Leadership Drift This Week
Strengthening Leadership Without Becoming a Jerk
Plenty of leaders aren't particularly difficult to work with until something changes.
The pressure increases. The stakes get higher. Decisions that used to affect only them now affect other people. Time gets short. Something isn't working, and eventually the leader decides there isn't time to talk about it anymore.
So they start telling instead of asking. They tighten control. They listen less carefully. They become less patient with mistakes and less interested in explanations.
Sometimes it works. For a while.
Things move. Decisions get made. People comply. The leader may even conclude that becoming more hardline was necessary.
It usually isn't.
That doesn't mean leadership should be soft. Expectations still matter. Difficult conversations still need to happen. You still need to address poor performance. You can hold people accountable without making them afraid to speak up.
The point is simpler than that:
You can become a stronger leader without becoming a more difficult person to work for.
The challenge is figuring out what that looks like for you.
We Don't Lead From a Blank Slate
Nobody starts leading from scratch. We bring along what we learned about authority, conflict, responsibility, accountability, communication, and what it means to be in charge. Some of that was taught deliberately. Much of it wasn't. We watched parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, executives, and other people with authority. We noticed what seemed to work. We absorbed what was rewarded. We learned what happened when someone challenged the person in charge.
Then someone eventually puts us in charge of something bigger. Maybe as a shift lead. A supervisor. A manager. A department head. An executive. Under normal circumstances, we may be thoughtful about how we lead. Under pressure, we tend to reach for what is familiar. That is one reason leadership can change without the leader realizing it. The manager who was once accessible becomes difficult to reach. The leader who encouraged questions starts wondering why people need so much explanation. The executive who wanted people to take ownership starts making every important decision personally.
This doesn’t necessarily mean there are bad intentions. Sometimes the leader is simply trying to get things under control.
The solution is different when the problem is an unexamined pattern rather than premeditated bad intent.
Decide How You Intend to Lead
One of the more useful questions a leader can answer is also one of the simplest:
How do you intend to lead?
Not what kind of leader you want people to think you are, or what leadership style you learned in a seminar.
How do you intend to behave when things are going well, and how do you intend to behave when they aren't?
What can people count on from you?
How will you make decisions?
What do you expect from yourself and from other people?
How will you handle disagreement?
What will you do when someone disappoints you?
What will you do when you are the one who got it wrong?
Your answers, in part, form a Leadership Point of View. A Leadership Point of View gives you something to return to when circumstances try to decide for you. You need that because leadership includes moments when the easiest response isn't necessarily the most responsible one.
When you're frustrated, what does your point of view say about how you treat people?
When someone disagrees with you, what does it say about how you respond?
When results aren't where they need to be, what does it say about accountability?
When you make a mistake, what does it require of you?
You don't need a leadership philosophy that sounds good on a wall. You need one that helps you decide how to behave when it would be easier to behave differently.
Results Still Matter
Sometimes people assume that caring about people means lowering the bar.
It does not.
Leaders are responsible for results. Customers need to be served. Commitments need to be kept. Problems need to be solved. Money needs to be made. Standards need to mean something, and people who work for you deserve clarity about those things. They also deserve to understand that they are not merely the machinery that produces results.
A leader can say, "This isn't good enough," without humiliating someone, and can hold someone accountable without making an example of them.
They can make a difficult decision without making everyone around them afraid to speak.
A leader can say no, change direction, and insist on better.
None of those things requires being a jerk.
Sometimes people label poor behavior combined with positional authority as "strong leadership" when they have neither.
Pressure Is Where Your Leadership Point of View Gets Tested
It’s relatively easy to have a good leadership philosophy when everything is working.
What happens when it isn't?
Pay attention to yourself when the pressure rises.
- Do you listen less and interrupt more?
- Do you start solving problems that other people should be solving?
- Do you withhold information because it feels faster?
- Do you become more controlling?
- Do you assume that disagreement means resistance?
- Do you stop asking questions because you think you already know the answer?
- Do people begin bringing you fewer problems?
That last one deserves particular attention. When people stop bringing problems to a leader, the problems probably haven't disappeared. The leader may simply be hearing less about them. That can feel like progress right up until the consequences arrive.
This is where a Leadership Point of View becomes more than an idea. It becomes a reference point.
If you say you value candor, are you willing to listen to something you don't want to hear?
If you say you want people to take ownership, are you willing to let them make decisions?
If you say accountability matters, does that apply to yourself when you get it wrong?
The answers are more revealing than the words.
And When You Get It Wrong
You will screw up. Every leader does. You will make a bad call or misread a situation. You will lose your patience and communicate poorly. You will expect something you didn't explain clearly enough. The question is what happens next.
Effective leadership includes the ability to say:
I got that wrong. Then do something about it.
Acknowledge it.
Understand it.
Repair what needs repairing.
Change what needs changing.
Then keep going.
That is not an interruption to leadership. It is part of the responsibility.
A Place to Do the Work
Several years ago, I put some of this thinking into Strengthen Your Leadership Without Becoming a Jerk.
I originally developed the workbook because knowing what good leadership looks like isn't the same as deciding how you intend to lead.
The workbook gives leaders a place to examine what they believe about leadership, clarify their expectations, consider how they want people to experience their leadership, and identify the habits that strengthen or diminish it. It is a way to think deliberately about the leader you are becoming.
Stronger, Not Harder
Strengthening your leadership is different from hardening your outlook.
One makes you more capable. The other can simply make you harder to work with.
Strong leadership doesn't require you to become less human, less curious, less approachable, or less willing to admit that you don't have the answer. It requires something more demanding.
Knowing what you stand for. Being clear about what you expect. Accepting responsibility for the effects of your leadership. And paying attention to what happens when your intentions meet reality.
Leadership is a responsibility before it is a position.
So perhaps the question isn't only whether you're getting the results you need.
It is also: Are the people you're responsible for becoming stronger because of the way you're leading them?
Manage Better. Lead Well.
Drift Pattern of the Week:
A Values-Behavior Gap
Leaders often have a clear idea of how they want to lead, but behave differently when pressure rises.
You may value candor but become defensive when challenged. You may say you want ownership but take decisions back when something goes wrong. You may expect accountability while giving yourself more room for explanation than you give others.
The gap is easy to overlook because intentions remain intact. You still believe in the values. You may even talk about them regularly. But leadership shows up in behavior, especially when circumstances make the intended behavior difficult.
Left unexamined, the gap can teach people that the stated values are aspirational rather than operational.
Leadership Practice
Choose one leadership value you claim matters and identify one behavior that would make it unmistakably visible under pressure.
The point is to turn an intention into something people can actually experience.
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Diagnostic Question
When pressure rises, which leadership behavior you expect from others becomes hardest for you to practice yourself?
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From My Desk
Leaders do not abandon their principles all at once. More often, the circumstances change, and the behavior changes with them.
The leader still believes in candor, accountability, trust, or ownership. They simply begin making exceptions when the stakes feel high enough.
Of course, their stated values are reasonable. Most are. But do they continue to guide your behavior when following them becomes inconvenient?
People learn what leadership really means by watching what happens when things go wrong.
Recommended Resource
Strengthen Your Leadership Without Becoming a Jerk
It is relatively easy to describe the kind of leader you want to be. It is harder to decide what that means when you're frustrated, under pressure, disappointed, or wrong.
Strengthen Your Leadership Without Becoming a Jerk gives you a place to do that thinking deliberately. The workbook helps you examine what you believe about leadership, clarify your expectations, consider how you want people to experience your leadership, and identify the habits that strengthen or diminish it.
The value isn't in producing a philosophy that sounds good. It is in creating a reference point you can return to when circumstances are trying to decide how you lead.
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Leadership Drift Quote
“Your leadership is revealed not only by what you expect from others, but by what you require of yourself.”
Karl Bimshas on Leadership Drift
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Leadership is a responsibility. Use it to strengthen others.