In the deep end of leadership

Inherently, we all know as leaders that we achieve far more when we have positively engaged employees.  Yet, we are all too often caught up spending much of our time chasing short-term targets, almost blindly swimming from quarter to quarter. We can feel overwhelmed with all the work that needs to get done and then what tends to get left behind? That’s right - our people. After all, who holds us accountable to the well-being of our teams, besides ourselves.  It’s time for deep listening….

As a leader I had always prided myself on truly knowing what was going on with the people on my team—how they felt. What they thought was going well. Where they were frustrated. I was deliberate about taking time walking around the office and having quick side conversations. I continually scheduled coffees, lunches and drinks to take the time to really probe, listen and understand. I believed I was fairly adept at reading body language and setting up a safe place to talk. When I was often asked what kept me up at night I said “I slept like a baby since I knew what was really going on at all levels…. “

And then came the pandemic, the Racial Inequity reckoning and the mental health crisis. I suddenly felt isolated and ill-equipped.

“How do I get to deeply know people over Zoom. How do I let them see the authentic ‘me’? How do I read body language with faces in a virtual box? How do I set up psychologically safe-environments? How do I weed out toxic behaviors? How do I give people space to manage their lives? How do I know if people feel like they can bring their 100% selves to work? How do I know if I’ve cultivated a healthy environment?”

In essence I was lost. 

Often the reward for doing an excellent job is to get promoted into a management role. But who teaches you how to lead vs. do? How to coach and lift vs. personally knocking a project out of the park? How do we know how to best spend our time? When is it ok to let go? Organizations tend to leave new leaders to figure these things out on their own.

Author: Jackie Yeaney - Board Member, Advisor, Coach & Former CEO