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.

Why?

My almost-three-year old niece, like most kids her age, asks "why" a lot. And while this can get a bit tiresome, one recurring thing in leadership trainings I've attended is understanding the why.

At Willowcreek's Global Leadership Summit, one speaker told an anecdote about two kids fighting over an orange. Their mother stepped in, cut the orange in half, and gave them each half. The first child peeled it, threw away the peel, and ate the orange. The second child peeled it, threw away the orange, and used the peel for something she was baking. 

It's situations like that where we often tend to make assumptions. But in such a case, asking why rather than making an assumption would've given both kids the full part of the orange they wanted, and nothing would've gone to waste.

A few weeks ago I woke up in the night to the sound of Peanut whining on the dresser. She has a little stool she uses to jump up there so she can look out the window. Assuming she was whining at something outside, I told her to come back to bed. She stayed where she was and kept whining, and again I told her to come back to bed. This exchange continued for a while until finally I realized she wasn't whining at something outside - she was whining because it was too dark for her to find her stool to jump back down. The very thing I was telling her to do was the thing she was whining about being unable to do.

It was a great reminder to me that as I seek to be a strong leader, I need to avoid assumptions and ask "why" almost as liberally as my niece. If someone complains that they are unhappy with an assignment, I need to ask why not just once, but keep digging until I understand what lies below the surface.

Leadership

I recently got a promotion at work and am now a team leader. It's short of supervisor, but I help manage workflow and schedules for the assistant editors. It's my first "official" leadership position in the workplace, and I've been thinking about what kind of leader I want to be.

Then I read Joshua 3, where Joshua leads the Israelites across the Jordan River. And I noticed something I'd never noticed before. Before they cross, God says this to Joshua: "Today I will begin to make you a great leader in the eyes of all the Israelites. They will know that I am with you, just as I was with Moses" (Joshua 3:7).

And after they cross, the account is summed up in Joshua 4:14: "That day the Lord made Joshua a great leader in the eyes of the Israelites, and for the rest of his life they revered him as much as they revered Moses." (To which I thought - well, that's not saying much - they didn't revere Moses all that well...)

But revering aside, the Bible says that this event was the defining moment of Joshua's leadership. It had nothing to do with reading management books. His leadership was defined through his faith, when he allowed God to do something amazing through him. And his leadership was defined even though he gave all the credit to God.

That's the kind of leader I want to be.