Leadership is complicated.
But it's because we make it that way.
In America, we're obsessed with finding shortcuts. Whether it's early morning ice baths, get-rich life hacks, or 5-minute meditation apps, we need the shortest path to get our desired result.
This obsession turns every activity into a transaction. A habitual and necessary exchange of value has us calculating the anticipated output of every input. From lunch with friends to time with our kids, it's no wonder we're exhausted. We are weighing the opportunity cost of every decision in our life. I've been sitting with my child, watching him learn to draw an "A" and thinking about what I could be doing instead that would be productive. A friend invited me out for coffee the other day, and my first thought was, "I wonder why he asked me or what he wants."
Honestly, what the f*ck?
It could be to sit, have a coffee and talk about nothing.
My concern is our transactional approach to life has leaked into leadership. Converting it into a collection of shortcuts to "get the most out of our people." Think about that wording: get the most out of.
That means the leadership formula is this:
Decreasing our input and increasing their output = Effective leadership
Eesh. That's scary. That formula doesn't actually work.
"But this means I need to spend MORE time with my people?"
Yes.
The paradox that bad leaders need to understand is the more we invest our input into who they are without regard for the output, the greater their results will be.
Your employees won't remember you for the results, they'll remember the time you spent investing in them to deliver those results.
Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor, and creator of logotherapy, best known for his book, A Man's Search for Meaning wrote another lesser-known novel, The Will to Meaning.
The Will to Meaning is about his research into meaning-based therapy which led to his creation of logotherapy. It is a much more clinical read, but it's perhaps the most profound book I've ever read. It had me shook and is perhaps more applicable to life today than it was in 1969. I am sharing an excerpt I highlighted from this book that gives us a hint into how the simple acts of humanity are what give our employees meaning, not the hacks we teach them.
But when she visited me there it turned out that not one of all the arguments I offered had impressed her. The only reason she had decided not to commit suicide was the fact that, rather than growing angry because of having been disturbed in my sleep in the middle of the night, I had patiently listened to her and talked with her for half an hour, and a world—she found—in which this can happen, must be a world worth living in.
It wasn't the arguments, the hacks, or the methods that worked for this woman. He picked up the phone and spent 30 minutes of his life listening.
Let's make a commitment to do the same and I guarantee the output will come.
With purpose,
KC Holiday
A humble request: The best way for me to grow my newsletter is to have people who appreciate it, share it. Would you please share either this article or another one you've enjoyed on your socials through the link below? Thank you! 🙌🏻