As leaders, it’s our natural inclination to take care of our people. That’s what good, strong leaders do, right? They set a course for their team, and on the journey, they are responsive to the needs of those around them. Too often, however, when everything goes topsy-turvy, we can lose sight of our role as a team leader by focusing too much on individual crises.
This has been a particularly topsy-turvy time in our world – impacting how we do business across the board. Across every industry, things have definitely been out of balance: work flow, business relationships, business needs, physical and mental health, the emotions of those around us, etc. Daily work life is a rough ride.
So, as executives and leaders, how best do we take care of our folks during this time? What’s the best choice when we, too, are swept up in the topsy-turvy turmoil? To answer these questions, I’m going to walk you through an analogy.
The problem of the off-balance washing machine.
When a washing machine gets imbalanced, you know it. The thud, thud shaking starts slowly and then when the speed increases, it starts cranking up, rocking, making noise, getting destructive, crashing into the wall. That thing is heavy and when it gets going it can really ding the walls. What do you do when your washing machine gets imbalanced and starts thunking and rocking all over the place? (Maybe you don’t actually hug it in real life, but bear with me on this).
I recently had this image of myself trying to hold the washing machine to keep it from rocking as it swirled and bucked in its out of balance way. I was trying to keep it from hitting the walls and causing damage. I was thinking, “My body will protect all. I will protect the machine and the walls by sacrificing my body – my being.” As you might guess, that’s not the right solution.
With newer machines, the problem has been solved by the designers – the machine simply shuts down when it gets off balance. You don’t have to be there to save it. It will shut down and wait for you to redistribute the weight. One towel removed: balance restored. One towel redistributed: balance restored. Put things in more carefully: balance not sacrificed or jeopardized. Holding onto an imbalanced machine and hoping it will sort itself out is the least effective choice.
We know that with the machine. Turn it off. Move things around to establish balance and then turn it back on. All good. Sometimes you just have to remove items that are too water logged and too heavy for this particular load configuration.
With a team, sometimes I need to do the same. Instead of wrapping my arms around the team and holding on for dear life, I need to hit stop. Stop what’s happening and openly and directly figure out why we are off balance.
Strong leaders stop hugging the washing machine.
As leaders, the dings on the wall, the destruction that may happen as the team rocks and whirls is not worth sacrificing of yourself. It doesn’t work to try to simply hold the space for those in pain who may be causing a disruption. It doesn’t work to hold on as a martyr while sacrificing the business, others and myself.
It just doesn’t work. And, as a mentor pointed out to me, it’s really inefficient, ineffective and eventually self-destructive leadership. There is no trust built by a martyring leader taking one for the team rather than actually dealing with the situation. I’ve learned the hard way, and have the bruises to show for it.
Diving in and figuring out what’s throwing us off balance is essential. Even when times are rough, and it may seem intrusive to call out behavior or a situation for an open discussion, it’s crucial. Strong leadership requires strong communication skills, not self-sacrifice. Leadership and communication go hand in hand.
Speak up and ask questions instead.
Team communication is the best first option. If something feels off with your team, if information is missing, or balls are getting dropped and not reported, pay attention. We need to call out what we see happening or fear may be happening. Ask questions to find out what is going on.
Just because we are in a crisis does not mean that it’s better to coddle the team. It’s dangerous to tell ourselves, “oh, I’ll just hold on to things until we can all handle it better.” By the time everyone “can handle it better,” the destruction will already have occurred. By then, there will be too much fall out, too much damage to the company and the employees.
And if we take everything on ourselves without speaking up, what value are we reinforcing? It’s not caring for our employees. Remaining silent is the opposite of what a caring leader does.
Strong leadership communication means demonstrating the value of boundaries and a clarity of what does and doesn’t work for folks. If we believe in human connection and in the power of conversations, we can trust ourselves to have those hard conversations. We can set boundaries and stop wrapping our arms around an out of balance machine. And, hopefully, load it properly the next time.
Hilary Blair is a leadership keynote speaker based out of Denver, CO, and is the co-founder of ARTiculate: Real & Clear. She is also a highly regarded, actor, improviser, facilitator, voice-over artist, and voice expert coach. Contact us today to learn more.
