Lead as yourself

Hello Reader,

My friend Nate is a leader at a national non-profit organization untangling the knot of homelessness. He battled cancer years ago. After an abrupt diagnosis and surgery, he and his wife moved from California to New York City and stayed with my family during his chemo and radiation treatment.

He set up his office desk at our dining table, and I delighted in cooking dinners while eavesdropping on his work conversations. For the most part, his phone calls were filled with silent curiosity. He deftly reorganized conversations around what was important, asking relevant questions with playfulness and care.

I asked him when and how he had learned to hold space like that for the people he leads.

He said, “I remember the day when I faced the decision of my career. I had learned the leadership ropes and had produced decent results. Then, I had to choose.”

I was all ears.

“Am I going to move forward as my role, or am I going forward as myself?” he said.

Two Ways to Move Your Career Forward

If you are in the middle of your career, you have probably encountered books, workshops, and coaching programs that exalt the character and skills of great leaders.

The research is clear: the leaders we prefer can articulate a vision, make decisions, provide answers, and get others to follow. They seem to know where they are going and how to get there. And, oh, we also want our leaders to be white, male, and tall, if possible.

Research also shows that such charismatic leaders are more likely to leave their organizations in shambles and that powerful leaders can go powerfully wrong.

We now see such leadership as a stereotype we want to leave behind. But we don’t leave it behind. We still want it. Most people do. This is all to say that if you learn to be a leaderly leader, you are more likely to get promoted, groomed, and advanced in an organization.

So, that’s one option. Focus on practicing your leader’s persona as your system imagines it. If you stay with it, your career will likely advance forward and upward. That is until you find yourself burned out. And you will burn out this way.

There is another option. You begin to direct your curiosity and energy to understand your inner life, the lives of those you serve, and the systems to which you belong. Here, you apprentice yourself to the unknown within and around you. You commit yourself to live, lead, and love as yourself. You learn like mad and see where it takes you and who you will become.

And what does that look like?

Apprentice Yourself to Your Own Life

Years ago, after working in the non-profit world, I shifted into the unknown of the corporate world. That’s where I could make enough money while impacting the world.

I was a consultant. I bought three suits: one dark blue like those healthy and brilliantly happy corporate people in stock photos wore, and two gray suits to match my silver hair and give me an aura of experience. I also got new ties, shoes, and a briefcase. I looked authoritative yet approachable, grand yet humble. Spot on.

I learned to translate human speak into corporate terms. What is the mission-critical task here? Who are the stakeholders we need to consider? Where do we need to pivot?

Asking was good. It allowed me to conceal my impostor syndrome while giving me time to find my sea legs and come up for air.

I read one leadership book every week. Every month, I attended a conference where members of the human species with executive presence could meet in groups.

Over four years of navigating the angular world of hallways, spreadsheets, and org charts, I made a discovery. Right there, in the middle of the metal, glass, and free food — invisible to casual (or cynical) observers — were people who had apprenticed themselves to the mystery within and around them.

I stopped judging them. Not all, but enough cared and worked for justice, related their lives to earth, acted with kindness, and sought beauty. They joyfully, sacrificially, and systematically gave their best to others. As their careers progressed, they looked forward to their final act, letting it go and empowering those coming to replace them.

Do you see them in your organization? No? Look again. Probe deeper.

There is a conspiracy of Nates going on.

Make Yourself Findable

Sometimes, they must dress for the role, shake hands, smile, and have a persona of unnatural confidence. But mostly, they navigate their complex world and forgive others, themselves, God, gods, or life. Instead of following the map, their heart is wayfinding through the unknown.

Sometimes, they find themselves lonely. Sometimes, they hunger for open conversations about mystical experiences and practices. Sometimes, their tired, ordinary selves need someone to delight in them genuinely and appreciate what it takes for an adult to get to where they are now.

That’s what comes with being courageously human. If you let go of trying to be a leaderly leader and instead pivot like this in your mid-career, there'll be a price to pay. But you will feel life more directly and end up leading better.

When you lead as yourself, you make yourself visible and, therefore, findable by people looking for a real person to follow, hire, or collaborate with. If, on the other hand, you lead as a leaderly leader, there is no you to be found.

More Human, Fewer Things Better

If you are like most people, you are almost certainly trapped in the nervous system that made you successful. I say trapped because the qualities that have led you to your current success are now your liability.

You look for problems to solve (instead of possibilities to explore). You seek certainties to protect you (instead of trust to free you). You look for explanations to fortify you (instead of experiences to transform you). The list goes on.

Times have changed. Instead of helping you on your way, resources, conferences, best practices, and life hacks get in the way.

This brings us to what seems to be the key question for leadership development in uncertain times: “How can I prepare for something that does not yet exist?”

We don’t know the answer to that question. Yet. But we do know something important. Whatever comes next will involve a new kind of radical simplicity.

We could summarize it like this: Lean into being human and learn to do fewer things better. That’s a great start.

After coaching hundreds of leaders, I noticed three ways one can tell you are on a journey to becoming yourself instead of a leaderly leader.

1. You love something.

What is your leadership about? Is it about helping a cause, running a thriving business, launching a disruptive startup, serving your online followers, running for office, developing yourself, balancing your personal life, or raising your children?

If you are on the journey of becoming an authentic leader, whatever your answer, it is, deep inside, all about love for something. Love anyone or anything enough, and you must take the lead at an appointed time.

You might love money. There is no shame here. We all have mortgages, cancers, and dreams to pay for. You might love having an influence. If you are human, you likely want to have control. You might be in love with freedom. You might love friends, music, sex, or earth. You might love God, gods, or dogs. It doesn’t matter.

If you love well, sooner or later, your love will ask you to lead.

At the end of the day--or life--great leadership is a love story.

2. You have faith in the future.

Without faith in the future, you have no business leading. It is that simple, and you know it.

You might already have your particular way of having faith in the future. You don’t know what is about to occur the next day or the next eon, but you have developed a relationship with what you don’t know.

A story from the Jewish mystical tradition says that even though humans are horrendous to each other and the planet, God is sparing humanity because, at any given time, twelve people in the world are so good that God cannot make God end it. And--here is the kicker--we would never guess who these twelve people are. They are hiding in plain sight. It could be anyone.

That’s what happens in every corporation, every non-profit organization, every political party, and every nation. Goodness. Everywhere.

You cannot be sure of this, of course. You cannot know. I'm wondering if you can believe it. And help make it so?

I appreciate this passage from Simple Habits for Complex Times, by @JenniferGarveyBerger and Kieth Johnston:

The leaders of the future will not be those who know the future. They will be those who have faith in the future. Paradoxically, faith in the future is a form of creating the future.

You will get lost at times, that’s for sure. But your faith will find you.

You will feel like you are free-falling at times. But who you are becoming will catch you.

3. You are here.

That’s all that you need.

Put a finger on your wrist or your palm to your chest. Can you sense life pulsing through you? It's not yours. It was there before you and will be there after you.

Close your eyes and think of yourself being dead and buried. People are walking from the cemetery to the potluck afterward. They are going to eat potato salad there. Can you sense the life that you have now, moving through the people who will be around after you are gone?

You can just drop the struggle. This whole thing is not about you. It’s about everyone else as well. You and I need the world, and the world needs you and I.

The era of heroics and “great-men” approaches to leadership is waning.

We are like a flock of geese flying or a herd of mustangs running together toward a shared horizon. Each one hears a call of what they love and responds where and when needed. You, in your way and in your time, I in mine, each of us as inimitable participants in something greater than ourselves.

Who is a leader and who is a follower is becoming less and less clear and, frankly, less and less relevant. To lead is now human.

Leading has become like listening. We are all asked to do it, everyone can do it, and everyone can learn to do it better.

If you love something, have faith in the future, and are here, the question begs to be asked: Are you ready to take a leap of trust in yourself?

Samir

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