Show your bad days too

Authentic leadership means showing your bad days too.

Many of my posts these days stem from my new understanding of mental health that is coming from the work of David Burns. One thing I read in his book Feeling Great was that his expectation of someone who had recovered from anxiety and/or depression was that they would have 5 good days per week. He then states somewhat offhandedly that shooting for 7 good days a week isn't a reasonable target, although I think that concept requires a bit more explanation.

My first thought on this was immediately the movie "Inside Out" - the notion that we can't properly experience happiness if we don't acknowledge the sadness, and additionally many memories may have both emotions twisted together. If you eliminated all sadness, you would paradoxically miss out on some of the happiest parts of life.

I thought about how good and bad days are incorrectly conflated with optimism, especially in leadership. I am an optimistic person about some things, and a pessimistic person about other things. I like to think I am realistic person most of the time.

I have good days and bad days, and they are only partially related to how work is going. When I was navigating complex situations at work, I think my instinct was to cover up my own emotions and how my day was potentially affecting it, but fortunately I am not very good at it so instead I got authenticity for free :-)

If someone is seemingly having only good days, then there is a high likelihood they either aren't in touch with their emotions and so never feel the bad days, or are not showing you them. In either case, it can be a bit of a troubling standard to set as a leader because it feels to me like it would encourage folks to match that level of goodness or pretend to if they aren't.

In retrospect, what I would want to be able to do was be upfront about how my feelings at that moment are potentially impacting the situation we are faced with. The benefit to that is that by being clear about what is going on with me, I am opening the door for others to be upfront about that too. I never want my team to think, "Uh oh, Alex is having another bad day" without me warning them first and all of us being on the same page about that. I do want them to hear me say how my day is going and tell me how theirs is, and if there is something that is particularly good or bad to be able to share it.

It was especially tempting to hide how I was doing during the pandemic because things were really hard and it felt like it was much easier hiding behind a camera and turning it off when needed. The truth is, I know that my success there was limited too because people kept asking me how I was doing, and even suggesting maybe I needed a break when I couldn't recognize it myself.

The five good day target is a great metric to use and have in your mind; easy to track for yourself and those you are around. I think it could be an good way to broach the subject with someone too, even if mental health discussions aren't really the norm in our society. I imagine I would be much more receptive to someone asking me how many good days I had recently as opposed to asking me if I'm depressed.

Remember, the most consistent rule of leadership is that people will do what you do, not what you say. The other piece is that people are always more perceptive than you think they are. People know when your temper is particularly short, you are more distracted, or less empathetic. It will be much more effective to work as a team if you can warn them first. Conversely, if your boss or coworker is seemingly always having good days, you may need to be curious about what is behind that and whether that is really who they are (could be!) or if there is more to the story people are missing. The key is to be honest about your feelings, emotions, and how they are affecting you so everyone around you can feel comfortable doing that as well.