The Burden of Leadership: How to Successfully Navigate the Challenges of Leading Others
- Zoran Vidovic
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
So, you finally got that long-expected, desired, and deserved promotion. A promotion you have diligently and patiently worked for. You jumped through all the hoops and smiled at each and every dumb joke from the upper management.
Now it is time for you to shine and make others dance the way you sing, have them jump through all the same hoops, and have them smile at all your stupid jokes.
If that is the case, then you are on a good path to becoming the boss you most disliked and despised.
The Boss
Being a boss in the traditional sense would mean bossing people around. Telling them what to do not necessarily in a sensitive and always respectful manner. It is getting things done promptly with little or no concern for the personal feelings, opinions, or positions of the employees.
Times have changed, and this approach to leadership and management is not acceptable for multiple reasons.
One being that the new generation of employees is more self-aware and has a greater sense of entitlement than the previous generations.
Working conditions are better and are expected to further improve due to new and ever-evolving laws and regulations protecting human rights.
The most important is the fact that bossing people around prevents you from exploring their hidden and not always volunteered skills and abilities that might be out of the expected norm for the selected job.
How not to be the Boss?
Start by looking at the world from the employee perspective. It is not easy, but it will give you a perspective as to what is within their reach of comprehension, which is directly dependent on your information flow.
Obviously, not many employees will have the need to put themselves in your shoes and to understand your decision-making process with all the obstacles and hurdles you need to jump through. And frankly, they are not supposed to do so, as it is your responsibility as a leader to understand the needs, expectations, motivation, and performance abilities of your employees and not vice versa.
So, it is crucial to have open communication channels, two-way communication, between you and your employees. Communication is not a one-way street. By empowering employees to freely express themselves, you will open another level of communication and ingenuity within your team.
Understanding what motivated them and what held them back will offer a good opportunity for you to tailor your approach and bring the best out of each employee. It will also allow you to identify opportunities for improvement on your side along with the company policies, procedures, and working conditions.
Challenges of leading others
Being a leader can be a lonely and demanding role, as you are expected to deliver results within a set timeframe, with set circumstances, and a set team. Quite frankly, there are limited opportunities to choose your team in most leadership roles across the industries. You are, in most instances, presented with a team, and you have to deliver results. You will gradually come to the point where you can influence a change in your team's cohort, but don't be fooled that it will be an easy and quick task.
This fact will have you "stuck" with the good, the bad, and the ugly for a period of time, and you will need to make the best out of it. You will need to find a way to work with and lead the overachievers and the underachievers and have them collaborate to deliver results. The responsibility for their success and failure boils down to you. Why? Because you accepted the position and the responsibility that comes with it.
That is not all, as you will be influenced, constrained, and driven in a not necessarily desirable direction by your direct leader, who might be out of touch with reality or permanently locked in the self-preservation, micromanagement mode that borders on bossing and bullying.
On top of that, there will be numerous, for the most part, ludicrous and absolutely unnecessary, regulations that will pose an obstacle between a challenge and a plausible solution.
All of the above will trigger you in a way that will bring you to the danger of getting closer to the unwanted and despised leadership style, as the circumstances can be overwhelming and demanding.
This then might take you into the self-preservation mode and make you less susceptible and sensible to the positive influence of your team members. It can create a tunnel vision where you focus on the plausible outcome regardless of the effect on your team.
When you start your leadership journey, you will be energized and full of ideas. Be mindful that those ideas will bounce off the walls of unresponsive team members and unintuitive regulations, as well as the upper management, which will deflate and gradually drain your pool of energy.
Be careful not to drain yourself, and do understand that leadership is a long journey with many obstacles along the way. That is the whole point of it, to hurdle obstacles and grow, develop, evolve, and change for the better.
How to successfully navigate the challenges of leading others?
What can you do to avoid and overcome all the obstacles of leadership?
You can start by
Listening and not speaking. Listen to what is being said around you. Listen to who is speaking and what message they are conveying, and understand why. What are they trying to achieve, and why? What is their motivation?
Refrain from commenting and offering solutions if you haven't understood the circumstances and obtained an initial overview of the employee cohort you are surrounded by.
Watching and not doing. Watch people around you and observe behaviors. Observe reactions to challenges and get a sense of the prevailing company culture. Watch and observe procedures and processes to fully understand them before you are tempted to propose changes. Don't throw pearls before pigs. Understand if your proposals will land on good ground and allow time to decide on the best approach to proposing them.
Waiting and not reacting. Don't allow yourself to be sucked into a discussion or an argument, and avoid being triggered or provoked to express opinions. Wait for the situation to unravel before you react and present solutions.
Keep your self-control and allow for the people to present themselves. They will do so only when you do not impose and demand a uniform approach. Let people express themselves and reveal their motives. This will help you identify opportunities for improvement.
And most importantly, make a Decision!
Understand that there are numerous solutions to the challenge, but the only right one is the one you came up with by utilizing all available resources with the information you had at the time. It will be judged afterward by numerous people, but those people were not in your shoes, with the information and the team and circumstances you had at the time of the decision-making.
Make a decision and own it. Do not avoid or try to pass over responsibility. When you take this approach, you empower yourself and hold yourself accountable, which gives you credibility and authority, which will be recognized by your team as well as the upper management.
This is how to successfully navigate the challenges of leading others.