I messed up. One of my kids is growing through a challenge, and fully submerged in my value of helpfulness, and charged up with tonnes of experience, I came along with the answer. And I just told it to my kid.
No context. Just “here you go, I’ve made it all better”.
It’s the same rookie mistake I made in my first team lead role. And it gave me the same predictable result:
Resistance.
Drama (both of us to be honest).
A lot of “you don’t understand me” (again on both sides).
Mentally thinking “this is soooo annoying” (mostly me).
Even though we know what to do, sometimes we forget. And we do it wrong.
Fortunately, I caught myself. I saw my mistake. I knew what I’d done to cause this negative stalemate. And even better, I knew how to fix it.
The fix is that simple leadership action: paint a picture of where the team is going and why, so they are onboard with the mission.
In this case,
- I painted a picture of the future good scenario for my kid
- asked them what we needed to add to it to make it better,
- asked if we could work on this together
- and THEN I explained my action plan.
Whole different conversation. My kid downloaded how they felt (a lot of stuff got created in the first discussion that needed to be dealt with).
Then they added data and specifics about the problem.
We developed the idea further.
They gave it a go.
Oh win win win win win.
It’s ok that we forget. We are not going to get it right every single time. Please don’t try.
The big win is to catch it when it’s happening, and do something about it.
That’s the real secret to leadership: do your best, check your impact, make corrections as you go.
“What’s a leadership series? How’s it different to the thought series or coaching tips? Good questions.“ This series gives you tips to take your own leadership to the next level, and ways you can extend your own capabilities. Ready to take your skills to the next level, but aren’t sure where to start? Get in touch with me.