Are you Difficult to Work For? (Challenge #95)

So, if you listen to the end of the kind leadership challenge every week, you know I usually encourage you to use the next steps checklist to plan your approach to that week’s leadership challenge—or any other leadership challenge for that matter. And I let you know that you can download the next steps checklist by heading to kindleadershipchallenge.com/next, and entering your email address. But what else happens when you enter your email? Well, you get this podcast delivered straight to your inbox every Monday morning, as well as access to other freebies and goodies I’ve created over the years to help kind leaders with things like difficult conversations, makinf better decisions, and defusing workplace drama. In addition, a couple times a week I send out a question of the day, to get you thinking a little more deeply about your leadership practice during the hustle and bustle of your everyday work. I often add a couple paragraphs about my take on the question, or how I’ve tackled the deeper challenge the question highlights, Today I’m going to share an email I sent recently that starts with a simple question: What makes you difficult to work with?

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Welcome to the Kind Leadership Challenge, where every Monday morning I teach you how to heal your school or library in the next ten minutes! I’m Dr. Sarah Clark, founder of the Kind Leadership Guild, where I use my PhD in Higher ed leadership and nearly 2 decades of experience in academic libraries to advise a growing community of educational leaders who want to build a better world without burning out. 

Kind leaders make the tough decisions without becoming jerks. We plan effective systems that help us get the job done with less money and effort. And we’ve learned that once we stop controlling and start collaborating, any vision becomes possible. To be clear, Kind Leadership’s pretty simple, but it’s rarely easy. So if you’re up for a challenge, stick around to learn how to create a legacy that will strengthen your community long after you’re gone.

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So, here’s an example of a typical email you would get if you grab a copy of the next steps checklist, pretty much verbatim.

Hey [FIRST NAME GOES HERE],

What differentiates a good kind leader from a great kind leader is the courage to be honest with yourself.

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So shut your door (if you have one), grab a soothing beverage and a writing implement, and ask yourself this question:

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​How is the way I think and process information affecting my team culture?

Example:

Either because of early mild brain damage, being the sort of absent-minded nerd who goes into academic librarianship, or (most likely) both, I have atrocious short term memory, and my executive functioning could be better. For a long time, I handled this quirk by asking people who stopped me in the hallway with a question or task that I couldn't answer immediately to send me an email, so I could follow-up. That way they would have documentation that they'd asked me to do The Thing, and I would have a reminder to add The Thing to my task list. Win-win!

However, when I moved to a new university, what had come off to my old team as efficiency (or at worst an innocent eccentricity), seemed to my new team like not caring or having it together, because the culture was much more oriented around informal processes and handling things with quick chats. They didn't want to have to document everything, and I was letting stuff slip through the cracks!

So, I shifted. I began carrying around my notebook EVERY TIME I SET FOOT OUTSIDE MY OFFICE, not just to meetings and such. When I got a quick request or question that required follow-up, I wrote it down then and there. I got The Thing done, and my team was heard in the way that they needed to be heard. Win-Win again!

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So, is there some quirk like this that is posing a challenge to you or your colleagues? it can be a leaky short term memory like me, or stuff like a hair-trigger temper, or a tendency to take feedback too personally. Reflect on your answer for a moment, and figure out if there's a problem that needs addressing.

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If you could use a kind coach or a trusted community of colleagues to help you think through what you discover from this question, I'm as close as the reply button or the next meeting of the Kind Leadership Guild. :-)

Stay Kind Now,

Sarah

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And that’s an example of my daily emails. That’s actually one of the longer ones. Like the podcast, they’re short, sweet, and designed to get you back to building a world with a fresh perspective and a little more spring in your step. And yes, I do talk a bit at the end about the kind leadership guild, for the same reason I end every episode of the kind leadership challenge with some encouragement to grab your free copy of the next steps checklist. You deserve to know about all the resources that are out there to help you grow as a leader, so you can make informed decisions. And if you decide the next steps checklist will help you to actually start solving the challenges I present this week and the other ones life throws at you, emails like that are what you can come to expect from me. If you’d like to move beyond these weekly lessons and start thinking a little bit more deeply about your approach to leadership, I hope you decide to continue the conversation. And that leads me to my challenge to you—to invest a little time or money in your leadership development, because you are worth the investment. Of course, I hope you decide to download the next steps checklist or schedule a 30 minute chat with me to learn more about the Kind Leadership Guild. But if neither of those are right for you, check out one of the resources I’ve featured on my linkedin page, or browse your local library for a good leadership book—or heck, just share what you’re going through with a trusted colleague who can help you out! Choose your own adventure—but choose something that will make your life and work a little easier. YOU DESERVE IT. 

Thanks as always for listening to the kind leadership challenge, and for growing humanely, managing effectively, and creating collaboratively in your own organization. And if you know someone who might find this episode helpful, hit share in your podcast app or send them over to kindleadershipchallenge.com/94. Never doubt that day by day, you’re building a better world, even if you can't see it yet. So until next time, stay kind now.