The Hardest Part of Being a Leader (Challenge #77)

I loved being a librarian. I loved sitting at the desk and fielding a reference question that came out of left field. I adored the challenge of getting a roomful of half-asleep freshmen to care about literature reviews at 9 AM on a Tuesday. I got a thrill every time I sat with a first-generation or adult student overwhelmed by a big research project, and watching their confidence grow as I showed them how to narrow their topic and sharpen a search query—but more importantly to realize that yes, they did have what it takes to learn and think and succeed.

And then I started climbing the ladder into management, because I wanted to have more power to help more students. I wanted to scale my impact beyond the reference desk and the classroom, so I went back to school to learn how higher ed really ticked, so I could advocate for the library and the students who used it as a place of respite and a tool for growth. And then, one day, I woke up and realized I’d achieved my goal. I was a leader who was making a difference in my organization, my university, and maybe even the wider community.

But I wasn’t a librarian any more. And just because the trade was worth It doesn’t mean I haven’t had to grieve it. If any of this sounds familiar to you new leaders, keep listening. Because today I’m going to teach you how to kindly manage that transition.

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Welcome to the Kind Leadership Challenge, the podcast that empowers leaders to heal their organizations in 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 coach a community of educational and library leaders who are working to build a better world without burning out. 

In our unique and imperfect ways, kind leaders make tough decisions without becoming jerks. We create impactful and burnout-proof systems for our organizations. And we know that once we stop controlling and start collaborating, even the most ambitious vision can become effortless. Kind Leadership’s pretty simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. So if you’re up for a challenge, stick around as I teach you how to create a resilient, thriving legacy that will strengthen your community long after you’re gone.

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As I often do, I’m going to explore how to manage the transition from individual contribution to management through the kind leadership framework. The three skills of kind leadership are Growing humanely, where we learn how to make decisions that work with our emotions and values, managing effectively, where we make a plan to implement those decisions, and creating collaboratively, where we work with other stakeholders to understand how our decisions will impact them, and create a shared vision for building a better world.

So to grow humanely as a first time leader, the first thing you need to do is be open to feeling your feelings, especially the messy ones. Because if you don’t they could poison any decision or interaction you have with your team. You may be feeling Joy at achieving your new position, and that’s great. But are you expressing it in a manner that doesn’t hurt those who may be less joyous about your good fortune? You may be feeling anger, if there were challenges or surprises you hadn’t been prepared for. You may feel sadness, like I did, about losing the best parts of being an individual contributor. And you may be feeling some guilt or imposter emotions. Those things are great to feel, and have important things to teach you. So feel them and process them. Once you’ve done that, you can check in with your values, so you can figure out what kind of leader you want to be. To my mind, one of the big changes between being an individual contributor and being a leader is that your success is no longer your top workplace priority. Your team’s success is. And that means you need to be the kind of leader your team needs you to be, rather than the kind of leader you imagined in your head. And so, if you have a similar core value around leadership (and if you’re listening to this podcast you probably do), you can grow humanely by deciding to become the kind of leader that you believe will set your team up for the most success. How to do that? Well, we’re on to the next skill—managing effectively.   

Managing effectively is all about making and executing a game plan. And to do that, you need to get real about the facts of your organization’s current situation, and honestly assess the resources you have available or need to gather in order to change what needs changing in your sphere of influence. The first chore is gathering information from people and documents, keeping in mind that everyone you talk to will have an agenda, or at least an opinion. But by sifting all those stories together, including yours, and testing them against the unarguable facts of the situation, you’ll have a more precise understanding of what kind of leadership style the situation calls for.  And to make your plan,  you have to get honest about how many resources you have to create the leadership culture you’re shooting for. Time is often a limiter on this one, as a leader needs to be on call for surprises and opportunities. I learned this one the hard way, as I briefly tried to take a reference shift or two in order to get to know our students and to keep being a librarian, and because my director at my previous university had managed it. After the second week and the third time I had to bail on a shift because of a surprise meeting at the administration building, I gave it up. Acknowledging what your team needs and what is doable with the resources at hand is critical in creating your game plan as a new leader that will enable you to manage effectively. 

And last but not least, it’s time to get out of your head, your calendar, and your spreadsheets, and get to know the people who will be most impacted by how you approach your role as leader—your team, your stakeholders, and your broader community. Because the hardest thing about being a leader, the is that your job has changed for good, Plus, as a new leader for this team you are new to your org, new to your role, or both. They probably don’t understand you, they may not even trust you, but if you create a culture of safety, they can tell you what they need, whether it’s lots of coaching or hands-off advocacy that gives them room to shine. Then, it’s time to talk to your boss, your community, and other stakeholders so that you can understand what they need from you as well. Once that’s done, it’s time to find a balance point between your goals, your team’s needs, and your stakeholders’ priorities in order to create a vision that gets all of you closer to the better world you desire—even if it does mean you spend less time on the front lines. Believe it or not, a day will come when you realize you’re still teaching, guiding, and coaching—the scale may be different, but the rewards are there too.

So here’s your challenge for this week. How do you need to recalibrate your goals, your workflow, and your vision to better serve your organization?  Walk through the three skills of Kind Leadership, and see what jumps out at you. Consider talking to a trusted colleague or mentor too—they probably can see things you can’t.

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Thanks as always for listening to the kind leadership challenge. Before you go, here’s a quick way you can spread the word of kind leadership. I’d like you to take a moment to think of one friend or colleague who could most benefit from this week’s challenge. Open your app or head over to kindleadershipchallenge.com/77 and share this episode with them. Add a friendly note as well. 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.