Facing the Greatest Struggle of Leadership
Say, “I’m learning,” not “I’ve learned.”
“I’ve learned,” gives the impression of arrival and we both know you ain’t there yet.
Learning or learned:
Learning is a matter of the heart, not the head.
You’re learning or you’re getting stupid.
Learning reflects courage, openness, and humility. Arrogance makes you stupid.
What have you learned:
A member of the audience recently asked, “What have you learned about leading?”
Everyone wants to know ‘how to’ solve a problem, answer a struggle, or eliminate stress.
Learning new leadership techniques, strategies, methods, and skills is easy compared to the battle that lies within.
The greatest struggle of leadership is in your heart – between the power of humility and the seduction of arrogance.
Humility practices vulnerability.
- A vulnerable heart learns. You remain as you are until you open your heart.
- An arrogant heart thinks it knows when it doesn’t.
- A humble heart respects the talent, experience, and perspective of others.
Learning new skills – without heart – distracts you from the real work of leadership.
The great delay:
The thing that most delays the growth of leaders is arrogance.
Symptoms of arrogance:
- Turnover on the team. Talented people run from leaders who won’t listen.
- Feeling you’re right, even when you have no experience or training.
- Needing to have all the answers.
- Lack of curiosity.
- Contradicting the voice of experience offhandedly. Often the thing you don’t like hearing is the thing you most need to hear.
Less arrogant:
Recently I’ve found that working to be less arrogant is better than working to be more humble. There’s something freeing in the language of ‘less arrogant’.
Show up to be a little less arrogant today.
- Smile. Arrogance looks smug, serious, or high-and-mighty.
- Ask more questions. Go on a curiosity walk-about.
- Notice strength in others.
How might you be a little less arrogant today?
What are you learning about leadership?
What a powerful and thought-provoking, post, Dan! It’s alarming how seductively easy it is to justify and practice arrogance, particularly with a history of success. Servant leaders need to be careful not to abandon their humility in the face of one success after another. It’s so tempting to think more highly of ourselves than we should and take credit for the accomplishments of others we have led, guided and mentored. The very servant leadership style that led to success can create a delusion of omniscience and infallibility that clearly conflicts with reality!
Well said, Paul. Success is seductive. Frankly, success is a greater test of humility than failure. I’m glad you added your insights today.
Well Dan, I ‘ve actually learned one thing (and even long ago)
– and that is that ‘Learning about Leadership actually never ends’… 🙂
Thanks Thorben. 🙂 That’s something we keep learning. 🙂
Just read a piece of art. Thank you Dan for this!
If only there’s a way to keep us reminding that we continuously need to learn – for ourselves and others.
Thanks Khawaja. I hear you on the need for reminders. I bet if we surrounded ourselves with other leaders who were committed to learning, it would help.
Dan,
Excellent, getting everyone to understand “we never stop learning” until the journey ends, and we can learn from each other if we open our ears!
I love those kinds of quotes, Brian, but the key is implementation. So many of us simply loop the same looks and seldom consider a second loop and a different perspective in our progress forward. How DO we generate more selfless leadership and disruptive engagement among all of us?
oooo… disruptive engagement. Now that’s an expression.
The whole idea of Disruptive Engagement is that it cannot be done tops-down and HAS to be done bottoms-up and that the only people who can really impact this process of active involvement and innovative engagement are the supervisors. FREE the Supervisors!
The only guarantees of success tomorrow is growth today – John Maxwell
Your post generated two big thoughts for me, Dan. One is that I learned 20 years ago that “Continuous Improvement” was often used in the context of, “We did continuous improvement last year,” so I would always use the phrase “Continuous Continuous Improvement” and mention that I got that idea from the Department of Redundancy Department, just to make the idea stick a little better.
Second, much like mentioning the word TRUST to a senior manager (and often watch them skittle away and not want to talk about it, “Servant” leadership tends to drive the same kind of reaction today as WWJD among voters on the right. They kinda know what it means but they really choose not to execute much on that concept.
It seems a lot of us out here much prefer the term, “SELFLESS” to anchor the content that one can and should deliver some humility when it comes to managing others. Respect is one of those words that we often see in mission statements, but seldom see delivered when it comes to organizational operations.
WHICH reminds me of the true story of the CEO wanting to leave a legacy on his next year’s retirement and he wanted to drive a Mission Statement deep into the organization’s culture. One of the phrases that his executive team proposed as a bullet was, “We manage with uncompromising integrity.”
We were bounding this around his supervisors and managers in some facilitated sessions and one of the managers reframed it into the reality that it meant, operationally, “We manipulate with inflexible righteousness.”
Although the senior leadership team MEANT well, they were not very selfless in how their ideas were pushed into policies. The result were some solid discussions around the culture and the leadership of that culture.
Thanks Dr. Scott. I always enjoy your use of language around continuous continuous improvement.
I think we could use some work around terms like humility, selfless, improvement, and ego. Perhaps we have more to learn in these areas.
Dan,
Just curious – what are some things you do to keep learning – you mention listening to others and being open, but what are some of the resources you go to to push yourself? New publications? Blogs? Professional groups? Courses? How do you keep yourself continually looking for inspiration?
Thanks,
Katie
I work alone, and read a lot (maybe too much, but we live in interesting times…).
One thing I try to do regularly is simply challenge my own thinking about things. There are some websites out there that can be useful for that, like this one:
https://fs.blog/mental-models/
I simply check in, sort randomly, and select one of them to apply to whatever is in front of me.
A SCARY thing to do is to go to wikipedia and look up “cognitive bias” – do it and see why I say that. Man, are we able to filter information!
Thanks for your question Katie.
The number one thing is being open to learn from others. I’m fortunate to have many conversations with authors and leadership experts. But, it’s just as important to learn from people I’m in contact with on a daily basis.
Personally, staying open is a huge challenge.
I also learn for others. I have a client that’s working on recruiting top talent. This makes me more alert and ready to learn. When I find something interesting, I pass it along.
Teaching is another way that I learn. We all know that that teacher learns more than the student.
I never give the same presentation twice. There’s always something added that I’ve recently learned. An audience member asked a question the last time I gave the presentation and I use it to modify material for the next presentation.
Of course reading is a main way of learning. I also use audible when I travel. I receive many pre-publication manuscripts and also many newly published books. It’s one of the perks of writing Leadership Freak.
I read a few blogs but not many.
The book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman continues to show me that I don’t know as much as I think I know. It is revolutionary to me.
Trying to solve a problem is motivation for me to learn by exploring multiple options. I like moving from theory to practice. I have a very low tolerance for bloviating. I’m always looking for the main point and the practical application. I have a very sensitive BS detector.
Reading comments on this blog is helpful. It’s normal for someone to give a different perspective.
I believe there’s always a better way, so I’m not content with the last way something was done.
Lastly, I’m just curious by nature. I listen to my curiosity. I wonder why one leader succeeds and another succeeds, for example. I wonder how someone with glaring weaknesses still is successful. I wonder how to run meetings better. I wonder….
What about you?
“Recently I’ve found that working to be less arrogant is better than working to be more humble. There’s something freeing in the language of ‘less arrogant’.” <— Money! Love it 🙂
Thanks Christopher. I’m glad this makes sense to you.
Love the post, very insightful, I am still learning 😀
I love the quote you use in your visual. Powerful words, powerful understanding that comes in putting them together.
Success is (to me) so much sweeter when attained with humility and without arrogance.