Afraid of Heights

People look up to leaders. People want to emulate leaders and be like them. Does this reality energize and inspire you or does it turn you off? Are you threatened and scared of being put on a pedestal or do you accept that as part of the gig and intentionally mitigate it in a productive and positive way?

Knowing that you are an example and acting in a way that honors that role is so important in leadership. This doesn’t mean you have to be perfect – no one is. Holding yourself to a standard of perfection is dangerous on so many levels. We complicate this issue and bring confusion and fracture to our organizations when we don’t handle the pedestal we’re put on well. Leaders get elevated – it’s a fact. We are just people like everyone else. We fail like everyone else. We disappoint like everyone else. But the moment you take the step forward from the crowd, you become a focal point of attention whether you like it or not. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can create good pressure for us – healthy pressure that pushes us to new levels of performance and in turn, pushes those we lead to new levels as well. Of course, this all depends on how we manage expectations and how vulnerable we choose to be while we’re on the pedestal…and how often we intentionally climb down. Here are some keys to remember:

1.) Expecting perfection from yourself teaches others to do the same

This sword slices many ways. In expecting impossible perfection from ourselves, we give others permission to expect this impossibility from us as well. It also teaches them to expect perfection from themselves. This is neither healthy nor realistic. Let yourself off the hook. Expect your best from yourself. Expect the best from those you lead. Leave perfection in the back alley. It has no constructive place in our lives and it just sets EVERYONE up for a nasty crash.

2.) Transparency empowers everyone

Be real. Let those you lead into your process in healthy ways. Be a leader in trying and in failing. Then be a leader in getting up again and trying it differently. It is impossible to teach others how to succeed if we don’t teach them how to fail well. Let’s stop making a tragedy out of failure. This has been so destructive in our society over the last few decades. We publicize the big wins and we publicize big failures – but not in a way that helps people learn from them and move on. When we make failure a spectacle to be gawked at and distanced from, we breed a culture of terror that drives us to hide with anything but a finished, perfect product. Failure is part of the process. Until we can get comfortable with that fact, we will be slow to success. When we know failure is inevitable we can prepare for it. When we are realistic about the unavoidable, we can calibrate expectations to align better with reality as well. And we can teach people who have just failed what to do NEXT. Let’s demystify success. When we show others how we got there – and continue to get there – there’s a lot more success happening all around.

3.) Leaders walk ahead – they don’t fly

The easiest way to come down from the pedestals people put you on is to visibly, intentionally be relatable. Don’t present an illusion of mystery about leadership. Be clear. Be real. Be human – IN FRONT OF those who follow you. We are only meant to be a few steps ahead encouraging those behind that they CAN follow. We shouldn’t make it rocket science. We shouldn’t create difficulties for those behind like it’s some sort of monumental accomplishment for them to do what we do. The better we get at remaining close to those we lead without plowing too far ahead, the better we will get at staying off pedestals. It is a natural tendency for those who follow to elevate leadership to a place we don’t belong. That’s why as leaders, we need to be equally intentional to redirect their attention off of the sky and onto the task ahead. That’s where we should be – just ahead – showing the way to go.

Ask yourself

How do you hear best? How do you learn best? What speaks to you? What does success mean to you? Do you thrive on recognition? Power? Money? Relationships?

Do you realize the unique set of answers to each of these questions is different for every person who reads them? Do you realize that understanding the answers to these questions for yourself as a leader is critical to your success? Do you also understand that understanding the answers to each of these questions for those you lead is just as critical?

Do you realize that you must be true to how you operate in order to bring the very best out of yourself?

Do you realize that you will have to lead each person differently in order to bring the very best out of them? Have you considered that you may need to change the way you present information in order to connect most powerfully with different ones you lead? Have you considered that being perceptive of how others hear is just as important as being sure of what you are saying?

Are you investing as much time into knowing yourself as you are into knowing your people?

Are you willing to change your delivery for the sake of the actual receiving of your message?

Did you know how delicate of a balancing act leadership is?

Did you think it was going to be simple?

Did you think I could write an entire blog using only questions?

Lean forward,

Bekka

Tool Talk

I saw an ad this afternoon for an online doctoral program guaranteed to help you “Become A Great Leader!” I laughed.

The internet does not make you a great leader. I’m not against it as a source of knowledge. I’m not even against it as a means to assist in education. 

I am against it being viewed as anything more than a tool. Having the best tools doesn’t make you a master at your craft. I know I thought I could jump higher with my Air Jordan’s but let’s face it – I just looked cooler while jumping the same height as I did rocking the Payless BOGO pair that matched my little brother’s. Tools don’t make you successful. This is such a huge pitfall we dodge as leaders.

There are ALWAYS new tools to try. Many of them work; many of them don’t. But they will all take precious time and attention to learn. I don’t know about you, but my garage is full of tools that I rarely use. Some of them…I don’t even know what they’re for. I don’t want my leadership tool belt to get too heavy. I want to know the few tools I have inside and out – and then I want to use them. THIS is what makes you a master at your craft.

Success is a healthy balance of knowledge, sweat and regret. Here’s what I mean…

1.) Knowledge

We have to hit the books. We have to do the homework. We have to learn the concepts and how they work. We have to read about other people’s success so we can be wise to common mistakes people make on the road to success. We have to accumulate knowledge. But God help us if we stop there. Having copious amounts of knowledge alone just makes us annoying and hollow. It’s important, but it’s just the blueprint. Without it, we can’t build anything. But it’s not enough…no matter how smart you sound.

2.) Sweat

This is where you DO what you KNOW. If it doesn’t actually work in real life, it doesn’t count. There are many brilliant-sounding theories lying on the floor of any successful leader’s cutting room. What sounds good may not execute well. The scripts we write in our heads may hit the brick wall of reality in a painful way. We have to implement the knowledge with real people, in real time, in real life. This never happens without a mess. It never happens without forcing you to think on your feet and make game-time decisions that are conveniently absent from the books. This is where things get built. Success never happens without it.

3.) Regret

You will never do it right every time. You will miss the balance between #1 and #2 often. Failure is a necessary step on the road to success. It happens every few miles. The great leaders find a way to learn from every explosion, every missed opportunity, every difficult conversation and every missed goal. Every. Missed. Goal. There will be many. Unless you learn to use regret as fuel for future opportunity, it will remain empty and without purpose. If you do, regret can be the catalyst toward the goals you don’t miss. In the end, those are the only ones that count.

Successful leaders don’t chase tools. They don’t elevate tools and attribute their success to them - that's called advertising. They just learn them. Then they use them. Try and fail. This is what it means to become a master of your craft. Don’t go to the internet to become a great leader. Find some people to lead toward something you love and care about and then get your sweat on. Be prepared to fail. Success never follows failure. It happens right after that - when you decide to try again.

Lean forward,

Bekka

The Basics

 “It’s your basic suck, squeeze, bang and blow.”

I was admiring a pristine Rolls Royce helicopter engine at an air show in my former career as I heard these descriptive words. Following an internal “Excuse me?...”, my jaw was positioned awkwardly on the ground – and not because the engine was so amazing.

I later learned that this is common terminology for the workings of an engine; though I am not sure the salesman’s intro comment was without ulterior inferences. In any case, the experience has stuck with me and provided me with a good amount of mental fodder to chew on. At a very high level, air is taken in to the engine where it is compressed, combustion occurs and then the air is expelled in the form of exhaust. There are more details, of course but, at the end of the day, it’s your basic suck squeeze, bang and blow…just like leadership.

1.)  Suck

How is your air supply? Engines, like leadership, are present to propel something forward. 

…To create movement.

…To facilitate progress.

With no air, there is no subsequent squeezing, banging or blowing. You must have an air supply, it must be reliable and it must be constant. In addition to engine examination, I also do yoga. Yoga is ALL ABOUT THE BREATH. My teacher is constantly reminding the class to breathe. Physiologically, your brain dies without oxygen. Your whole body depends on effective air supply. The health of your organization, your family and your business depend on you ensuring that fresh resource flows freely into it. Resource takes many forms. Find out what kind of resource(s) your business needs and then suck it in.

2.)  Squeeze

This is where all the necessary components for an explosion get smashed together. This is the chaos that precedes progress. It IS NECESSARY FOR MOTION. Don’t’ be afraid of it. It’s not supposed to be comfortable. It’s supposed to feel mildly out of control. Learn to love the squeeze – or at least to accept it as a necessary part of the whole process.

3.)  Bang

The bang is the fun part. That’s true in many things. This is where you start to feel like you’re getting somewhere and things are actually happening. Momentum gathers and you realize that the all the squeezing was for a reason and a purpose – and something is building. This is the exciting part that means things are running.

4.)  Blow

Without getting rid of the exhaust, the engine dies. It must take in fresh air and get rid of used up air. This is the same as everything in life. If we want the process to work as it should, we need to let go of the stale, used up air and not try to continue breathing it. If you breathe exhaust, you die. If you refuse to get rid of what is already used up, you will stall. The engine can’t run on old air and neither can the things you lead. Stay fresh. Don’t cling to things that need to be blown out the tailpipe of your organization.

Here’s the killer. This process is repeated by your car’s engine thousands of times between your garage and the grocery store. Seriously. There is not one revolution through this cycle; there are millions over the lifetime of the engine. There will be millions over the lifetime of your organization. GET COMFORTABLE WITH IT. It will happen over and over and over again – sometimes in the same day. The trick is to recognize where you’re at in the process and have a realistic set of expectations around that phase. If you’re ready to roll, don’t make it complicated.

It’s your basic suck, squeeze, bang and blow.

Lean forward,

Bekka

Give It Up

Leadership involves sacrifice.

Every.

Time. 

If you aren't interested in learning to appreciate and participate in sacrifice, don't expect anyone to follow you. In fact, don't expect to get anywhere you'd like to be. 

You cannot successfully lead yourself, your family, or your business to a destination that matters unless you are willing to give up things you WANT to be doing in favor of things you NEED to be doing. This is true of any personal goal that matters, any challenge that requires us to personally stretch, any process that pulls on our sense of preference in order to move us from where we ARE to where we WANT TO BE. This is not a breakthrough discovery. I think we all know and acknowledge the need to put our wants and desires in the back seat often in order to lead others toward a destination that benefits everyone in the car.

I believe there is a fundamental difference between those brilliant leaders that people are drawn toward and motivated to follow and those who others follow because they find themselves in a position where they HAVE to follow. Coming in on time to work for a boss because he is your boss is a far different story than coming in with your team an hour early and working two hours late because you are so motivated by the leader of that team and their vision to succeed on the project.

One is obligatory; the other is voluntary.

One is expected; the other is over-and-above.

One earns a paycheck; the other earns a place in a great success story.

One is what most have; the other is what most want.

I believe that fundamental difference is the way that leader speaks about their own sacrifices. How we communicate about our own sacrifices is just as important as how we communicate about any other aspect of our leadership.

1.) We should speak of it as necessary and expected

We shouldn’t downplay and spin our sacrifices as rosy or minimal. We don’t need to speak of them as desirable – just that they are necessary. When our leadership lacks sacrifice, it will only ever be about us. When we grasp the power of sacrificial leadership, the lens zooms out and it becomes about something so much bigger. Our conversation around the sacrifices we make should reflect this truth. When we focus our vision through this lens, we can communicate to those we lead that sacrifice is a natural and expected step on the leadership journey. Knowing this, we can present sacrifice as ultimately positive, even though the experience of sacrifice is negative by definition.

2.) We should speak of it as purposeful

When your life exists for the sole purpose of impacting others, you will be an effective leader. You can’t have the first without the inevitable result. The other amazing thing that happens when you lay yourself aside for a purpose larger than yourself is that you participate in a great story. No sane person sacrifices something they want for an ambiguous or vague cause. We should always, constantly, intimately know our purpose. That purpose contextualizes our sacrifices and gives them worth that they would otherwise lack apart from direct articulation to the ultimate goal.

3.) We should speak of it as the temporary means to a beautiful end

The idea of cost is intricately woven through the concept of value. The things that cost us more are those we value more highly and, in turn treat with much more care. The end for which we are sacrificing MUST be in accurate relation to the level of our sacrifice. No one would pay $100 for a PB&J. Neither would one expect to pay $5k for a new car. The cost doesn’t reflect the value of the result. Think about your end result. Is it truly beautiful? Does it reflect the value of the things you’re sacrificing now? If not, perhaps you should recalibrate what you’re giving up.

If it is, speak about the end…often.

Remind those you are leading of the destination…often.

Draw attention to how beautiful the end is and not toward how uncomfortable the means are. Speak about sacrifice in a way that inspires those you are leading THROUGH the temporary and propels them TOWARD the joy of what lies ahead. 

Lean forward, 

Bekka

Watch Your Mouth

 How do you speak about yourself? 

Your family? 

Your business? 

Is your conversation characterized with hope, vision, gratefulness, momentum, a smile? 

Or is your conversation circular, depressed, filled with lack and stagnant?

Let’s find some direction, find some vision and then wrap our conversation around these goals. Our words are powerful. Let’s start aiming them in the direction we WANT TO MOVE instead of letting them terminate at the undesirable position we may find ourselves. Change your conversation and see if your goals and aspirations don’t get a lot closer. 

Lean forward, 

Bekka

The Power of Vulnerability

Brene's TED talk, and her subsequent book Daring Greatly, are influencing every leadership thought I'm having at the moment. I will share more of that in coming weeks but, for now, I will just link that video here and then we can go from there :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

Lean forward,

Bekka