Today I’m fired up to talk to you about something that comes with leadership. At least, for me it does.
It’s the idea that being the leader means you are taking accountability for your team.
For example, it means that you take responsibility for assessing what’s needed and you take appropriate action to make sure that you can do those things. You organize the team. You acquire the talent needed to accomplish the goals at hand. You relentlessly pursue the budget you need. You make spreadsheets and decks even when you’d rather be doing the “fun” stuff. You apologize or smooth feathers if someone working for you messes something up or gets in a tiff with someone on another team. That’s all well and good.
But accountability works both ways.
So you also have their back when something messed-up happens. You speak truth to power when you see abuses.
You’re willing to “take a bullet” for them. Not because they’re nice or a “good worker” or they love you or whatever (because some of them will NOT be any of those things). You do it because they have entrusted their livelihoods to you.
That trust is special. I’d almost call it sacred.
Being accountable means not just being accountable to the job - but being accountable to the human beings whose lives are so directly impacted by how you conduct yourself.
A person gets many opportunities to make connections in life: But they get only a few bosses or managers. A bad one can be a life-ruiner.
Therefore, being a manager is an opportunity. An opportunity to leave the world a less-fucked-up place than it was before you arrived. An opportunity to put your weight behind the the quiet criticisms you collect about how things are done at your job. An opportunity to try to do it better, even if only for a little while.
You will still make mistakes. You will trust the wrong people sometimes. Or you’ll calculate something wrong and it won’t go the way you wanted it to. And you’ll still have to sometimes make impossible choices that no one benefits from. You’ll still have to fire people or say no to things or have difficult conversations with people about performance. You’ll still have to do all that.
But when people feel that underlying willingness to serve from you - when they feel that you will ride or die for them, or take heat for them - something changes.
The team becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. The overall atmosphere clears. It becomes safe to have an opinion. (or safer, anyways). This is good. Sometimes leaders approach things as if they have a big giant brain and everyone else is a dumb child they have to direct. But what’s truly dumb is having access to all those big, wonderful human brains - and then not letting them think for themselves.
Here’s another thing: when you know that you are the kind of person who will speak truth to power even when the truth is super inconvenient (eg: there’s a worldwide pandemic brewing and you don’t feel comfortable asking anyone to come into the office right now) - the atmosphere will clear for you, too. You will find out exactly what the people above you think about you. You will find out exactly how much they’re willing to do for you. You will see what they actually believe, and what kind of people they are. You will show them that you can’t be bought. This is valuable; this is actual power.
I can’t promise that it will always go how you want. But I’m also not recommending reckless disagreement; I’m just saying if you see something f*ed up - you do something. Sometimes you do what you can quietly, and sometimes you do it loudly. Whatever the situation calls for.
I have never regretted speaking up for the people I’ve been lucky enough to be entrusted with. I have never regretted speaking up for myself. I have sometimes regretted doing it “wrong.” I have sometimes wished I could look away or turn off my feelings. I have sweated and been afraid of what the consequences would be for me to disagree with people much more powerful than me. But I haven’t regretted it.
XOXO,
Cathy