500 Words a Week - Lessons in Leadership
We can read as many leadership books as we like, but really the only two ways of learning around leadership is by working with great leaders or learning by leading. Luckily, I’ve gotten and continue to get the chance to work with some great leaders. Reflecting upon this, some of the key areas I’ve found are below:
Empathy
Empathy in a leader to me, is listening to those you are responsible. Without passing judgement, without bringing it back to your own situation. A quote my current boss has mentioned to me a few times is “seek first to understand, then to be understood” from Stephen Covey. Covey expands on this quote by giving us the example of going to an optometrist. In describing our problems with our vision to the optometrist, they give us their glasses without looking to further diagnose or assess our eyesight. They comment how they have worn these glasses for 10 years and they have really helped them. In trying on the glasses, they make our vision worse and don’t help us at all. Upon describing this to the optometrist, they call us ungrateful for all the help they have tried to provide for us. Would we go back to this optometrist? Would we go back to a leader to help us who acted a similar way?
Hard on the Problem, Easy on the Person
This especially rings through when working within the S&C or coaching industry. If you’re a leader who is responsible for several S&C’s who are in turn responsible for helping another group of people, things can get messy. Lines can get blurred. There are so many moving parts and cogs in the machine. The only certainty of working with people is that there will be uncertainty around every corner. When problems arise, which they continuously will, they are dealt efficiently with no fingers pointed.
Fix the Cold Showers
Ted Lasso is a programme about an American Football coaching coming to England to coach a football team in the Premier League. Even from that description alone we can see the difficulties ahead. Upon entering the club, he puts out a suggestion box for players to voice complaints/ issues. One of these complaints is that the showers don’t have any hot water. So, immediately Ted fixes this problem. Good leaders move swiftly, and fix problems voiced to them.
Identity
“You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged” from Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull. The good leaders I have worked with have had a clear sense of their identity and purpose outside of work. They might be a father or a mother, a husband or a wife, someone who likes golf or spending time with close friends. Their whole identity isn’t wrapped up in their work. They understand that work is a part of life, not the other way round and they communicate this to those they work with. They are the people who can tell you, you should attend that wedding, as they know these are few and far between, but work will always be there.
