A mentor of mine recently asked me, “What’s the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn in your career?”
That question stopped me in my tracks.
There are so many lessons I’ve learned over the last 25 years in business. Some of them exciting and encouraging. Others not so exciting or encouraging.
And some of the lessons have been downright hard to swallow.
The three most difficult lessons I’ve had to learn are:
Sometimes I’m the problem.
In my early years leading teams, I used to approach every problem with the assumption that I was in the right, and that someone else was the problem in every situation.
If an employee didn’t do something I expected of him, my assumption was that he screwed up. If a deal didn’t go the way we anticipated, my assumption was that the potential client or vendor simply didn’t understand the value and made a bad decision. The list goes on and on.
But what I’ve learned over time is that more often than not, when a problem arises, I have either contributed to the problem, or I’ve even caused the problem.
Now, when something goes wrong, my first step is to look in the mirror and ask myself how I’ve contributed to our may have caused the problem, and what it would look like for me to address my own issues to help solve the problem.
This has helped to increase my own personal ownership and responsibility, and increased the level of trust that I have with my teams, and that they have with me. And ultimately it means we get further faster because we have increased levels of trust and accountability.
If I don’t lead myself well, I can’t lead others well
None of us will ever be perfect. Even leaders experience seasons where we aren’t operating at our highest and best levels.
What I’ve learned in this area is that if I’m not operating at my best and leading myself well, I end up struggling to lead my teams well.
If I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning and start working hard, how am I going to motivate my team to do the same thing? If I’m unable to show up on-time to meetings, or regularly miss deadlines because I’m distracted, how can I expect my team to be any different?
Leaders create the models that people follow. So if I’m not leading myself well, the model I’m creating is one that says it’s ok not to show up well. And the result is that those we lead begin to show up in ways that look like how we’re showing up as leaders.
I can’t control everything
I like control. It’s hard for me to feel out of control. It causes me stress and frustration, and if I’m honest, feeling out of control makes me angry.
But what I’ve discovered over time is that my need for control diminishes the enjoyment that my team achieves in their work. In fact, my desire for control often results in my people experiencing their own levels of stress and frustration. And it keeps us from making progress.
In the end, we can either have control, or we can have growth. But we can’t often achieve both at the same time.
This means that as a leader, I have to work really hard to get comfortable giving up control to others so that they can do the great work I’ve hired them to do, and by all of us doing our best work in concert, we can actually achieve more and grow faster and more effectively.
What have been the hardest things for you to learn so far in your career?
Onward & Upward
Andrew