Speaking of Leadership
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Oct
23
Friends,
I got some great Amens from last week’s RFL. You’ll remember I was writing about how followers can bring out the best in leaders by giving them an occasional Amen or a nice job. One reader put an exclamation point on it, while another raised a valid concern.
The first wrote about encouragement and said, Truly, it’s lonely at the top. When you report to someone a partner, principal, department head, CEO, coach or parent: you generally get some feedback and hopefully some praise. But you have to adjust when you become managing partner, school superintendent, CEO, or parent because now you look up the hierarchy but there’s no one there. You’ve lost the boss to encourage and often lost the peers with whom you could joke, commiserate, or get a friendly, Amen to that, brother. This person argued that managers truly need the Amens that we unthinkingly withhold from them. To reinforce the point from last week: It’s easy to forget that the manager doesn’t stop being human, and that humans never stop needing encouragement.
A second reader recoiled at the idea that leaders needed more encouragement. He suggested that a bigger problem than unappreciated leaders is unchecked leaders. And so he asked: Would someone disagreeing with a minister be shouted-down by the rest of the congregation? Would the minister even be able to hear them? Well, I can think of one solitary time in 48 years of church-going that I ever saw a preacher publicly challenged, so I suppose that answers his questions! On the other hand, many ministers I have known do receive considerable amounts of advice, feedback, pushback, blowback, etc., outside the actual service. But the more interesting point is not the church, per se, but the general problem that authority is, as this reader suggested, often not challenged, even when it needs to be. Clearly, there are times when some in authority are not hearing, not seeking to hear, and not even remotely aware of what their followers are thinking.
The reader was dead right: encouragement alone especially with toxic or despotic authorities may not improve their management.
But consider this: encouragement and specific constructive feedback are not an either/or proposition. The very same authority figures that could use some positive encouragement in some aspects of their leadership, probably also could use some honest feedback in other domains of their leadership. Take an example from child-rearing. Could you raise a child well with only positive encouragement, or only brutal honesty about how they are performing? Of course not. They and we need both. The more genuine support we receive and the more objective-constructive feedback we receive, the more we will improve as leaders.
It takes kindness and courage to offer both types of advice to your boss, and thus…
Lead with your best self,
Dan
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