A fully developed and successful leader gives others the opportunity to take responsibility for the totality of who they are, not just a tiny fragment of it.
Leading others is a complex balance of your capacity to lead, the situation you face, and the willingness of others to follow you. Aspiring to motivational leadership is admirable, but we face realities that demand judgments, decisions, and actions that are immediate, pragmatic, and necessary.
As leaders, we must engage the whole person of those whom we lead. However, the goal is to be fair, not just nice, and to treat people equitably, not just equally, because not all people are the same. We must celebrate difference and nurture the value that each person brings to the situation.
As leaders, we must recognize that we do not actually “manage people” in the way organizational structures often suggest. That is the fallacy embedded in corporate governance authorities and reporting structures.
Nor can we manage, or even expect to change, human behaviour.
That is the fallacy embedded in codes of conduct, codes of ethics, codes of corporate social responsibility, standard operating procedures, and so many other mechanisms that authorities conceive of.
Individuals, even the most loyal and committed, will always find ways to “go around” the rules and cope with the mechanisms. Humans are ingenious and creative that way.
Yet, given any situation, humans also crave clarity - of intent, purpose, process, and expectation, with established objectives and goals:
- What do you want me to do? What am I getting into?
- Why should I do it? What’s the point? Is there a purpose to this?
- Who else is doing this? What are their strengths?
- How do you want me to do it? Why should I do it that way?
- Is there a better way? An alternate way? Or only one way?
- How do I know we reached the goal we set out for?
- Where is the end point? When do we stop?
- What does success look like?
All too often, we work with assumptions. We assume:
- that people automatically know what to do and how to do it;
- that they understand what we are saying and the directions we give;
- that they remember what needs to be done and how to do it after trying it only once;
- that each situation is the same and subject to plug-and-play actions without forethought, planning, or other considerations.
We rarely examine our assumptions. We presume that all working situations align with standard procedures, and all people act and react in the same ways.
That is the lie behind much of traditional management theory.
Despite our best efforts to rationalize, organize, categorize, standardize, optimize, operationalize, compartmentalize, and strategize, we fail to recognize that reality is both complex and random.
To put “leading others” into perspective, a newborn baby does not come with a user’s manual. Complexity is natural, as natural as a newborn child. Complications arise when we fail to recognize the inherent complexity of the business we engage in and the people we lead.
There are no simple solutions.
There are many options and different strategies to be implemented, depending on the situation and the people we engage with. Whatever the plan, reality is unpredictable. Being prepared for the “what if” is about managing risk and being resilient. Our strength is not our ability to avoid risks, but our ability to recover from the impact of risks.
Leadership Challenge
One of the greatest challenges in leading others is recognizing the assumptions we make about people and situations. This week:
Think of a recent moment of frustration or surprise. Perhaps someone:
did not complete a task as expected;
misunderstood an instruction;
approached a problem differently than you would;
made a decision you would not have made.
Step 1: Complete the question: “Why didn't they just ______?”
Step 2: Identify the assumption underneath. Ask yourself:
- What did I assume they knew?
- What did I assume they understood?
- What did I assume they valued?
- What did I assume about their experience, capability, or motivation?
Step 3: Test the assumption.
- What evidence supports it?
- What evidence challenges it?Â
- What would change if this assumption was wrong?
Leadership happens when we stop assuming we understand the situation and start seeking to understand it.