Leadership

A little while ago at work we did an exercise to illustrate leadership. One partner (me) in each pair had to ask the other about his or her summer plans. But our secret goal was to try to get our partners to copy our body language. So we were to make weird facial expressions, or be really obvious about crossing our legs, and so on.

My partner noticed that I was behaving a bit oddly, my hand in a strange position across my face. But he didn't copy me. Later on when the goal of the activity was revealed and we discussed the experience, he said, "If I'd have known you were leading me, I would've followed."

Someone else pointed out that nowhere in the rules of the exercise had we been told we couldn't just tell our partner, "copy my body language." We all just assumed that was a rule, so we didn't tell our partners the goal.

All in all, it was a really poignant lesson in leadership. Does your team know where you're trying to lead them? Or are you just expecting them to follow? They may be perfectly willing to follow, like my partner was, but they don't know the goal you're aiming toward. They don't know you're trying to lead them. So they don't follow.

Often, casting that vision is as simple as telling them. There's no unspoken rule like the one we assumed, that we had to lead in such a compelling way that they would copy our body language. Clear communication is an important step to leading your team.

If they know you're leading them, they'll probably follow.

Why?

About a year ago, I was put into a leadership position at my work. Which was a great honor and has been a great joy. But I’m young, and I have a lot to learn about leadership.

Peanut, inspiring pup that she is, taught me one lesson. I’d actually heard a couple much wiser leaders at work make comments to this effect before Peanut helped me learn it firsthand.

The point I’d heard was that in leadership, it’s important to understand why. For example, if someone asks for a deadline extension, understand why they want it. Is there an unrelated task they think they need to do before the deadline in question, and that task really doesn’t need to be done? Do they think there’s more due on that deadline than you’re expecting?

So here’s what Peanut did. It was the middle of the night, and I woke up to her whining. She was standing on the dresser. (She has a stool next to it so she can get up there to look out the window.) I told her to stop whining and get down. She kept whining. More and more insistently, I kept telling her to stop whining and come to bed. Finally, I woke up enough to realize she was whining because in the dark, she didn’t know how to jump on the stool and get down. The reason she was whining was because she couldn’t do the very thing I also wanted her to do! So I turned on a lamp and she got down.

A speaker at a leadership conference gave this example: two girls are fighting over an orange. The mom sees this, cuts the orange in half, and gives each girl a half. One girl throws out the peel and eats the orange. The other girl throws out the orange and uses the peel to bake something.

When we don’t understand why, waste happens. When we do understand why, we may be able to make everyone happy without even having to compromise.