Does it pay to have Patience?

How often do you find yourself annoyed at how long things take? Do you catch yourself tapping your foot to hurry up the coffee pot or mutter under your breath at the car in front of you? If so, you are not alone. A study of 2,000 British adults showed similar results.

On average, they reported getting frustrated when waiting just:

–16 seconds for a web page to load. 

–25 seconds for a traffic light to change.

–28 seconds for water to boil.

–30 seconds of waiting in line.

Now, what happens when we get into the workplace? How does this level of impatience affect our leadership and how can we change our mindset when it comes to patience? Because in this same survey, 95% of respondents also believe that patience is a virtue. Meaning, they value patience.

If you can be a leader that models patience in the workplace, you will create a culture that allows for creativity, that pays attention to details, that supports one another in both strengths and weaknesses. 

With a patient mindset, you, as the leader of your business, recognize that sometimes you need to move slower in order to get the results you want. This also means that you are slower to respond to an upset client. You take the time to acknowledge the time your employees are putting into their projects. See that sometimes all the work that goes into setting up the systems and processes takes time, but will ultimately allow for things to work better in the future. A Patient Mindset means looking beyond the idea of instant gratification and recognizing that sometimes delaying the gratification is actually better.

Be patient with the process. Be patient with yourself. Be patient with your customers. Be patient with your team.

Thanks for going on this journey with me,

Kyle