I visited our local farmers market this morning (Leeds – it’s a very good market on the first Sunday of every month and a passable one on the third Sunday, so why not try it if you are local?). Going back to my car I noticed the usual muddle of newly arrived patrons looking for a parking space and then found myself looking on their behalf, indeed I actually managed to direct one car to a vacant space close to mine. This left me wondering about what it was that led me to volunteer to look for spaces on other people’s behalf, yet other people returning to their car would do so head down with no regard whatsoever to others trying to find a space.

I was reminded of the concept of meta programs – relatively hard wired perceptual and thinking filters that influence our thinking and action. Those of you who have studied psychology, or even NLP, will know that we all have a set of unique perceptual filters that help our brains deal with the zillions of bits of information that are continually impacting our senses and zapping around in our brains. Our brains are just not built to deal with this amount of information and so create a set of filters that help us narrow down the information streams to ones that seem most relevant or appropriate to us. One set of such filters has been labelled Metaprograms.

It has been suggested that there are over 100 such Metaprograms, however in this and subsequent articles I will comment on just a handful that I find particularly helpful (and of course, that selection is itself a manifestation of my own Metaprograms).

Some people in the world appear to others to act and think completely selfishly, always putting themselves and their needs first and rarely considering the needs of others. Conversely, I know people who put others’ needs in front of their own, sometimes to such an extent that they can make themselves ill dealing with other people’s issues – they sacrifice themselves for the sake of others.

You recognise the extremes of this scale in some of your friends, colleagues or associates? Self referenced thinking involves a belief that your needs are as important as others’ needs and that there are times when it is important to put yourself first; you might find you like to work alone and find being interrupted distracting or even irritating; you maybe sometimes find yourself too busy to help others do their work.

If you are others referenced (altruistic) you will be especially sensitive to the needs of other people; you are likely to go out of your way to help colleagues and friends even when this means putting your own immediate needs second; you might even find yourself anticipating the needs of others and providing for them before they have asked.

I have described the extremes of the spectrum and recognise that most others can display either of these two extremes or sit somewhere in the middle depending upon the circumstances.

We know that self-awareness is a key attribute of effective leaders and some sense of where you are on this spectrum is likely to help you lead other people more effectively, especially if they exhibit a different thinking style to you.