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People want to be led. I don’t know exactly why. Perhaps it goes back to some weird tribal thing in our DNA. Get us humans in any social setting and we’re looking around for the person in charge. I think we get a sense of security from a leader. It’s comforting to know someone has stepped out and taken responsibility for the next few moments of our collective lives. They take the risk of leadership and we thank them by gladly following.

Sometimes the idea of taking leadership can be scary. We’re stepping out, making a commitment, and asking something of ourselves. All scary things. However, if you’re an aspiring leader who’s mouth goes dry and palms sweaty at the thought of leading, be comforted. The body language of the humans I’ve observed says they’re begging you to.

Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds

If you work with a team of people conflict is unavoidable. You had expectations of how something would work and those expectations go unmet. Someone makes an insensitive remark that stings just a little too much. A team member does that thing that drives you absolutely bonkers… again… and again. The temptation is to do one of two things.

First, you avoid it and hope that “time heals all wounds”. Of course the danger with this is that eventually you blow up. Someone does something small and you go ballistic on them. They’re befuddled because it seems so small. What they don’t realize though is that your unleashing the wrath of the previous 10,000 times they’ve done that thing but you just never mentioned it. This isn’t their fault, it’s yours pal.

Second, you talk to other people about it. “Can you believe how they do that?” “He drives me crazy when he says such and such. Does it drive you crazy too?” “She is such an idiot. I can’t believe she would say something so insensitive.” The problem with this is that you’re not helping the situation in any way. In fact, you’re probably making it worse because if the gossip gets back around to the original person trust is broken and your reputation ends up suffering. No one likes or trusts a gossip.

Of course there’s another option out there that unfortunately doesn’t get tried often enough. Talk to the person you have a problem with. What they?! I’m serious, sit them down and talk with them. Be honest and say, “Hey I’m sure you didn’t mean to but when you said such and such that offended me” or “I thought we had discussed x,y,z expectation but then in the meeting it seemed like you didn’t back that up. What was going on there?” This may seem like mamby pamby relational stuff but the reality is it works. Everything is on the table and the air is clear around your team because stuff gets talked about. No one worries that they’re going to get blindsided or that they’ll be the last in the office to hear about their latest shortcoming.

It’s a simple rule but it’s not easy. Just remember to be humble and more often than not people will be grateful that you took the initiative and brought it up.

Photo Credit: markusthorsen

I was chatting with a friend about how this past year I’d noticed the brilliance of the folks around me. They had these insights and moments that were such gold, I would just sit there awestruck.

People are like that sometimes right? Beautiful, insightful, thoughtful, creative, and wise. However, my friend just laughed and said, “The thing that’s stood out to me this past year are how stupid people are.” I don’t know why but I was honestly surprised. The more I’ve thought about it though the more I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re both right. As humans we seem to have this incredible capacity for both beauty and stupidity.

At the end of the day though I’d rather focus on the beautiful stuff in people.

Photo Credit: Bruce McKay’s photostream

If you read our last post on this topic you’ll know that our working definition of leadership is “influence”.  If you’re carrying influence in someone’s life then you are, at some level, leading that person.  On the flip side if you have a position, title, tenure, or whatever thing you believe deems you a leader but you aren’t influencing people, then guess what? Read the rest of this entry »