What gets in the way of us being the leaders of our lives?

When it comes to leading forests worth of pages have been written on what it is to lead, how to lead, and the qualities of a good leader. Leadership has become a huge industry, rightfully so when we think of the responsibility leaders have. Ideally we want leaders who are equipped to lead to the best of their abilities. 

Undoubtedly much of this research is useful as it helps us reflect on what it means to lead and how we can be more effective leaders. What it often masks is the fact that we are all leaders, every single day, by the fact we lead our lives, we make decisions, conscious or unconscious, that shape what we do, how, with who and why. 

This fact, this sometimes unhelpful distinction between the realities of life and leading and being a leader, can highlight how many of the challenges we face in life or leading are the same. In recognising this similarity we can begin to realise that we already have many of the resources, answers and solutions to meeting these challenges whether that is from our experiences in life or from leading. 

What is a leader?

Firstly, ask yourself what comes to mind when you think of the word leader? Who are they? What do they do? How do they act?

What are your judgements, feelings and thoughts about what images come to mind? 

Considering what comes to mind, do you see yourself as a leader?

What leads you to your answer? What experiences, influences and ideas contribute to the images and thoughts that come to mind when you think of a leader?

If you search the word ‘leader’ in Google images (as below) you’ll find lots of suits, mainly men, people standing out from the crowd, the colour red (apparently the colour for strong-willed, purposeful and directional leaders), and lots of climbing mountains or heading towards a target.

This Google image example may help show where some of our ideas and images of leaders come from or are formed in opposition to. 

We all have a pre-existing idea of what a leader is and what makes a leader. 

In contrast, what is leading? When was the last time you led? 

Consider the idiom ‘leading a life’. The idiom highlights that we are all leaders in our lives, leading every day, choosing paths and actions to pursue, making decisions. What differs here is perhaps how aware we are of our leading. 

What we can take from this is that we already lead, everyday, we have a wealth of experience doing so without even realising it. 

So how would we now lead in life and elsewhere aware that we already lead all the time? How and what would we choose to lead? 

Living and leading purposefully and authentically

Research highlights that the most successful teams are ones where everyone feels safe and trusted, they are able to contribute towards a meaningful goal and individuals understand how everyone contributes towards that goal. 

Obviously leaders play a significant part in creating that feeling of safety and trust of communicating that common, meaningful goal and ensuring everyone understands one another’s contribution. The research highlighted that most important to the team success are the feelings of safety and trust, often called psychological safety. 

What creates this psychological safety? Authenticity and genuineness that nurture a feeling of belonging and connection between people. Authenticity breeds authenticity, trust creates trust, and together they enable the vulnerability and honesty needed to achieve a common goal. 

Translating that into life, we are at our best pursuing what is meaningful to us, and to do so at our best requires us to be ourselves, to be authentic. 

Put simply, to lead the life we want requires the same things that leading effectively requires: purpose and authenticity.

So what gets in the way? 

Managing our own fears and expectations

In life and in leading, whether in a leadership position in a business, in a sports team or leading a presentation or workshop what limits us or gets in the way are often our own fears and expectations. Expectations and fears that tell us we are not leaders, that we are not good enough, or that we have to do something a certain way, all of which stops us truly pursuing what we want with purpose and authenticity.

Comparison

As well as pre-existing assumptions of what a leader is one of the biggest barriers to leading and to being a leader in all aspects of our lives is comparison.

It took me 10 blog posts to even dare to write something on leading. Why? Because there are so many more qualified people who have been leading for years. Because I’m not some visionary leader who has led or inspired hundreds of people or run big companies or teams.

Yet, just as my own ideas of what a leader is get in the way of me considering what I know of leading and what I can share, so too does comparison to others.

The truth is, when comparison gets in the way, there will always be someone more suited for whatever it is we want but as Tim Gallwey says:

In the process of learning to measure our value according to our abilities and achievements, the true and measureless value of each individual is ignored.

The experiences, abilities, and skills we have are a unique combination that we bring that means whatever we lead we do so in our own unique way. As we’ve mentioned before in this blog, when we compare we forget that we already have everything we need to be our best, it is the ideas, expectations, and comparisons that get in the way.

Again, this is the case for life as it is in leadership. What didn’t you do because you thought someone else was better suited or would be better than you? 

How did they become better? Most likely by trying, they had to start somewhere. That is the same for us, whether in a pursuit in life or in leading, we have to start somewhere. Knowing that we can not only consider how best to start and what can get us to where we want to be but to explore what we already have, what experiences, qualities and abilities that only we bring.

Identification 

When we identify or define ourselves in one way - I am x, y, or z - we limit ourselves. We reduce ourselves to what we bring in one specific context. If I am simply a leader in this context I cut off all the things I bring to and from leading my life outside of this sphere and I am feeding expectations of what I must be as a leader in a specific context by identifying in that way.

Identifying also stops us leading in life. ‘I am not good enough for x’, ‘people like me don’t do y’ or ‘I am not a natural at z’ are identifications that restrict us and in doing so hold us back from even trying new things such as leading.

Knowing it all, being right and not getting it wrong

Fear of failure is one of the most prominent barriers for many people I’ve worked with whether in life or leading. It can also manifest in a belief, especially when leading, that I need to get it right or I need to know the answer as that’s what leaders do. Again we see how expectations of ourselves and leaders can get in the way. 

So often sports teams talk of the losses as the times they learnt the most and as the experience that most contributed to necessary changes which resulted in a return to winning. In the startup world the mantra of ‘fail fast’ has a similar principle, to find out what works we also need to find out what doesn’t. 

Without trying, how will we know what will work? Whether as a leader or more generally in life a fear of being wrong can stop us even trying when without failure we have one less way to find and move towards what we want. 

Measuring ourselves by external metrics of success

In life and as a leader what does success look like?

Who defines it? 

How will we know when we are there? 

This blog has previously explored the power of focusing on the process rather than the outcome. The outcome is so often the measure of success and so often out of our control yet as leaders and in life that is how we define ourselves. How much we earn, how fast we are promoted, how quickly the business grows, what we own, the places we visit, the people we know. The problem with these metrics is there is always more to achieve and when we become focused on the outcomes we also limit ourselves, closing us off to the other possibilities and opportunities that could arise.

When we look back will we remember the feeling when we achieved those metrics or the journey to them?

Yes, it helps to have milestones and goals to meet, to maintain focus and direction, but just as important in life and leading is how we get there. If we arrive at the destination so depleted and burnt out then what? 

In life and in leading there will be metrics and outcomes we want to meet, some of them will be essential to keeping our dream going, but they are only part of what makes success, success in life and in leading is defined by us. In both cases we are the leaders, it is our success we are leading.

Life imitating leading or leading imitating life

Life and leading are difficult. The difficulty stems from the fact that leading the life we want is challenging. It requires authenticity and vulnerability, a vision and sense of purpose strong enough to motivate us to tackle fears and expectations and to face the challenges we will meet. Ultimately to lead is a choice. 

Most likely the false distinction between being a leader whether at work or in a team and leading in life comes because we don’t realise our ability to lead in every aspect of life. 

Yet, when we see the similarities between leading and living we can see that the first barrier to doing either is ourselves, not our ability but the fears and expectations we have. 

When we reframe what leading is we can empower ourselves to lead, to lead the life we want, to follow what feels purposeful and right to us.

Ultimately whether, when and where we lead becomes a choice only we can make.

What would it look like to lead the life we want? 

What gets in the way of leading that life? 

How would we lead knowing that living life gives us all we need to lead?