The hardest part of a leaders job
Here's a theme I regularly hear from leaders across a wide range of industries (not just I.T.!):
"The hardest part of my job isn't the technical stuff, it's the people."
Does that resonate with your experience?
If so, you're not alone.
Finding ways to successfully collaborate across difference - whether that's personality, culture, age, experience, preferences, etc - is a complex endeavor.
Ample patience, curiosity, and empathy are often required.
But so is a willingness to engage in introspection, to question ourselves, and reflect on our contribution to the situation.
After all, it's easy to point a finger, to throw our hands up, and wonder how the other person could be so ignorant/incompetent/rude/etc.
But we must remember that we, too, are a part of that relational system and are influencing the outcomes we're experiencing.
As Doug Silsbee writes in his book Presence-based Leadership:
"Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. [...] Like it or not, we are not only a part of the system, but crucially, the only part of the system that, in theory, we actually have some control over!"
So if you're up for the challenge and are willing to reflect on how you're influencing the relational dynamics you're experiencing, here are a few questions to guide you:
What is my most difficult relationship at work?
How am I contributing to that relationship and our dynamic?
What if the lesson that needs to be learned here isn't for the other person but is for me?
What might the lesson I need to learn be?
What experiments could I try - either in terms of what I'm doing or how I'm being - to see if I can nudge our relational system and get a different result?
