I recently posted an article that I wrote for my LinkedIn newsletter “Just a Job” and wanted to share it here. After all, it was inspired in part by some of the leadership shenanigans I have observed in organized spiritual metaphysics, as much as in the workforce writ large. In fact, it has been primarily the behaviors and antics I have seen in anointed “leaders” that I believe has accelerated the impact of demographic declines in organized religion and caused a full on freefall in membership and money for the spiritual metaphysics movement.
I’ll post links to a few of blog posts I have written that address this at the bottom.
Enjoy!
You Might (Not!) Be a Leader
Many of us remember comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s schtick “You might be a redneck if,…” and if we’ve ever lived in areas where we can relate, we’ve laughed along with him. I was born and raised above the Mason-Dixon line, so I never knew what a “redneck” was until I moved to Kentucky. In NE Ohio, we used the term “hillbilly” and it applied to a good number of my blood relatives, so I knew a thing or two about the concept.
This article is NOT about hillbillies and rednecks (although that might be more interesting!). It’s about leadership, with a lame attempt on my part at doing so with humor a la Jeff Foxworthy’s style. Thanks for playing along!
Before I begin, I do want to point out that this is a serious post, with earnest points about failures in leadership that we all should look in the mirror and ask ourselves about.
Let’s get started:
We might NOT be a leader if we only hire people we know and are comfortable with to be on our team.
A healthy team has a good mix of people with internal history and experience and external people with fresh eyes for processes that the internal folks cannot fully see. If we only hire folks that already see the world as we do, stagnation is on the menu!
People with diverse and alternative experiences see things through a new lens, and can often bring improved problem-solving, updates, recommendations and enhancements to our processes and output.
Getting comfortable with the disruption that bringing new folks on board can create (albeit temporarily) is the key to building strong teams, but it’s a balancing act. Too many internal promotions will breed stagnation and mediocrity, but too many new folks will result in chaos. A balance between these 2 opposites is needed and when achieved, great things can happen!
We might NOT be a leader if we cannot handle pushback and take every counter-argument to our positions as blatant disrespect.
If our meetings are regularly so quiet that we could hear a pin drop, and people are unwilling to speak up; it’s time to look in the mirror because we’ve dropped the ball on creating an environment where all opinions are welcome. This also means our department or organization is growing weaker by the day.
Growth and expansion come with some discomfort, and it begins at the TOP. Healthy organizations and true leaders encourage dissent; welcome critique and are strong enough in their own knowledge and expertise that they can HEAR these things and don’t feel the need to resort to petty punishments.
We might NOT be a leader if we can’t openly and honestly admit when we are wrong.
I have a mantra that I repeat to myself, and say to my teams regularly: “I am willing to be wrong!” – and I mean it.
There’s NO WAY my team will be its best if it’s only MY ideas, and MY opinions and MY expertise. It takes a village to raise a child, as they say, and it takes the WHOLE TEAM to problem solve, find resolutions, and engage in continuous process improvement.
Everyone’s viewpoint has merit and when it comes to solving problems, a job title does not give us a strategic advantage. Ever hear of crowd sourcing? As a leader, we should “team source” regularly, and then be OPEN and GENEROUS with our recognition of the folks that solved the issue or problem!
We might NOT be a leader if we hide behind the “Rules Book”
In many organization, there are books upon books of rules. Some are obvious and necessary while others leave a bit too much room for interpretation. I think we can all agree that someone who verbalizes a THREAT, or curses at someone, or is aggressively disruptive needs to be dealt with; but what about the person who makes a joke with us that isn’t appreciated (and I am not talking about anything inappropriate), or raises their voice just a tad too much to make a point they are passionate about in a meeting, or who, in a moment of emotional overload, lashes out?
True leaders can take all that and MORE without needing to open their pinhead manual and figure out which punishment they can inflict on the person. Real leaders can stand in the storm and take the incoming flak from their teams and ask what part they played in it themselves, while avoiding the urge to punish the person, even if it’s codified in the “Rules Book“. Most HR manuals have some language around insubordination or insolence, but real leaders only turn to those options in the most egregious of circumstances.
Resorting to a punishment because we CAN is perhaps the BIGGEST TELL that we are not ready for prime time as a leader. Absent blatant threats, as leaders we need to be able to hear pushback, disagreement and even frustration from our teams and be STRONG ENOUGH to hear those messages without feeling the need to react emotionally.
If our first response to someone whose words or attitude irritates us is to turn to the manual’s recommendation for punishment, we need to step away from the role because we have just outed ourselves as wholly unfit for any leadership role.
Leaders should not only accept the nice title and the bump in pay, but must be willing to lead, which means taking a lot of CRAP in the name of getting things done. It means having a strong enough sense of ourselves that we don’t need to slap the hand of every person that gives us a crosswise look or speaks up against our pet ideas in a meeting. It means that in every action, decision and interaction we are affirming our fitness for duty as a leader by being willing to GO TO THE MAT for our teams, whether in supporting them, standing up for them in conversations with others, or allowing them to be human without fear of retaliation.
If we find ourselves automatically reaching for the Rules Book when someone offends us, it’s time to take a day or two off and do some serious soul searching. That kind of auto-response is a BIG RED FLAG that we’re not ready to be a leader, and if we’re self-aware enough to see this – others have too.
The GOOD news is that we can recover from poor leadership attempts if we catch ourselves early enough, and are willing to do the hard work and heavy lifting.
The BAD news is that most of the time, others will have seen us at our worst on a number of occasions, and our journey to repair and recovery of our leadership posture will require time and a lot of mea culpas to our team and others.
If these concepts make us feel uncomfortable, we should take some time to reflect on our interactions with others over whom we’ve had some power.
Have we been petty and reactive, or patient and gracious? Have we taken more crap than we’ve handed out? Have we felt an emotional surge of anger when someone questions our position or decision? Have we talked ourselves into punishing someone for something that we know – deep down – we’d feel was unfair if the shoe was on the other foot?
All of these are important indicators of our ability to rise to effective and laudable leadership roles. It’s much less painful to do the internal work that’s needed, than to face a public calling out for behaviors which are out of alignment with leadership principles.
And yes, it is hard work; but if we’re not going to invest in ourselves, why should anyone else!?
(C) 2024 Practitioner's Path / 'Just a Job'
Related blog posts:
A Practitioner's Path 