Fish Room Thoughts: Leadership
It's where my best thoughts come from
I was in the fish room with my wife and on this particular day we were in the critical thinking mood and the topic of conversation: Leadership.
Particularly, what is and how does one know if they should pursue it? And the stars must of aligned perfectly because I think we are on to something, have a look for yourself. Here’s what we concluded leadership is….all while in the fish room…
Having a “passion for coaching and developing others” is NOT leadership.
I used to think that I was a selfish leader for years. Not because I did selfish things but because when everyone else answered the question, “Why did you choose leadership” – everyone and their mother would say the same old regurgitated phrase: “Because I have a passion for developing others” or some variation of this. I knew most people were just saying this because it was the only socially acceptable response and while “developing others” is great…it was not why I chose leadership. And it most certainly wasn’t my passion.
Then why did I choose leadership? I chose leadership because I enjoyed solving problems and being in a leadership position allowed me to leverage authority to solve problems better. And I used to think this was a selfish reason to be in leadership. It wasn’t until many years later that it became very clear that this wasn’t a selfish reason. Because wanting to improve something for the sole purpose of making it better is not selfish. I didn’t chose the leadership path to make a higher salary, for a fancy title, or for the “power”…But to solve problems better. For the sake of the problem, the company, the family, the team, the journey, the goal, or whatever environment the problem existed.
Let me give you a few life examples that I feel explain this perfectly. When I was in high school, I had a job where I installed windows and at the end of the day myself and the other workers would load up all the equipment into the boss’s trailer. At the end of my 1st day, as we started loading up equipment, I noticed folks loading up equipment that we will need to use first thing tomorrow morning. So, I said, “Hey, guys – we are gonna need this first thing tomorrow so let’s hold off and load it last so it’s easy to grab”. Everyone agreed and I continued to lead the end of day equipment load up process for the rest of the summer. I wasn’t given a leadership role but yet I, an 18 year old kid, was leading the load up process where I was the youngest person by at least 20 years. But why did I speak up when I wasn’t being paid to do so? Because it made the process better, it made my life better, it made everyone’s life better.
After college, I got my first “big boy” job. I worked for a bank in a sales role helping car dealerships book credit applications for their customers. We were assigned targets to hit monthly and if we hit them we got a bonus. After the 1st year in this role, I noticed that every month had a different target and the reasoning for this was that during certain times of the year people tend to buy cars more often (tax season). And during tax season our targets would increase significantly so much so that no body would hit their sales target during these months. Myself and others always said that the targets increase too much during these months but nothing ever changed. Until I decided to prove that the increase was indeed not warranted. I calculated the monthly target increase from the month before tax season to a month within tax season and saw that their was a 300% increase in monthly targets while there was only a 165% increase in actual revenue during these months. Meaning that while the targets should increase during tax season, the assigned increase didn’t correlate with the increase we see in actual sales during this season. I did this analysis for each year for the last few years and sent it to management. I didn’t hear a word back. Until one day, months later, the entire sales team is brought in for a meeting to discuss a change in targets and bonus payouts. The change? Monthly targets that more closely correlate with actual revenue. I was never mentioned or recognized for the idea or the analysis. But that year, for the 1st time ever, most of the team including myself hit our targets during tax season. So why did I speak up or continue speaking up when I wasn’t even recognized for the idea? Because it made the process better, it made my life better, it made everyone’s life better.
And while I only recently realized that there are other “morally good” reasons to be in leadership besides having a passion for developing others, I also noticed that (and this may sound cliché) you don’t have to be in a leadership position to lead. And more importantly, leading from a non-leadership role does not mean you do not benefit. Your actions may go un-noticed, un-recognized, un-celebrated, un-rewarded, but those same actions create real impact for yourself and others.
And if you’re fine with that (and only if you’re fine with that), you’re a leader.
What do you think about in your fish room?