Leaders: Lighten Up
Goals. Metrics. Productivity. Gains. Movement. Success.
If you’re in a job worth doing at all, you or someone around you has established the following:
Goals - What are we aiming for?
Metrics - How will we know when we’ve hit it?
Movement - Are we steadily progressing? Or are we stuck or bogged down?
Productivity - Are we being effective and efficient? Are we getting it done?
Gains - Is our work paying off? Are sales up? Is our client base growing?
Success - Are we winning?
It is appropriate to know where you’re going, monitoring your progress against pre-determined desired outcomes. It’s right to be responsible and accountable for attaining the objectives. However, when leaders only focus on the “win” of growth, productivity, increased giving or revenue it looks more like management than leadership.
Don’t miss this: managers aren't bad. There is appropriate and needed space for managers. Managers are responsible for getting things done. Effective managers oversee projects to completion. But…often without a focus on people. Managers care deeply about measurements and achievement, often because there’s someone else who’s holding them accountable for success. The board. CEO. Director. And managers by nature need to prove their worth by hitting all the pegs of success. After all if the manager helps her boss and the organization win, it’s also a win for her.
Just this morning, my coach, Ken, pointed out this significant trait among competent leaders: leaders do care about goals, metrics, movement, productivity, gains and success. However, while they want the success of their supervisor and company, they are also diligent to help their team succeed. When both these things happen - a win for one’s supervisor/company AND a demonstrative win for individual team members - the leader experiences true success.
Bottom line: leadership is relational. Leaders still care about hitting legitimate metrics, but leaders are first motivated by relationships. They get that leadership is about people. It is about being human with other human beings.
Leaders are real - and people they lead know it. Leaders are humble - and their team sees it. Leaders see themselves just as human as those they lead - and as a result their team follows.
Still, leaders often take themselves too seriously. When they are overly concerned with outcomes, image and approval they can miss the simplicity of being real. Here are three practical ways to stop taking yourself so seriously:
Give yourself some grace.
Be kind to yourself. Accept you’re going to screw up. And when you do, look in the mirror and smile. Give yourself a hug.
Remember, when you practice grace toward yourself, you’re more likely to be gracious with others.
Laugh at yourself now and then.
It actually was funny when you were the one to knock over a cup of coffee in the meeting. I accidentally poured coffee down a team member’s back as I offered a parting embrace. It didn't seem all that funny at the moment, but thankfully we did have a good laugh.
So you used the wrong word: when you wrote “PUBLIC” on the whiteboard and forgot the “L.” I actually did this in front of several hundred people and thousands more watching via live stream. As embarrassing as it was, I owned it, laughed with everyone and kept going. The talk wasn’t over. In fact my audience was more engaged than before my faux pas.
Remember: no one needs you to be perfect.
What people need is for you to be relatable. Personable. Real. They don’t need a cape dancing in the wind behind you. And they don’t expect or need an angelic halo circling your head like a mosaic of a saint.
It’s okay to say “I don’t know;” “I’ll get back to you on that;” or “I know this much about where we’re headed.” You don’t have to have a vision for the next 50 years. It’s not required that you craft the perfect words, present the perfect image or model the perfect style.
People admire watching growth in their leaders. In fact if they encounter a leader who appears to have “arrived,” with all the answers and then some, they’ll likely scoff and express skepticism. People aspire toward development when they know their leader is also learning, discovering and growing.
So, lighten up. Take yourself less seriously. Practice simply being human with other human beings. After all - it’s who you are.
Consider:
In what ways do you take yourself too seriously?
What has helped you relax and be kind to yourself?
What else have you watched in others or discovered for yourself regarding relational leadership?
