What's the Worst Thing You Can Do as a Leader?

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I beg your pardon. I never promised you a Rose Garden… ~ Joe South

Leadership is messy.

Business is messy. Life is messy.

Stuff happens. Sometimes repeatedly. Often in waves.

So what?

Here’s so what.

It’s interesting that some leaders thrive on chaos. They work best in chaotic environments. When the soup has boiled over. When bad stuff happens.

When the feces hits the wind appliance

There are specialists that actually do this for a living. When you have a catastrophe or a real dilemma. You call them. They know exactly what to do and they do it well. Turn around artists. Firefighters. The cavalry.

They are like Red Adair. If you don’t know who that is, click on this link. He passed away in 2004. While alive, he was the infamous, supreme, par excellence conqueror of Oil Well Fires.

When the heat got so high, it turned desert sand into glass, you called Red and his crew

In the midst of storms, these kinds of Leaders are “face to the wind”. Taking whatever is thrown at them. Wading through muck and mire. Emerging victorious on the other side once they’ve steered the ship clear of danger. Never backing away.

They are never Sideline Safe. Or Bunker Buried. They would never even think of staying safely behind enemy lines.

In a crisis, you want to follow Leaders like that. They are magical

Some of these same Leaders don’t do so well in smooth waters. They get antsy. Bored. Lose focus and interest in the task at hand. Take their eye off the horizon. With the potential of the ship actually running aground.

My experience is that truly GREAT Leaders are good in both circumstances. Chaos and Order. Crisis as well as Status Quo. Rough and smooth.

At times, fires will break out. Spontaneous combustion. Or a small flame that suddenly erupts into a raging firestorm. Needing to be tamed. Brought under control and extinguished. Then cleaned up after.

Other times, it’s all about fire prevention. Steady growth and improvement. Steer and stay the course. Tweak and fine tune. Make steady progress. Cultivate, nurture, develop, and mature. Expand and increase. Contract and shrink.

You especially want to follow these kinds of all-season Leaders. Because you will grow exponentially in skill and experience just being around them. Watching. Observing. Learning.

I’ve had the honor, privilege and sheer outright pleasure of personally experiencing this a few times throughout my career.

Just thinking about these times makes me tingle from head to toe…

So what will you do when a crisis is looming? Or when the feces storm comes up out of nowhere and overwhelms you?

Do you stand up? Stand tall? Face to the wind?

Do you retreat back into the shadows wishing it will all go away?

Will you hope someone else on the team or in the organization will step up and out to take over?

Are you saying that because you have no experience with this particular emergency, crisis or circumstance, you can’t step up?

Well, here’s the worst thing you can do…

Give up, give in, and abdicate

Cash in the chips. Throw in the towel. Stay down. Sit in the ashes, wailing and howling. Throw a pity party and lament about how unfair life is.

You can’t do that. You are the Leader. Sorry but, you see, it’s not just you that will be sitting down in those ashes. There are a lot of other people who chose to follow you sitting there along side you. Waiting for you to do something.

I did that once. I stepped away. Called it a day. Retreated and receded into the shadows. Whimpering with my tail between my legs. Next to the worst mistake of my life.

Because the WORST mistake of my life, was accepting the mantle of Leadership when I was not prepared to do so. Without at least putting some structure in place, some guardrails, guidelines, that would have allowed me to gradually grow in experience and skill and get prepared for future storms.

I didn’t do that.

You see, the absolute worst and most difficult times to try and find help is when you actually need it

Here’s an analogy:

Hurricanes devastate cities, towns, communities and their supporting infrastructure, like the electrical grid. So Utilities, at least the well run companies, practice, drill and walk through storm simulations.

They do this to provide their leaders and teams the required experience and to teach them skills about how to address, cope with, manage and handle these situations successfully.

They also enter into agreements with other Utilities to “borrow” resources — people, crews, equipment — to call on after a catastrophe when needed, to help restore the infrastructure.

The Leaders don’t wait until after a storm hits to figure out what to do. Or to reach out for help.

That’s absolutely the worst time to be clueless, and to go look for assistance

And THAT is what I should have done as a Leader. It’s what every Leader should do. To prepare oneself, and the organization, the team, and to anticipate—

• A financial difficulty
• A Product Recall or Emergency
• A safety issue
• A natural disaster
• Any business or organizational crisis
• A whistle blower

And to find great mentors, coaches, confidants. To put in place great people with the skills and experience to come together as a team in the time of the inevitable crisis. When the storm is about to hit. Or when the totally unforeseen catastrophe happens.

This is what we can all do. As Leaders, parents, family members or as part of our communities.

So that when the worst and most unexpected thing we can possibly imagine happens, we have a fighting chance of addressing it successfully and emerging in one piece. Individually, and more importantly, collectively.

And so we don’t compound the worst thing that could happen with an even worse thing — to give up…

Yes. Leadership is a bitch. It really is. Like life in general...

And I’m not just saying that. I have a 4 year Federal prison sentence and a Stage IV Cancer diagnosis to back me up.

But you know what I say?

Next challenge please!

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I am Life, Leadership and Executive Coach, Author, Blogger and Consultant. Visit my web site at www.fiallo.com