I don’t know you but I do know this about you. You have a problem. The problem is you don’t know you’ve got it. You have a blindspot. You kinda already know this. Kinda knowing is the problem.
You kinda know this when your wife gives you the look and the ever so slight, accompanying sigh. She just so wishes you got it. You kinda know this when your colleagues suddenly quiet the laughter upon your arrival. You kinda know this when your daydreams have shifted from doing great things to counting down the time till happy hour. You kinda know this.
Kinda knowing, anything, is the problem.
Here’s the truth about your problem. It’s not going away by looking away. It is going to grow. And, one of these days, it’s going to get too big to ignore. The problem is you’re too proud to ask for help and without help you cannot see the back of your head, much less clean up the mess.
Lead anything and you are going to lead a team of problems. You may think you’ve got a team filled with high performers. You do NOT. You have a team filled with problems, regardless their performance. Your job, if you’re a leader, is to illuminate blind spots – not cover ’em up. Your job is to deal with them as soon as you dig ’em up – not wait till it’s comfortable and convenient. Your problem is you have a failure of nerve.
Everyday I deal with leaders looking away. My job is to make them look at the problem and get to the root. My job is to make sure we dig out the root. Welcome to leadership, my friend. Lead anything and you are leading a team of problems. And, high performers come, oftentimes, with the most deadly problem on the planet – pride. Yikes.
I don’t know you, but I do know this about you. You have a problem, don’t you? STOP looking away. STOP hoping it will someday go away. Start digging, my friend. Start digging and get to the root. It’s gonna hurt acutely, but only for awhile. You’re gonna feel much better once you get down there and deal with it. And, your system’s gonna be stronger as a result. I know this. Do you?
BUILT TO LEAD 