The Best Leaders Keep Things Real

So here’s the thing.  Sometimes, things go awry, wonky, off-the-rails.  The best-laid plans can turn into veritable nightmares.  Success can take on a different form from what was anticipated — not as grand, not as big, or maybe the opposite — off the charts.  Life being what it is, you can visualize, plan and work until you’re blue in the face, and you’ll still get the rug pulled out from underneath you from time to time.  Because you can’t plan for every eventuality.  Because your plans are butting up against the plans of others and sometimes they don’t align in the way that you’d like.

I know.  I’m smack in the throes of experiencing things looking differently from what I imagine.  Luckily, I also know on a very cellular level that all will end up as it needs to, which means they will end up fine and I’ll look back and wonder what the fuss was about.  And yet, right here right now, frustration and a smidge of angst are in fact my prevailing emotions.  Actually, forget “smidge” — there’s a good deal of angst.  Thank goodness for grounding, meditating and journalling practices to keep me from throwing in the towel altogether.

One of the frustrating aspects of this sort of emotional whirlwind is the underlying story that successful leaders aren’t allowed to field curveballs and certainly aren’t allowed to be thrown off course by them.  Successful leaders are supposed to always know what to do, have a plan that works all the time, and be brilliantly and wildly focused at all times, aren’t they?  Which, in light of my aforementioned frustration and angst would make me (and anyone else feeling similarly) NOT successful as a leader.

STOP.  Reverse.  So not true.  In actual fact, the best leaders find a way to navigate the frustration and angst.  As I look at some of the great leaders of our time, I see that they struggle as much as anyone else, they have moments of feeling unclear, they go off course — and they find their way back.  They acknowledge frustration — not necessarily giving into it, but acknowledging it — and move through angst, and get back on course or find a new course.  That’s what makes them great.  And always, they do it with the help and support of a team who can allow the frustration, not judge it as less than leader-worthy, and remind them of their focus.  It’s a good thing.

Bottom-line:  being a leader does not make you immune to the less-than-pleasant aspects of life.  Frustration, angst, failure, worry are all part of the experience, as much — if not moreso — than for those who aren’t leaders.  Denying that these experiences and emotions exist is not part of your mandate as a leader; instead, it’s about keeping it real, and moving on.  It can be done.   Both the “keeping it real” and the “moving on.”  |In fact, the former serves the latter; when you keep things real, you find the way to move on.  Which is a really good thing.