The real leadership gap? It’s not your boss.

Maybe you’ve experienced this, too: I used to get really frustrated with bad bosses.

Right, you say. Duh, you say.

Bear with me, Impatient One.

I would get frustrated with bad bosses because my mind would be spitting out the obvious reactions to their bad behavior:

• Did he just say that? He totally threw me under the bus!
• Why is she micromanaging me? I can’t work this way!
• How dare he take credit for that! I may work for him but that’s my blood,sweat and tears in that project!

Thoughts like these would lead me to respond by trying to fix what I saw as the leadership gap. I would try to counter-balance or educate my boss to do better.

• If he threw me under the bus, I’d go to him to find out where our “misunderstanding” was, then go talk to sympathetic coworkers to share my side of the story??
• If she was micromanaging, I’d stay up late putting together highly detailed plans and pushing my team to do extra work, over communicate, and try to anticipate the future, all? to keep her off our backs?
• If he called my work his own, I would ask him for an acknowledgment of credit in some small way, and let him know that I valued my contribution and felt it should be acknowledged, maybe ask him to send a follow up email to the CEO or the rest of the team, and then go let my peers so know that, really, I did the bulk of the work.

Do you think any of this worked?

Of course not. You know it didn’t. You know, because you’ve been there, too.

The boss who threw me under the bus would just gaslight me and tell me I was the one who misunderstood what he was actually saying…

The boss who micromanaged me continued to put pressure on me and the team, changing and interfering with set plans, demanding more yet slowing us down by her insistence on reviewing every small detail…

The boss who claimed credit for my work would say sorry and do it again the next time…

And after many hapless, exhausting and anxiety-ridden attempts to help my bosses narrow the gap between bad or mediocre and step towards good or even great, I realized something about the leadership gap.

It’s not where you think.

I was experiencing the output of the leadership gap, not the actual problem itself.

And the problem itself was not one I could solve for those bad bosses.

It is one I can solve for myself.? And so can you.

In fact, if we want to be different from the bad bosses we’ve worked for in the past, it’s imperative that we mind the gap.

Ask yourself: what are the qualities you admire in leaders you know? What kind of leader do you want to be?

The women I coach most often answer:

• Confident
• Bold
• Decisive

And then the add:

• Collaborative
• Compassionate
• Trustworthy?

Maybe these are your words, too.? Maybe you have a different set. You do you.

But that’s really the point. You must do you, to mind the leadership gap.

To use the above set of qualities as our example, let’s close the leadership gap with my previously described bad bosses: if you are confident and trustworthy, you aren’t throwing your team members under the bus to avoid taking responsibility.

If you are decisive and collaborative, you aren’t micromanaging your team and constantly moving the goal posts to attempt control and perfection.

If you are bold and compassionate, you don’t need to claim credit for work other people are performing to make yourself look smart.

Making your choices to lead your team and your company with the qualities you admire most means you start with leading yourself.

You start with holding yourself accountable to yourself for showing up as confident and decisive, and taking action that is inclusive and instills trust.

You make decisions that foster collaboration and allow space for bold ideas.

When you hold yourself accountable to the leadership qualities that matter most to you, you embody that leader. You lead you. That’s how you make decisions. That’s how you choose your words.? That’s how you show up.

When your energy is spent on closing your own leadership gap, you don’t have time to babysit and educate bad bosses. Your attitude and execution are aimed at leading, not pleading for recognition or hoping someone with a lesser sense of scruples will correct themselves and do the right thing.

It wasn’t my job to “fix” my bad bosses, and the energy spent doing that took away from my ability to show up as the best leader, coworker and friend that I could be. It took away from my time, my growth and the impact I could make at work.

If you’re looking at the leaders in your company and thinking that there are some gaps that need filling, you’re probably right. But that’s not what the problem is. The problem is that you’re putting your attention and energy there, instead of on the leadership gap inside your own skills and abilities.

You lead you. Change how you show up, and you will inevitably impact those around you.

Try it and see what happens.?