Ways to nullify Leadership - Avoidance

Avoidance is a sure-fire way to nullify leadership. An avoidant leader typically uses ignorance as an excuse for inactivity. “I didn’t know…” is the oft-repeated safety phrase of an avoidant person. Dan Rockwell calls this “selective in-attention”. One way avoidance shows up is by ‘passing the buck’, which is the antithesis of true leadership. Incidentally, avoidance will sometimes appear as empowerment. There is a difference.

I’m not suggesting that a leader know everything. However, a leader should know and share the most important things. For example - I once heard a leader say that he tells his direct reports, out of 100% of problems, only bring him the most important 10%. They are responsible for the other 90%. If someone else comes to him with something from the 90% he delegated, he never says, “I didn’t know…”. By the way, this leader founded a Fortune 100 company and is one of the richest people on the planet.

Another well-known CEO was once interviewed and asked about reviewing designs from people in his company. The interviewer assumed it must be great to have people come and present designs for review. This is what the CEO said:

No, it doesn’t work that way at all . . . if anybody ever brings in anything that surprises me, something’s wrong in the process.”

I’ve seen my own leadership nullified as a result of being avoidant. How can you take leadership responsibility in what you know and share?

A New Word, An Old Concept

Leaders are learners. I see that as one of the intangibles of leadership: the desire and willingness to grow and learn.  John Maxwell put it succinctly when he once said “if you’re not growing, you’re dying”. In our pursuit of growth and learning, I have noticed a pitfall that has the potential to nullify our leadership if we aren’t aware:

Getting our sense of satisfaction based on what others say or do, instead of who we are.

A common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I’ve discovered a variant that I call idensanity, which is doing what others do over and over again and expecting their results and approval. As you have probably noticed, that word is a combination of identity and insanity.  Trying to assume someone else’s identity in order to have their results and approval is a temptation every leader faces. 

Here’s a relevant quote from Marcus Aurelius:

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do…Sanity means tying it to your own actions.”

I think Marcus Aurelius would agree with my word, idensanity, as a description of what he sees as ambition. Let’s commit to being sane in our leadership.

Ways to Nullify Leadership: Control

Control.

In one way or another, we all want to have it. At the same time, we don’t want to be under it. Being in control isn’t the true measure of leadership. In fact, it’s possible to be ineffective as a leader if you seek to be in control. Why? Here’s one reason: it limits you and others.

Things will grow to the level of your control. 

The fear of irresponsibility has trapped many in the cycle of control. Giving others the room to grow and realize their potential makes leadership worth the risk. 

What can you do to give others room to grow?

Some Leadership Lessons

Below are a few leadership lessons I’ve learned so far this year.  

1. The greatest leadership accomplishment is self-leadership.

2. The next greatest leadership accomplishment is the success of others. If you’re the only success story on your team, you aren’t leading.

3. The best leaders don’t give the best answers, they ask the best questions.

4. There is no leadership without courage.

5. People will follow what you do, not what you say.

6. Do the right thing, even if it costs you at the moment - it’ll pay off in the long run.

7. Discovering who you are is a journey, not a destination.

Unintentional Leadership

Leadership requires intentionality, but the impact of our leadership is often unintentional. Here is what I mean – John Maxwell defines leadership as influence, nothing more nothing less. Using that definition as a framework, we influence people around us whether we are aware of it or not. From a leadership standpoint, we are influencing people in ways that we are often not aware of and sometimes the influence produces an undesirable outcome.

This is why I firmly believe that self-awareness is an important leadership attribute. I don’t think anyone is 100% self aware. We all have blind spots and we all have ways in which we show up that impact people. For example, anxious leaders create environments where people play it safe and are afraid to fail. Indecisive leaders create environments of stagnation that typically frustrate high performers.

To gauge how others are impacted by you, ask them this question: What is it like working with me?  

First Things First

Every day, we are given the opportunity to choose what we will prioritize and give our attention to. Prioritization implies that some things are more important or at least require more of our time. I’ve noticed something specific in my leadership journey: if everything is important, then nothing is really important.

The more distracted we are, the more insecure we become because we never truly settle on any one thing long enough for it to take root. Read that again.

Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first & we lose both first and second things. - CS Lewis

What will you prioritize today?

Ways to Nullify Leadership: Take All the Credit

One of my favorite episodes from the TV sitcom The Office, is the Golden Ticket episode. In the episode, Michael Scott comes up with an idea to put several golden tickets inside various boxes of paper that were being shipped to customers. Although he put the tickets in different boxes, they were all part of one pallet shipping. When their biggest client received the pallet with multiple Golden Tickets, what seemed to be a great idea turned out to be a not so great. Each Golden Ticket offered 10% off an order, so their biggest client was due to get 50% off a huge order. 

The CFO of Dundee Mifflin, the company Michael Scott worked for, called Michael to figure out who’s idea it was to give multiple golden tickets to their biggest client. Worried and anxious, Michael asked Dwight, one of his co-workers, to take the blame. If you know anything about the show, you know that Dwight would do anything for Michael. In this case, Dwight refused. 

The CFO eventually traveled to the branch to personally talk to Michael. Surprisingly, the Golden Ticket turned out to be a great idea and David, the CFO, wanted to congratulate the person who had the idea. Although Dwight had initially decided not to say the idea was his, he chose to take credit once it was revealed that the idea was in fact brilliant. Angry and confused, Michael tried to have Dwight at least communicate that the idea was in fact his but Dwight refused.

Michael’s frustration hit a peak and he decided to tell David that the idea was his. When asked what he expected David to do, Michael said, “I want all the credit and none of the blame”. 

Leadership is nullified when we refuse to take responsibility. When we focus on taking credit but not blame, we cash in our leadership chips. A leader who thinks they are the sole reason why things are successful, but not the reason why things are dysfunctional, has nullified their leadership.

Insecure leaders have to remind people that their leadership is the reason why others are successful. 

Leadership is about others. It’s about giving others the credit. If we make our leadership about us, then we will be like Michael...those that want all the credit but none of the blame. 

Who can you give credit to today? 

Ways to Nullify Leadership: Be the hero

While reading John Maxwell’s book, Leadership Gold, I became aware that there are various ways of applying the concept of leadership. Boomers, Gen X’ers and Millennials would probably define and view leadership differently. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because we must always assess why we do what we do.

There was a time when the best way to demonstrate leadership was by being the hero. If there is a problem, the hero steps in to save the day. The hero always has the answer because they are the smartest person in the room. Everything is better when it is done their way. While that may seem appropriate, it ultimately nullifies leadership. 

Being the hero doesn’t empower others. If anything, it creates a “leadership lid”. Others won’t grow if we always save the day. I’ve heard it said, “if you are the smartest person in the room, find another room.”  More often than not, the hero-complex is rooted by insecurity. That’s for another blog post. 

When we stop attempting to be the hero, we unlock the potential in others. Leadership, then, is about helping other discover that they are heroes in there own right. 

How can you make someone the hero today?

Ways to Nullify Leadership: Insecurity

Insecurity can harm a leader in significant ways. It has the potential to nullify and discredit any form of leadership, which I’ve seen often. As a result, anyone who aspires to lead must be on guard against it. 

I’ve learned that insecurity drives us to look for opposition where none exists. Ron Edmondson has laid out seven traits of an insecure leader that I have found very helpful and informative.  

One Necessary Quality for Leadership

As I grow and learn about leadership, every leader I study had a few things in common. One of them is passion. I think it is impossible to lead without it. If you are pursuing leadership in any way, don’t try to find people to lead. Find your passion and do it. People follow passionate leaders. One of my favorite quotes is from Howard Thurman:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

What are your passionate about? That is one of the keys of leadership.