How Kind Leaders can Let Down Their Guards (challenge 91)

Leadership is lonely. It is. There are no two ways around it. You can be friendly, but you can’t be friends. You can open up about what you’re struggling with, but you can’t provide a rival with ammunition. You can coach, but you can’t rescue. And you can speak the truth, but always carefully, with one eye toward the consequences. 

And yet…to be a leader who makes decisions with confidence, who skillfully gets the most impact out of their resources, and who facilitates a trusting team culture that enables your organization to build a better world—to a certain extent you have to open up. You have to show you understand the challenges your team is up against. And you have to give others a reason to follow you.

How do you strike that balance in a world where connection seems to be an invitation to attack? When you’ve been burnt by trusting too much, or your confidence was shaken by a poor decision, or you find overwork and micromanagement too safe to let go? 

You start by healing. And today, I’ll explore what I’ve seen work well with kind leaders who practice the art of keeping themselves safe while guiding others to their own greatness.

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 and library 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.

If you’re feeling lonely at the top, I want to reassure you that this probably means that you’re doing more right than wrong as a leader. Yes, the rewards to your ego and need for connection are great when you’re close to those you work with. However, the risks of interpersonal disaster are also higher. It’s great to think of a team member as your best friend until they aren’t meeting performance standards. It’s nice to be personally close with your boss until they give you a regular play by play of their ongoing divorce. And it’s awesome to think of your favorite community member as an unofficial uncle until they make a pass at one of your direct reports. However, there are risks in going too far in the other direction. What you intend as a appropriate professional distance can come off as aloof, detached, or even intimidating. So connect with your feelings about recent interactions with others at work. Which ones felt pleasant? Which ones felt safe? Which ones felt equitable? (note that I didn’t say equal—there is no such thing as an equal interaction when you’re a leader or team member, no matter how flat your team culture strives to be. Then take a moment to consider your values—what does an ideal working relationship look like for you, and are you conducting yourself in a way that honors that ideal? And then finally, you can decide whether your working relationships are too warm, too cool, or just right to get the job done.

So, let’s say you want to make a change in how you present at work. Me, I worry about coming off as a little too unapproachable at work. Some of it is because more emotional distance protects me from overwork and my team from accidental micromanagement. Some of it is my cautious approach to walking the tightrope between friendliness and bitchiness that all female-presenting leaders have to negotiate. and some of it is just that I’ve been burnt my share of times by getting too close to coworkers. Of course, those are the stories I tell myself about why I keep my walls up, and they probably don’t totally fit the facts. Speaking of facts, it can be a good idea to talk to a trusted person or two to figure out if you really need to change to improve your effectiveness as a leader, and if so, how. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to make a plan. Are there people you need to get to know better, or alternatively do you need to enforce a boundary or two? Think it through, and make your plans to safely balance connection and professionalism in your work relationships.

And now, of course, it’s time to get out of your dang office and start actually interacting with your team, your boss, and your community in newer, healthier ways. Talk to your team, and listen to them. Don’t hover, but be visible, and get curious about their needs from their life in general, and from you specifically. Do the same with your stakeholders, and even community members. At a minimum, you will come away with knowledge that can help you do your job better. And who knows? You might end up with a more trusting collaboration that can help everyone involved improve their impact on the world.

And with that, here’s your challenge. Break out your next steps checklist if you have it, figure out if you need to let down your guard to become a kinder leader, and develop and implement your plan to do so.

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/91. 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.