Last week was a mixed week for me, professionally. On the client front, my team and I made some good progress towards our objectives, so that’s good. On the leadership team front, well… let’s just say I’m so not a shrinking violet (like that’s news to anyone in FOT Nation).
I am a realist – I know that life combines really good, good, mediocre, and occasionally super crappy stuff all together in the daily mix-master, and all of us deal with that combination as best we can. My personal belief, and bias, is that as a leader in an organization, one of my responsibilities is to acknowledge this mixture in all in components: celebrate the really good, applaud the good, push on the mediocre to become better, and acknowledge the super crappy, and listen to understand the impact of all on colleagues’ moods, engagement levels, and opinions about the organization as a place to work.
If there is one thing that triggers a reaction from me, it is leaders who like to sugarcoat. So when a senior leader sugarcoats and goes on about how good things are, when that person’s team definitely feels otherwise, then yes, it is not outside the realm of possibility that I may have an amygdala hijack, and call that person out for acting the ostrich.
Of course, there are repercussions to actions like that. The most common, of course, is the rest of the team sitting there in silent dumbfoundedness, wondering WTH I am thinking when I call out the ostrich. Never mind that it is likely most everyone on the team is thinking the same thing; I just am the one who is stupid enough to say it out loud.
Happily, more often than not, the outcome of my little calling out the ostrich is good; all of us on the leadership team get a little kick in the butt to engage in some reflection of our perspectives and behaviors, and we have an opportunity to think about what we want to accomplish, and what are the best ways we can accomplish those things, as leaders.
That is when things go well in calling out the ostrich. Because here is the thing about calling out the ostrich: it is a difficult thing to plan in advance. It is difficult to predict whether said ostrich will act, well, ostrich-y, during a meeting, and to what extent. It also can be difficult to predict how much patience one (okay, I) will have to tolerate ostrich-y behavior during a meeting. (For the record, I probably can last two hours; if the meeting goes for three or four hours, well, then…)
So, one of the things I have learned in my career is this: there is no “perfect” way to call out ostrich-y behavior. There are “good enough” ways, and I think “good enough” is the kind where calling out leads to decent or good outcomes, even if getting there is messy and makes people uncomfortable (who becomes a leader to be comfortable, I’d like to know?). The trick to “good enough” is knowing when to shut up, stop beating the dead horse, etc. That takes practice.
So, my week last week can be summed up as “good enough”, because I acted on my values and my convictions, and calling out the ostrich has, so far, led to reflection, conversations, and overall, a sense of cleaner slates and a better way forward for leadership. I’ll take it.
