As I reflect back over my twenty years as a leader in the world of work, I have many regrets. Let me tell you my biggest one. Before I do, let me explain what I most enjoyed as a CompuServe leader from 1985-2002. I am most energized by the fact that I built teams that were filled with my friends. I can honestly say that I loved my work and I loved my team. My sense is that most of them felt this. I never fell out of love with the team. Never. I stopped loving the work somewhere before we sold to Worldcom in 1998.
My biggest regret is not my friendships. Yes, it is quite dangerous to work with friends. I believe it is worth the risk. My biggest regret is that I was NOT tough enough with my friends/team. I did not challenge them nearly hard enough. I challenged other teams plenty hard. My own team, I was way too easy. I had not learned how to be tough and tender. I was too weak as a leader, period. Had I been tougher, the team would have been exponentially better. Extinction could have simply been evolution. CompuServe is extinct because we failed as a leadership team. End of story…
My clients at BTL will find this one hard to imagine. Today, I remind myself almost daily of the need to be tender; tough has become second nature.
Take a moment and slow down. What do you regret about your leadership? Why do you regret? What are you doing about it going forward? What would your team regret about not having you leading them? Why?
Why is regret powerful for deep change within you? Why is regret so rare in modern leadership thinking?
Tell me more, my friends. Tell me more…
BUILT TO LEAD 