Walking the Leadership Tightrope
I’m so committed to pressing into the future that it’s hard to enjoy the present. You can’t lead if you aren’t dissatisfied. How are you navigating the leadership tightrope between what is and what could be?
Leadership tightropes include:
- Passion to improve and discouragement at progress.
- Pressing into the future and rejection of the present.
- Wanting things to be better and constant dissatisfaction.
- Satisfaction with the present and fear of apathy or lethargy.
Successful leaders learn to live
with dissatisfaction in positive ways.
If you can’t be positive in the face of falling short, you’ll discourage your team. Optimism has meaning during improvement, challenge, adversity, and distress.
Being dissatisfied in positive ways:
- Compare the present with the past when thinking about progress.
- Compare the present with the future when tapping into aspirations.
- Use the negative present as a tool to create dissatisfaction. “This can’t continue.”
- Focus on the talents and abilities of the team to instill hope.
- Tell stories of achievement that inspire optimism.
- Take time to celebrate imperfect progress.
Pessimism says, “We’re terrible.” Optimism says, “We can be better.”
How are you walking the tightrope that aspiration to be better can create?
This is always a hard one for me. I am always personally pushing for more and can be very hard on myself when progress is slow. As a leader, I have had to learn to be very deliberate to not overly impose this on my teams. I work to surround myself with leaders who are better at remembering to celebrate the small progress and milestone wins. One guy on my team is fantastic at this…”can we just stop for a minute here and breathe in this success?”
I see your wisdom in listening to “celebrators.” Even as I hear them celebrate, I worry that everyone will let down.
Celebration done well doesn’t stagnate it motivates. :-)… I’m telling myself that again!
Might suggest that the celebration time is a pivot point of establishing a new standard. As the celebration winds down, (hopefully there too is a discussion of positive lessons learned which is way more fun than the negative review/opportunity process) would it make sense to briefly align with the continuous learning mantra and, at the same, inquire rhetorically, what do people see as the next horizon?
I took the liberty to send this on to RNC and DNC! :). Thanks for another good mind-starter today.
Today, looking at that person who worked in 4 different countries in Middle east, escaped from red into blue ocean, ups and downs, with encouraging wife passed that adventure. Really, that progress left me inspired and encouraged to be unsatisfied in the same place for a long time. Always striving for knowledge, like the time is running out while I´m still on my 34 age.
Dear Dan,
You are right. Dissatisfaction pushes one to move forward. Absence of dissatisfaction is hopeless and unhappy life. But dissatisfaction has a cost. You need to fore-go present success to achieve imaginary success. It is good as long as one enjoys that journey, generates energy and instils optimism. But when one is dissatisfied just because others are having more, can be dangerous. Comparing with others achievement sucks energy, distracts and deviate path. I strongly believe one should compare one’s achievement with one’s potential to achieve. Self comparison is the best comparison because one can clearly measure one’s past, present and future success. Comparison with others can lead to unrealistic assumption, perception and conclusions.
I also believe that as leaders achieve more, they should multiply their determination and devotion more, so that they keep on breaking their own records.
Many years ago, someone told me that dissatisfaction is the motor of creativity.
‘Nuff said. 🙂
A comment about: “rejecting the present”…This is a good philosophy for continuous improvement but it may also rob you of happiness because that exist only in the present. The past is gone and the future is not here yet. It’s OK to stop once in awhile to contemplate your achievements and be happy about them.
Author: The General Contractor – How to be a Great Success or Failure…www.JoeEgan.com
The harmony/dissonance challenge, two sides of the same sheet of music.
Is it dissatisfaction, apathy, rejection, discouragement or could it be overt acknowledgement of the elemental human condition that is, imperfection?
In owning that we will never be perfect, can we also own that we want to keep getting better, that we want to keep learning and growing?
Yes, definitely make time to celebrate the journey and the reaching of new peaks (which if too much time passes can become plateaus and then stagnation), yet keep scanning ahead to see what other opportunities there may be. Leaders will continually be pressured to pause and at the same time know that there also has to be a dynamic tension to continue to learn and improve.
For me the essence of successfully negotiating a tightrope — real or analogous — seems to boil down to balance and courage.
As an individual, always having your eye towards the future drives dissatisfaction, which hopefully drives improvement. Self-encouragement happens automatically, individuals know when they have completed a job-well-done. External acknowledgement is generally not required (for those intrinsically motivated).
However, using this as an approach for organizations requires high communication levels. Taking no time or only superficial effort to recognize the team’s job-well-done can result in apathy towards future goals. The high tempo, mission-focused environment I work in is terrible at this. We prepare months in advance for large inspections. When they are navigated successfully, it’s on to the next hurdle, receiving at most a superficial pat on the back. Having spent little time reflecting on our gains and improvements is disheartening.
The difficult questions for me are: How do you balance the need for stroking the collective ego and moving forward? How much time is enough? Does a successful leader simply find ways to hide dissatisfaction with the present as to not drain the positive energy of surpassing hurdles?
The best leaders I know celebrate everything including the missteps.
In regards to the tightrope. It’s being willing to operate without a net. If you’re an authentic leader with credibility, your team will be there to catch you if you fall.
Wow! Thanks for this article. Although I see clearly where I am going, I feel dissatisfied with my progress both as a leader and as an individual. Of course, in my mind, I should be further along. Your article helped me to put my dissatisfaction into perspective and see it as a positive thing and to enjoy the journey!.
Must a good leader always be dissatisfied? This implies someone for whom nothing is ever good enough, they will always be unhappy and that could be quite demoralising for a team.
I take the view that we should mostly be content with today (unless of course you are in a really bad place) and celebrate the who/where you are …. but to continue that contentment you must plan and prepare for a dissatisifying tomorrow.
Today is always a springboard for tomorrow. We will eternally be in today and never actually arrive at tomorrow.