WHO YOU ARE IS HOW YOU LEAD
For some this may be a controversial statement. Who you are is how you lead? “No, I’m different at work”…or “That is a character trait of mine personally, but when I’m in leadership mode, I don’t let that come across”… I’ve heard these kind of comments many times from leaders. But in all my years working in people development, I’ve seen countless examples of where this proves to be true: even when you’re making adaptations, or trying to project something different at work, ultimately, who you are directly informs how you lead. Your character, personality and preferences shape every area of your life, and how you lead is no different. You might make small adaptations here and there depending on the context, but who we are tends to ‘leak’ out anyway, especially under pressure or caught off-guard.
For many leaders, this statement might be obvious, rather than controversial. “Of course I lead out of who I am!”. But have you considered the real implications of this?
Years ago, I had the privilege of taking hundreds of leaders through a horse-whispering leadership experience, in small groups over an 18-month period. Pretty unusual way to spend a day, but a powerful demonstration of this truth in action. What can you possibly learn about your leadership from interacting with a horse? That it’s all transferable…because, in the words of one of the sage horse-whispering coaches: “How you do something…is how you do everything.” This may be overstating it, as there are always exceptions, but when I first heard this saying, it reminded me of another saying, from the Bible: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” (Luke 16:10). Or the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 (“You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much”). There’s something about recognising how patterns play out in humans - we do something a certain way in one context, and it has implications for how we do things in other contexts too.
I remember vividly the time one of the leaders from my old workplace had her first horse-leading activity - despite being quite familiar with horses she struggled to get the horse to move as she attempted to lead it in her direction. “Perhaps you should try loosening your grip. You’re holding the reins very tightly,” the coach commented. She was adamant that this wasn’t the case; but once she managed to relax and let go a bit more, the horse slowly became more compliant to her leading. When probed gently about how that might correlate with her leadership of people in real life, she was quick to insist that she wasn’t someone who held the reins too tightly in general. Knowing her team well, I can say with some certainty that this was, in fact, exactly how the majority of the team viewed her leadership: overly directive in the small things - controlling, tense and defensive about her work. She held the reins more tightly than she realised, in areas of her life that had nothing to do with horses, but it was a complete blind spot for her. She remained largely unaware, because she couldn’t see the pattern: How she did one thing is how she did many things.
I don’t say this in a critical way; she was a likeable and capable leader (and we all have things we don’t do perfectly) - but being able to self reflect on our own leadership, as well as being able to allow others to gently and graciously help us see our blind spots, gives us great insight into the truth of a situation, and much more power to take action - if we choose to.
Becoming aware of our patterns is key to knowing how to change them for the better - how to do things differently and actually achieve the outcomes you want, rather than encountering frustration after frustration. It’s not about clever leadership tips and tricks to make the horse, or person, behave how you’d like them to. It’s about changing from the inside; working on how you think and feel, and to some extent evolving as a person, in order to see real change come about in your leadership.
Identify the patterns that aren’t serving you or others well, and address them - in every area of your life. After all, the horse is sizing up the person in front of them…it doesn’t care what your title is, or whether they’re supposed to follow your lead…and increasingly, neither do people; following a leader is a choice we make based on how the leader in front of us shows up. We opt in; we opt out. We follow those we’re confident in.
Who we are is how we lead. That’s actually a quote from the excellent book ‘Dare to Lead’ (which I’d highly recommend) by Brené Brown, the world-renowned research professor from the University of Houston. Before I read that book, I and many others had been saying this very same phrase amongst ourselves in leadership development for years, because it just becomes so blindingly obvious, when you spend enough time observing people!
We’re not as good at covering over our weaknesses as we like to think. Who we are naturally seeps through into even the most carefully cultivated ‘work self’. There will be common threads running through how we lead, how we parent, how we approach friendships and relationships…
Secretly hyper-competitive? It plays out in your work: shaping your decisions and your motivations. Much more insecure than you like to admit? It will be changing the way you react to people, especially if they try to give you valuable feedback on your leadership.
Ever catch yourself meddling a bit too much in your child’s life, when you know you really need to let them figure it out for themselves? Chances are you’ll be doing that to your team members’ work as well.
Find conflict super uncomfortable at work and avoid it as much as possible? Bet you avoid it in your personal life too, even when it’s really necessary… learn how to handle conflict well in relationships and you’ll find it improves at work too.
On the contrary, do you find yourself embracing conflict head on - straight-talking, challenging your friends and family directly? Bet you’re known for it at work too. Sometimes push it too far and hurt those you care about with bluntly delivered words? Likely that happens in your leadership too.
We don’t become different people when we go to work, and if there’s an area of your leadership that might need to change, the chances are, it’s an area of growth for you as a person, overall. And that’s a good thing, because who wants to stop growing?
Investing in continual personal development is essential to your growth as a leader. We are never the finished article!
As leaders we want to be intentionally working on ourselves, to become increasingly good human beings. How we lead will flow out from that.