3 Things You Don t
Really Need to Be a Great Leader
Sometimes the things you think
you need will lead you down the wrong path. Here's what you need to know.
We all do what we do because of
deep-seated needs. Most founder-owners, for example, start businesses because
of a need for freedom and autonomy. Most leaders arrive in leadership
positions driven by a need to make a difference.
Some needs sour, however, taking the
edge off otherwise great leaders and dragging them down to the level of the
merely mediocre. Here are the three most common good-needs-gone-bad that I see
otherwise excellent leaders succumb to:
The
need to be liked.
There isn't a darn thing wrong with
being liked by the people you work with. And in the early stages of leading any
group, be it a business, division, department, project, or team, it makes sense
to work with people you like and who in turn like you. Affection, regard,
mutual respect-- even love--are powerful contributors to a healthy, vibrant
culture.
Where things go wrong is when a
leader becomes addicted to receiving the affection and/or respect of
others. At that point, information processing become less than clinical,
decisions become infected with bias, and communications lose their clarity and
precision.
How do you know when you've stepped
over the line between providing a healthy environment of acceptance and
respect, and craving the affection of others?
You'll see it in how you treat those
who are less outgoing. If you find yourself either freezing such people out of
your circle, or going to the other extreme--twisting yourself like a pretzel to
gain their attention and affection--then you have a problem.
The
need to be the smartest person in the room.
Leaders lead. Leaders get things
right more often that they get things wrong. Leaders share by coaching and
mentoring others. Leaders see things others don't. Leaders push others to
places they wouldn't otherwise go.
All of this is true, usually, and to
a degree. They don't often happen all at the same time, and some of these
characteristics may or may not show up in a great leader's arsenal for a very
long time.
Unfortunately, some less than
stellar leaders begin talking endlessly. Specifically, talking (ceaselessly) in
a manner designed to let everyone else know how clever and how
"leaderly" they are. They need to be The Smartest Person In The Room.
You see it in teams all the time.
Everyone has said their say and we're ready to make a decision, but the SPITR
must talk more--to add a gloss, a nuance, an inflection that they're sure
no-one else has noticed. The SPITR asks a question, but then spends five times
as long telling us all precisely what, in their view, the answer is, before
anyone else can get a word in. A topic is raised and swiftly, unanimously,
dealt with until the SPITR spots a pin-head they can dance on for thirty
minutes, derailing the entire meeting.
How do you know you're the SPITR?
Simple. if you think you're the smartest person in the room, you're almost
certainly The Smartest Person in the Room. And remember, if you're the smartest
person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
The
need to be elsewhere.
Yes, you're busy. Yes, you're the
boss, so you get to duck out of meetings when they get tedious. Yes, there are
endless little red notification buttons glowing on your smartphone, and it's
throbbing with something new coming in every forty-five seconds.
But you're needed, here. And it's
all of you that's needed: your full attention, physically, emotionally,
intellectually--not just that pathetic sliver of peripheral attention you dole
out minute by minute, depending on your level of interest at any one moment in
time.
As has famously been said, Be Here
Now. And if you're not where you're needed--all of you--then find out
where that is, and go there.
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