The Boredom Crisis in Leadership
You can be busy and bored.
High volume, low challenge work is stressful tedium.
You signed up to inspire teams, cast vision, and change lives. But you’re buried in emails, paperwork, policies, and politics.
Boredom is being trapped by busy work while seeking impactful contribution. (Adapted from Atlas of the Heart by Brene’ Brown)
Boredom in Leadership
- Agony of death by spreadsheet.
- Petty conflicts over trivialities.
- Policies destined to be irrelevant and forgotten.
Some days, you envy the barista who makes your coffee. He hears “thank you” and sees your smile. Yeah! He got something done.
The Dangers of Boredom:
Tedium unsettles energetic leaders. Stressful tedium, done poorly, leads to frustration and poor decisions.
You’re bored when…
- A “strategic reorg” starts looking like a good idea.
- Trivial details turn into battlegrounds. You spend an hour debating font size on a marketing piece.
- You fill your time micromanaging instead of empowering.
The path to regret goes through boredom.
The Opportunities of Boredom
Boring jobs keep organizations running. Steady unseen work bolsters stability, but frequently goes without applause.
- Quiet repetition equals consistency.
- Consistency is essential to trust.
- Influence is forged on the anvil of undramatic faithfulness.
Foundational work is often overlooked, but it stabilizes teams and organizations.
The Gifts of Boredom
Boring is where consistency grows. It’s where real leadership often happens. Not in the spotlight. Not in the crisis. But in the quiet daily faithfulness no one applauds.
Staying fresh:
1. Prune meaningless activities from your calendar.
2. Add one stretch challenge. Find one project that energizes you.
3. Pour into another person. Be a mentor who finds the student.
The gifts of boredom include opportunity to be creative, reflecting on life, and refreshing your approach. Boring often comes before opportunity.
Tip: Enjoy the daily rituals that make the world stable. You see the same faces when getting coffee, for example.
How can leaders deal with the parts of leadership that feel tedious?
The Answer to Boredom isn’t Variety
I find your words today encouraging, Dan.
I think of my daughter as she begins her career. She has time on her hands as she starts to build her client base. I know she will learn for herself the need to constantly, slowly, deliberately, and intentionally – in a non-flashy way that no one else may ever see – take just one step in the right direction. The compound effect of good decisions over time will pay her dividends. It has in my career.
Thanks for sharing your daughter’s story. Sounds like she has learned some things from you. It seems there’s power in the mundane.