Last week’s post You the person and you ‘the boss’ was about recognizing that when you step into a leadership position you’re also stepping into a metaphor. The people around you project their own beliefs onto you as ‘the boss.’ They lose their ability to see you as you. It’s lonely at the top. Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown. It’s all true. Life as a leader can be exhausting.
Maintaining an effective ‘boss’ persona requires a lot of energy and discipline. Actually being the leader and making those incredibly difficult decisions every day requires even more. Your work demands omnipresent optimal clarity and stamina. How do you stay resilient, resourced and sane?
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz’s great work is worth a long look. To quote from their classic Harvard Business Review piece, The Making of a Corporate Athlete, “Sustained high achievement demands physical and emotional strength as well as a sharp intellect. To bring mind, body and spirit to peak condition, executives need to learn what world-class athletes already know: recovering energy is as important as expending it.”
Loehr and Schwartz suggest specific practices to build physical, emotional, mental and spiritual capacity. Because brainpower is absolutely necessary, but it is not sufficient. Not when you’re taking on the world, willing your great idea into reality and leading a huge and diverse team through dozens of obstacles.
Great business coaches, like great athletic coaches, coach the whole person. If you’re an innovator, you are courageous, resilient, principled and even a bit idealistic. You need to generate massive energy to summit the Everests that are your goals.
Get help to take care of every part of yourself, to learn to embrace what the role of leader demands of you. When you are optimally resourced, you and your beautiful innovation will thrive!
Communication is the essential last mile in finding and motivating the right teams, acquiring strong allies, powerfully bonding with customers, and capturing mindshare with compelling stories. Nothing will serve you and your vision better than developing exceptional communication skills.
