. As leaders, we have to model how to seek help from others and provide it when others ask us for assistance.
Look in the mirror
During that week, I remember looking in the mirror and seeing an exhausted person staring back in return. I was tired because I wasn’t sleeping well, I was congested, and I also had a number of high-profile work-related opportunities lined up throughout the week. It was hard to see myself in that state. The benefit of forcing a look in the mirror is that it helped provide perspective on where I was at the current moment. Sometimes, those momentary check-ins are a challenge, and sometimes, when we do those check-ins, we realize afterward that it would’ve been better if we hadn’t. Despite that, we are always better off for having done some grounding and seeing myself in the mirror that week was a good reminder that even if I was working to push through, I was, in fact, not at my best and needed to be willing to give myself the grace to admit that. In working with others, we have to model that willingness to take a good look at ourselves and encourage everyone to do the same. That reflection and introspection make a huge difference, as we can only ever improve long-term if we know and see ourselves.
Compartmentalize
The world is big. And our experience with it is small. We often think that we have a bigger impact on the world than we do; this isn’t to suggest that we can’t make change but rather to value small and large changes. I happened to get sick during a time when my life was incredibly busy. Between work and home, there was so much going on. I found that rather than adding to my stress level by worrying about everything, if I compartmentalized and broke tasks and stepped down into categories, my progress forward would be easier to manage, particularly with my cold. I wasn’t engaging in some work at the expense of ignoring other work. Instead, I was mindful that with an already depleted energy reserve, looking at things in smaller segments made it at least a bit more likely that I would bring them to completion. Compartmentalizing isn’t always necessary or valuable. Sometimes, we want to see how everything works together, with all the pieces in front of us. In working with others, we must be capable of separating elements and putting them all back together. Different situations will require different approaches.
In the cases I’ve shared above, being ill-informed me in ways I would not have been thinking about had I been healthy. While being ill-informed in the traditional sense is problematic, being informed by illness simply shows that all aspects of what we experience in life have the potential to help us become stronger thinkers and more capable of effective reflection. And the better we think and reflect, the more likely we will be able to grow as leaders and learners.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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