What were they thinking?
Few leaders are stupid.
Even fewer are evil.
After 25+ years of identifying, observing, developing, and coaching leaders; one of the things I am most sure of is that the majority of poor behaviour and bad decisions are driven much more by insecurity than by malice.
I know it doesn’t look that way a lot of the time.
I’m sometimes the one shaking my head at the strange choices, self-defeating actions, and seeming callousness displayed by people I expect to be so much better.
But, time after time, when I’m able to dig a little deeper, what I find is a leader (or even a team) who are uncertain, confused, overwhelmed, stressed, and struggling.
Trying to appear more confident than they really are traps them into not asking for help, taking time to gather more insight, or scaling back expectations. That leads to failures. Which feeds deeper insecurity. And the cycle escalates…
I’ve had the privilege these last few years of watching one of my most trusted friends step into her most senior role, and in some challenging circumstances. The first thing she did was assemble very intentionally a circle of advisors. Some are paid consultants, some are long term trusted friends and mentors, and all of them provide insights in areas where she felt her own experience might not be sufficient for the needs of the organization.
By owning her insecurities she disempowered them and gave herself the resources to not be driven by them. The results have been outstanding!
I’ve seen other leaders cope by building remarkable trust and candour with their teams. A few just seem to have an innate sense of rooted identity in the deepest truths they believe. And some are in roles where they’ve already been there, done that enough to rarely experience insecurity.
But for the large majority of us, the way we deal with the human reality of insecurity may be one of the strongest predictors of our ability to lead in healthy ways over time.
It’s not about not feeling pressure or high expectations. It’s having the true humility to recognize that insecurity is to be expected, and that dealing with it almost always requires the help of others.
I’ve got some thoughts on what supervisors and boards can do to help leaders work beyond their insecurity; but that will be a future post.
For now, I hope that we can simply reflect on how insecurity is affecting our own leadership, and maybe consider whether those leaders we see doing flawed or foolish things might actually be more in need of compassion than condemnation.
The vast majority of us are trying our best.
Contact me if I can be helpful to you and/or your organization.
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