Leadership

To be totally transparent, there’s really nothing new or earth shattering that can be said about leadership. It’s probably already been said by someone, somewhere. But I recently heard something on a podcast I was listening to that made me pause for a minute. Here was the definition of leadership they used.

Leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.

Wow I love that definition and I hate that definition at the same time. I don’t like it for obvious reasons. I don’t like to disappoint people. No one does really. I’m typically the bull in a china shop who is willing to try new things to accomplish new results. I don’t cling to the way we’ve always done it forever, especially if that way is no longer yielding results. But I still don’t like to disappoint people.

That said, I do love this definition because it describes the life of leadership so very well. The longer you’ve been in leadership the longer you’ll realize that some people will just flat be disappointed with you. More than that however, some people will take that disappointment one step further and sabotage the work you’re doing. I’ll unpack that later.

Why are people so easily disappointed? It really comes down to comfort. We don’t like things to change from the status quo so we experience friction when things start to change. Friction is uncomfortable and that is disappointing to us.

It disappoints us when someone sits in our chair in church. We get disappointed when the style changes from something we’re used to…to something we’re less familiar with. We are disappointed when the leader doesn’t take our suggestion exactly the way we proposed it. I could spend the rest of this post listing out ways people get disappointed but that would benefit no one!

Part of leadership is knowing the people you’re leading. That means you have to know the things that are important to them and the things that they could care less about. How well you know the people you’re leading will help you know who to disappoint and who not to disappoint as often. But if you’re a leader, then you’re going to disappoint everyone at some point.

Back to knowing your people. Not everyone you lead thinks, acts, believes or finds important the same things. Knowing what makes them tick will help you know who to bring into which team and at what stage in their life. Timing is key to minimizing disappointment.

Some of you might be scratching your heads still over the idea of sabotage. When disappointment persists there will be sabotage. Now I don’t mean that they’ll plant explosives in your car or intentionally derail the thing you’re doing and make you look like a fool publicly. Although with some people I wouldn’t rule out that second one! Sabotage often has a more subtle approach. And every leader has experienced sabotage at some point.

Often sabotage looks more like digging in heels to stop progress. Sabotage is when a person is more attracted to the status quo than the transformational change being implemented. Sabotage will sometimes look like bickering and fighting. It will look like division. Sometimes it even looks like abandoning the organization, the leader, or even a friendship for something better.

I’m not going to go airing dirty laundry here but I’ve experienced my fair share of sabotage moments. People who claim to be friends but when they don’t get what they want just bail on you. That sucks if I’m able to be blunt, and since this is my blog I can be blunt.

Part of leadership is being prepared to be sabotaged. Unfortunately we don’t prepare people to be treated like this. We tend to paint rosy pictures of beautiful landscapes where everyone gets along nicely. I don’t know what world those people are living in but it sure isn’t the world I live in!

Look I’m not saying that sabotage is evil perpetrated against you. It’s not some evil plot by bad people. Actually it’s simply the normal reaction of people who get overwhelmed by their own anxiety. Disappointment and sabotage happen. There’s nothing you’re going to do to stop either one of them. But you can change how you react to them. And that’s how leaders are formed.