Have you ever felt like you've been thrust into leadership without a say in the matter? Join me, as I uncover the complexities of leadership, especially for those who didn't set out to be leaders. This episode is a candid look at the weight of leadership responsibilities and the very human struggle to find personal fulfillment when your career path takes an unexpected turn into management.
Is stepping us as a leader an intentional choice you are making every day?
Whether you are new to a management role, or an experienced leader who is started to feel trapped, join us to reflect on your practice.
To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story
Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every week at 5:00pm MST. Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/
Have you ever felt like you've been thrust into leadership without a say in the matter? Join me, as I uncover the complexities of leadership, especially for those who didn't set out to be leaders. This episode is a candid look at the weight of leadership responsibilities and the very human struggle to find personal fulfillment when your career path takes an unexpected turn into management.
Is stepping us as a leader an intentional choice you are making every day?
Whether you are new to a management role, or an experienced leader who is started to feel trapped, join us to reflect on your practice.
To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story
Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every week at 5:00pm MST. Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/
Speaker 1:
Every action you take as a leader has a ripple effect, starting with your team, going out to the organization and even out into people's personal lives. Here we offer you the chance to learn from real life stories of leadership so you can gain a deeper understanding and level up your own skills From communication to culture, to power and equity, to feedback, to resolving conflict and more. Join us and make sure you're creating the ripples you want. Welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink.
Speaker 2:
Hello and welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink Now. Today I wanted to talk a little bit about the discomfort of being a leader and especially if you feel trapped in your leadership role. Maybe you didn't want to be a leader and you were nominated for a position or asked to take a position, and one of the reasons I want to talk about this is it's another way that we humanize and recognize that we as leaders are also people, because that needs to be validated. I know that on this show I talk a lot about the responsibilities of leadership and expectations and how to hold people accountable, and the flip side of that is everyone's human and doing their best, and we really need to be able to kindly hold both of those things at the same time. So, whether you are a new leader, like I said, maybe you didn't choose to be in a role, or maybe you're an experienced leader and you're feeling a little bit trapped, or you realized you've never actually fully reflected on what leadership does mean to you and how it impacts your life, then I certainly hope you will enjoy listening to this.
Speaker 2:
Bk wrote in to talk a little bit about his situation. He says I've been with my company for a number of years now in a technical role. I recently got promoted to be a floor manager and I hate it. I liked the work I did and I was good at it. I think I was promoted to the position because I knew what I was doing and I've been here a long time. Now I don't get to do the work I like. I have to deal with managing people and I'm stuck in way more meetings and dealing with my own managers. The pay is a little bit better, but it just doesn't feel worth it to me. Is there a way to make myself enjoy this new position? Thanks for sharing your situation, bk. It certainly sounds like you are in a bit of a tough spot and, honestly, an unfortunately common one. I have met so many people, especially people like yourself in a middle management role, who became that because they were volunteered by their supervisors, generally because of either technical skill or length of time in the organization. Now, that seems kind of backwards, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:
This is something I would actually love to see shift in organizations is how intentional they are at choosing people who might have interest in leading, and then how is that fostered? Because leading should be an intentional decision, because there is so much responsibility to it. There is so much behind it that you need to work at the reality, though, of a lot of people also who might take these positions and choose to embrace these or even apply for leadership roles because of a pay increase. That's a reality as well A lot of organizations. The only way to get that increase is to pursue a management position or a higher level role, and, once again, it's maybe not the way things should be. It's very hard for organizations to shift that and look at the value they get of employees, what their pay structure is like. There would be a lot that would have to shift. So, recognizing that we are, of course, in this system as it exists, we're going to do the best that we can within that.
Speaker 2:
Another time that I see this maybe a bit different than BK's situation, but I see often is people who start a business, entrepreneurs who love and are passionate about the skill that they have, so they go to share it with the world, and they're so passionate and they share it so well that now they get a staff team, and now they don't know exactly what to do with that staff team, because now they're in this management position, they're the CEO. They're not only making business decisions but have this team, and so they might not have chosen to be in that leadership position, but they certainly are now and they have to figure out how they're going to work within that system. And even, to be honest, a lot of experienced leaders that I have met can start to feel as though they are no longer in control of their position or some component of it. They do feel trapped in being a leader. It's a very real experience, so that is why I wanted to chat about this today. Now, bk, you are in the system that you're in the middle manager. You didn't choose this, and you described even that you hate this new position that you're in, and I don't know of anyone who wants to spend the day doing what they hate, every day, all work week. I can't imagine. It's a very unpleasant experience, and not just for yourself as a leader, but for all the people that are following you or that you are trying to support. You know when someone is leading you and they are not happy to be there. We are aware of it, so we want to move away from that.
Speaker 2:
Obviously, I like to think of this, or I would prefer if leadership was a little bit more intentional the way we thought about it. You think about people choosing to be parents. Most people and I think that want that. They embrace it. They say I am going to choose this, so I'm going to shape my life around it, I'm going to make decisions, I'm going to learn these skills to be a parent, and that's what we should do ideally for leadership as well. We should look at people and say, yes, I want to shift my life around this way, I care about these things, I want to learn these skills so I can be a good leader.
Speaker 2:
Now, of course, in both leadership and parenting, who knows what will happen? There's lots of times that people might not have that choice, and that's a reality of life. So now you have two choices with that. You can choose to be unhappy about the situation, to be miserable or angry, and reflect that in the people that you're trying to help, or you can actively try to shift your perspective and make a decision, like I said, to consciously choose leadership, to choose to be a leader every day and everything that comes with that. Easier said than done, of course, but I do really want to encourage people to think about these things. Are you willing and excited to embrace some of these components? Because, I will also say, some of the worst misuses of power that I've seen come for people who have good intentions but maybe do feel trapped in leadership and they unfortunately aren't emotionally capable of regulating that and they end up harming the people that they're trying to help through that unintentional misuse of power. Now, bk, because you chose to write in and ask your question, I'm going to assume that you are choosing option two, that you want to find maybe a different way to embrace this or at least reflect and decide if this is really for you.
Speaker 2:
Now let's talk about one of the first things I would try to access and what we're going to reflect a little bit with this is some sort of leadership training. A lot of organizations have at least something. Maybe it's only a short video, maybe they'll buy you some books or have a library of resources that you can use, or maybe they'll actually pay for training and in a lot of cases I would really advocate anyone, especially new leaders, but anyone who's in a leadership position, advocate to get some sort of training. And the best part about this is it doesn't matter if you're going to stay as a leader if you choose to go a different direction. These are great skills I think absolutely everyone should learn. I know in my work, a lot of the skills I'm teaching the whole team at the same time are essentially leadership skills. They're how to interact with people, how to emotionally regulate yourself, that deeper understanding of what the meaning of our work is and how we want to move forward. Those are all, ultimately, leadership skills. So any sort of leadership training that you can access is fantastic. It'll help you on your journey, no matter what you end up doing Now as you engage in this training, or even if you don't have the training, but you're really contemplating what leadership is to you.
Speaker 2:
I just want to throw out a couple questions, and I would personally recommend take some time journal. It doesn't matter what position you're in, think about these things and what they mean to you, because many, many leaders that I've talked to even great ones haven't actually taken the time to consider what this means to them. And when you consider these things, it opens up different possibilities and what you care about, how much you can show up, how well you show up, and ultimately that is what we want to be effective and ethical leaders. So the first question would be what does it mean to me to be a leader? As you ponder this, you know this might mean. What might it change in my life, what might shift in myself if I chose to embrace leadership? What is my relationship with power and what would that mean to me in this role? Now, if you've listened to the show before, I talk a lot about power. Some of our earlier episodes dive a little bit more into that, and future ones will as well.
Speaker 2:
But really understanding your relationship with having power, having less power, what does it mean to use your power in a healthy way? What kind of leader would I like to be? And this could mean, you know, what kind of things would I like people to say about me as a leader? Or how would I like my team to experience me as a leader? It could also mean what kind of leadership approach or style do I think would match me in the way that I want to show up in the world? What responsibilities am I willing to take on for this role?
Speaker 2:
You want to be really clear on your boundaries, right? What would I? How would I know, if I went beyond my boundaries? What would I do about that. You want to be very clear so you're not feeling once again trapped or out of control on this. How would I know if my role was no longer serving me? And, on the other side of that, how would I know if I was no longer serving people by being in my role? And then how would this position serve me? How would it make me feel fulfilled or personally rewarded? What would be meaningful to me about this, and especially for you, bk, if you're looking for something you might enjoy, is there a piece of enjoyment you might get from this leadership position? Is there something that would really be meaningful to you?
Speaker 2:
Another big one am I willing to be uncomfortable for the sake of being a better leader? And this is really at the heart of a lot of leadership challenges. Can I put my personal preferences secondary to the preferences of the people that I'm trying to serve, to the needs of the moment? If you're willing to do that, that is going to be consciously and responsibly stepping into this leadership role every day. And if that feels very uncomfortable, if it's not something you're willing to play with, will you be able to thrive as a leader? And finally, just thinking about who would support you on this journey. What does that look like? Do you have those people within your organization or outside, or not? And that actually does lead me to a bigger piece with. This is certainly BK would also recommend you seek out other leaders, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 2:
It is absolutely critical for leaders to have support systems. So maybe you do have a boss who you do trust and would be willing to have some of these conversations about the challenges you're having with now being a leader. That's great if you do. If you don't, are there other groups of leaders you could join? Could you hire a coach or someone else who could mentor you through this process? Or do you have a mentor coach in your life already that you could talk to about this? You, of course, don't want to go to your staff team to discuss the challenges of leadership. That would be a misuse of power to bring that down to them. But finding other people in similar roles or in roles previously that would be similar to yours, those are all a great resource system.
Speaker 2:
So if you do not have someone to get suggestions and support, chat through challenges, to monitor your own impact as a leader, you need to do that, regardless of this episode in a bigger context and if you decide, if you're trying to question, do I want to be a leader or not, those are great people to talk to. They can give you suggestions, they can tell you what they like and don't like about leadership. They can talk through what it might look like if you were a leader, give you some more information about that. So we have all these questions, we have all these reflections, which hopefully you've taken a moment to pause this and think to yourself. Well, what does leadership mean to me? Am I choosing this? Because it's not always an easy thing, and the best leaders are those who are consciously making that choice of how they are going to show up every single day. So, bk, I hope for you especially.
Speaker 2:
This was a great chance to reflect on what you want moving forward. Maybe something in this did speak to you and you're thinking maybe there is some meaning, I will find this. Maybe I do really want to support my former coworkers and I know I could do that because of my knowledge. Maybe this reiterated to you how much you don't want to be a leader at all and maybe it does make more sense to find another role or another organization to work with Either way. Again, that is your choice and it's made consciously and with the best intentions to be either the best leader you can be or leave that space for someone else. Kudos to you for making this a very intentional journey and thank you to everyone who did listen for that.
Speaker 2:
As always, bk, I'll be following up with you so we can talk about your specific situation and as a thank you for sharing your story. If you have a story you would like to share with the show or a question you'd like answered, you can find the link for that in the description to this. And if you want to join us live so you can comment and ask your questions, we would love to have you. The link for that is in the description below. I want to thank you all, so much to all the leaders out there who are making this conscious choice. We're choosing to be responsive and supportive of their people every day. You are amazing. Thank you so much for joining and I look forward to seeing you next week.
Speaker 1:
We hope you enjoyed the episode. Make sure to subscribe, comment and connect with Leah at meetleahca.