Becoming in the balance
Let’s start with a tale of two leaders.
First we have Leader A, we can call her Anne.
Anne is a classic type-A leader: Highly proactive and task-focused, she is driven by achievement and can only relax when she feels in control.
Anne has high standards of excellence that can show up as perfectionistic tendencies. She pushes her people to continually strive for more and better outcomes, tends to punish mistakes and believes that if she works hard enough, anything is possible.
Then there’s Leader B, who we’ll call Bob.
Bob prides himself on being a people person, and spends most of his energy cultivating trusted relationships with his team. He is focused on keeping the peace, mediating conflict and making sure his bosses, team members and clients are happy.
Bob gets a bit dizzy managing all these competing priorities, and while he’s generally liked by everyone, it’s often unclear what his vision or position is—even to Bob.
Do you see yourself in one of these leaders? Which one would you rather work with? Do they have anything in common?
For starters, they both represent an extreme leadership style, but these are not caricatures. I know leaders like Anne and Bob, and I bet you do too. Each of them thinks that their approach is the right one, and is likely unaware of how it is holding them back. And wearing them out.
There is no one approach to leadership, no platonic ideal or personality type that makes someone a leader. But I do think there is a core ability the best leaders have, the ability to think beyond absolutes and strike a balance between extremes.
I think leadership may be all about balance, like walking a tightrope. Lean too far in either direction and we lose our footing. The classic tension of work/life balance was just the beginning. Let’s look at what else we’re balancing.
The What & The How
Anne identifies with what gets done, whereas Bob is preoccupied with how people will feel about it. Both can easily get into trouble if they aren’t making a conscious effort to balance the two.
Consider an underperforming team member. Anne will see the person as a problem who is not achieving the desired outcomes. She may offer feedback (which might hurt more than it helps) but alternately she may simply take the work on herself. The same could happen to Bob if he is too afraid of delivering feedback that rubs someone the wrong way, and thus deprives them of the information they need to succeed.
When it comes to parting ways with a team member, sharing bad news or managing workload, the dynamic is the same. Anne will barrel through while Bob will tend to hold back. Both will suffer, and so will their teams. So will their work.
To balance the what with the how is to do what needs to be done, but with full consideration of the various parties involved. For example:
Offering constructive feedback directly, candidly and in real time, in a way that focuses on the person’s continual growth instead of their weaknesses
Letting a longtime team member go with respect and appreciation for their contributions, acknowledging that the working relationship has run its natural course, and offering appropriate support in their next steps
Focusing on your team’s outcomes rather than the details of how their work gets done, granting them autonomy and accountability in equal measure
Safety & Challenge
Psychological safety, the belief that you won’t be punished for making a mistake, has been identified as a core component of high-performing teams. It’s essential—without it we live and work in fear, avoiding all risk and waiting for explicit permission before making any move. Anne’s team may feel this way most of the time, having learned that the best way to escape her wrath is not to incite it in the first place.
But safety isn’t enough. Bob offers his team unconditional safety: He prioritizes his team’s comfort above all else. And as a result, Bob’s team is stuck in the status quo.
We must balance safety with a challenge. Something that invites us to step beyond our comfort zone, something that stretches us. The challenge can come in the form of a purpose (organizational mission, short-term goal, etc.) or a problem (unforeseen change, interpersonal conflict, etc.), but come it must.
Safety without a challenge is stasis. A challenge without safety is a threat. We only grow when both are present in healthy proportion.
Fun fact: One of the subtler forms of safety/challenge imbalance comes dressed up in our own expertise. We take refuge in the safety of what we’ve learned so far, and resist the challenges that exist to take us forward.
Is there a challenge that’s awaiting you right now? Do you feel safe enough to tackle it?
Effort & Ease
Even when we’re working on a challenge, it’s possible to work too hard. The Annes of the world usually learn the hard way that we can push ourselves past the point of productivity, where above-and-beyond effort has diminishing returns.
Meanwhile the Bobs are putting all their effort into putting everyone else at ease.
We might think of our team as the strings of a guitar. In order to play the right chords, they need to be finely calibrated with just the right degree of tension. Too loose and there will be no sound. Too tight and the string will snap.
Sometimes the skillful response to a challenging what is to push through, but sometimes the smart move is to ease off, step back, get some space, take a nap. Too much striving effort and we can lose perspective and make poor decisions. A bit of space brings the clarity and energy we need to forge ahead.
These are just a few of the dimensions of balance that every successful leader needs to strike. In these dimensions and many more, we are constantly balancing and re-balancing, in the moment, for the situation at hand.
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