The status seeker leader

Continuing a series of posts on leaders who make sense - or in this case, don't!

Leadership is about elevation, lifting others up, not putting them down. Even if a tough topic needs talking about, a leader who makes sense makes the environment feel safe anyway.

Many leaders play status games and are unaware they do it. They try to make themselves feel better by being right, better, showing they know it all.

Compliments get turned into criticisms, praise isn’t passed on, and success gets stashed not shared.

Status seekers feel like shite and they share that shite around. (And yes, this character I've sketched looks like a poop-emoji. Unintentional originally, but oh-so suitable once I noticed it.)

Making others feel shitty is a dirty tactic; it’s hurtful and unnecessary. These leaders don’t make sense! What they say can be in contrast to how things really are. We know politicians like this when they're said to be 'removed', 'tone deaf' and ’not living in the real world’.

Leaders in chaos create more chaos

Beware the 'chaos conveyer' leader. "They’re all over the place," was a description I heard from a team recently. Whether they’re hyped up on too much coffee (or energy drinks), lacking sleep or overwhelmed with too much of everything, the chaotic leader rarely makes sense.

They're described as ‘intense’; they interrupt, are impatient, shut things down and can have a distorted view of time, deadlines and scope. Then.... zzzzing! They're out of one meeting and dashing to the next, out of control.

The danger is, their chaos creates more chaos.

Their mood, energy and character creates uncertainty and chaos. No wonder people disappear and disengage; it’s all too much!

It doesn't make sense because they don't:

🙀think

🙀prepare or

🙀manage their state ... before lurching into a leadership situation.

They're often 'winging it', and not in a good, creative way.

Volatile times require leaders who can bring sense to situations, no matter what’s going on.

The GRRRRRRR of the 'Me Monster'

In these crazy turbulent times, it’s not easy to communicate information to others.

We can be dealing with complex information ourselves, struggling with new systems or concepts, learning new things. And the people we need to reach with our communication can seem disconnected, disengaged, distracted (and potentially displeased with what’s going on in their world of change and turbulence). Not the most receptive audience!

Comedians know about the challenges of an audience who seems ’tough’. Comedian Brian Regan suggests we avoid being a ‘Me Monster’; you know, making it all about yourself. Check how often you say 'I, me, my, mine, I, me me me me me me me-aarrrrrgghhhhh' - that’s the Me Monster.

Not good: too much about you, needs to be more about them.

So it goes that leaders who are able to 'make sense’ in these tricky times make the information about others, not themselves.

That's leadership right there. 

Look at where you're looking

Teamwork takes longer than it needs to because we struggle as a group to make sense of what’s going on. No wonder! We’ve never been more distracted, looking at devices, laptops, watches & journals as relief from the boredom, complication and irrelevance of meetings.

Check the distractions here:

⬇️ The guy (left) is looking at a Spotify playlist

➡️ She’s mindful with her coffee

↘️ Sunglasses dude is checking spreadsheets, emails or Slack 

🔀 The two on the right are writing in a journal, one just checked her Fitbit or Apple watch 

There are 5 laptops, 6 devices, 4 note pads and a folder-thingy.

We're perpetually distracted by other visual points of interest, stealing our focus from the team's work.

One person might be going OK making sense, but another two or three people may have ‘lost the threads’ of what's really going on.

Look where people are looking. Unless and until you have what I call a ‘Common Visual Point of Context’, you’ll all be drawn to you own ‘Individual Points of Relief’ (or Distraction). 

Up in the clouds... or down in the details

Up in the clouds... or down in the details. Author Jim Haudan suggests people across an organisation 'fly' at different levels. You'll experience it every day.

We have different altitudes of perspective and so we see different things, think differently.

We know this from being in an aircraft:

✈️ On the ground: you can see the airport, trees and tarmac as you're taxiing to the runway;

✈️ Up in the air: up to a few thousand feet up there, you can see cars, roads, rivers and patchwork quilts of fields and farms; and

✈️ Cruising Altitude: way up there, at 35,000 feet and above it’s cruising altitude and you're getting the big picture.

You can see a broader perspective stretching way w-a-y over the horizon. Today's leaders need to be able to fly at all levels - and most of all, to be able to recognise it or hear it when others are speaking.

This is one of the capabilities of the 'Leader as Facilitator' I posted on yesterday. Your preference may keep you 'locked' at a level that's not helpful.

Q: What say you? Are you an 'up in the clouds' person, 'down in the details' or do you fly somewhere in the middle?