4 Things That Good Leaders Are Good At That Prevent Them From Being GREAT Leaders.
The Grind
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Good leaders are good at grinding out those difficult weeks that come with big decisions and many business critical things outside of their control. The trouble is that the grind creates survival habits and a survival environment that serves to make these weeks more stressful and the rest of the time recovery for leader and company.
Great leaders step back and find the perspective shift required to embrace what ever comes allowing them to separate their choices from their current level of certainty about the future. Whether chaos or calm, it’s chop wood carry water.
2. Hard work
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The ability to work hard is not to be underestimated. Everyone should work as hard as they can on one thing at some point in their lives to learn what they are capable of and most good leaders have.
But as a leader you aren’t paid to work hard. You’re paid to keep the business in high performance mode and that means keeping yourself in high performance mode and then creating processes that support the business to do the same. Hard work is inevitably going to stand in the way of a leaders ability to do that.
3. Getting behind the wheel
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They are great at stepping in or pointing out how it needs to be done and this is invaluable. To have someone who has been there and done it can really speed things up in the moment.
Accept is doesn’t for long. Being a master plate spinner running between all the trainee plate spinners making sure they don’t drop the plate does two things. It stops the trainee learning from real world feedback and it makes the leader busier and less effective than before.
A great leader is a master teacher and teaching doesn’t mean showing but supporting a test, operate, test, operate process of learning so that each person is empowered to develop themselves. This is what ultimately creates speed - A true learning culture.
4. Focus
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Good leaders are good at getting into a flow state. That dopamine driven high state where you flow through all the small tasks even the difficult conversations and the big decisions and the day goes by in a blur.
That flow often comes with adrenaline and cortisol that creates a high energy state but when it’s no longer required the adrenaline remains. Now sugar or alcohol is needed to calm down, sleep becomes difficult and stimulants are needed the next day to get back into the flow state because the natural energy just isn’t there.
A great leader understands how to create the most desirable state for a situation without having to use tools that create negative future consequences. They make presence of mind their main objective in every waking moment.
I was careful when writing this to be clear that good leaders work hard, grind, get involved, and thrive in their tasks.
All of that is good, great even, you can get incredible far that way. But what those good things do is prevent others being and becoming their best while also causing the health of the leader to deteriorate due to stress and poor decisions as well as impacting their important relationships.
The step to great requires an entire shift in focus. One that puts energy above force, skill power above willpower, present of mind above hustle and peace above productivity. It’s about mastering the ONLY thing that is under your control, YOURSELF.
There is no shame is putting all your efforts into trying to master things outside of your control, its part of the journey.
The only question is,
When are you going to devote your attention towards mastering yourself?
