Under Control

Before we dive in: the next Lead Without Hiding Challenge runs September 22 through 24. Three days live with me on naming what you have been keeping under control and leading from who you actually are. If this issue lands anywhere close to home, that is where we do the work.

Save your seat: leadwithouthiding.com

Looking like you have it under control is a skill, and most of us got promoted for it.

The trouble is that the skill that gets you the room is the same one that keeps everybody in it from helping you.

When I was in college, I spent a semester in New Zealand, and one weekend a few of us climbed Avalanche Peak in Arthur's Pass on the South Island.

We got to the top, and it was overcast and misty, socked in on every side. Then, for a moment, the clouds broke, and you could see the valley below; then they closed again and opened somewhere else.

It never became a full panorama. We got a piece here, then a piece there.

As I stood staring at my piece of the horizon, one of the guys yelled, "Tyler, look over here." A different window had opened behind me, and I never would have seen it on my own.

That is how clarity develops. Life and leadership are rarely clear blue skies and sunshine. It's bits and pieces of sun in between the clouds and showers.

As a leader, I carried problems for weeks before I said a word, because I believed the plan had to be finished before anyone was allowed to see it.

The question I never said out loud: if they see me unsure, why would they follow me?

One of the four walls I write about in The Things We Hide is isolation, and it rarely looks like a leader who is hard to find. It looks like a leader who sits in every meeting and shares nothing that is not finished, a closed door with someone standing in front of it.

The belief holding that wall up was that people trust the leader who has it handled, so the unfinished version of me had to stay hidden.

What it cost me was every "look over here" I never heard, because nobody knew I was looking.

You can look like you have it under control and be the only person on the mountain who cannot see.

Podcast

Caroline Webb spent the 1990s as an economist at the Bank of England, forecasting an entire economy, then moved to McKinsey, where she became a partner. She has spent the past three decades coaching leaders on what the brain is actually doing under pressure, and her new book, Leadership Intelligence, is out this week.

Here are three takeaways from my conversation with Caroline.

1. Your Job Is to Make the Room Smarter

You got promoted for being the smartest person in the room, and Caroline is blunt about what comes next: "Your job is not to be the smartest person in the room; it's to make everybody else smarter." 

Her boss once told her the work looked wonderful and then pointed out she had never asked her boss for input, so this week, walk into one meeting carrying a question instead of an answer.

2. Know. Be. Do.

Uncertainty stresses a team most when it feels out of their hands. Caroline gives leaders three things to say: what we know, even if it is only a date; who we are, the values that do not move when the plan does; and what we can do right now. 

You cannot promise it will turn out fine, but you can be "a human in the mix thinking things through," and that is enough to keep people moving.

3. Jumpy Is Not Smarter

Under stress, the vigilant part of your brain gets louder, and the thinking part gets quieter, or as Caroline put it, "you're jumpy, but you're not smarter," which is where most bad leadership behavior starts. 

Self-awareness is simply noticing the signal, so the next time you snap in a meeting, get curious about what is going on with you before you decide what is wrong with them.

Can you share a review?

One more thing. If The Things We Hide has helped you name something you have been carrying alone, would you take two minutes and leave a review on Amazon? A review helps the next leader who needs this book find it, and if you haven't picked up a copy yet, consider this your nudge.

Grab your copy or leave a review: Amazon.com

Did you catch this podcast? If not, listen to it here.