CHAPTER ONE
What Gets in the Way
The Pitfalls of Doing
Whether you are a leader of an organization, team, family, community, or school group—or like most of us, some combination thereof—each day you are faced with many moments that test your ability to lead effectively. Decisions need to be made, work needs to be prioritized, and initiatives need to be coordinated with colleagues, all of whom have their own agendas, styles, and perspectives. The landscape of contemporary life is pocked with challenges for all professionals, irrespective of industry, level, or skill. Many of these challenges lead us down a slippery slope right into Leader B mode, where things start to look more difficult by the day.
We can all come up with our own lists, but I’ve found that these challenges fall into four general categories. See if any of these sound familiar:
- THERE ARE NEVER ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY. This may be the number one challenge I hear, and it’s one I struggle with most myself. Many of us face the constant quandary of wanting to do more, advance and complete our initiatives, expand our impact in new and exciting ways, and be the best version of ourselves we can be. But we’re all limited by the finite hours in any given day. Our challenge is figuring out how to get everything done within that set framework—and without sacrificing too much of the things that make life meaningful outside of work, such as time with family and friends, personal interests, and exercise.
- WORK IS MORE COMPLEX. Many leaders are grappling with overwhelming complexity on multiple fronts. It seems that the problems we are being asked to solve are becoming more complex, and more and more of us are working in complicated matrixed environments where many hands need to touch an issue but often without clear accountability or decision-making rights. Meanwhile, work is becoming more global, which brings its own set of challenges: what to centralize and decentralize, how to work within and navigate different cultures, and how to work virtually with colleagues in multiple locations and time zones.
- OUR ORGANIZATIONS AND OTHER PEOPLE GET IN THE WAY. Our bosses, peers, direct reports, and other stakeholders can create frustration, unnecessary roadblocks, bottlenecks, or conflict. Most organizational cultures today emphasize intensity and encourage long hours. The examples of roadblocks that come from external sources are endless. A toxic work environment, an underperforming team member, differing visions, poor planning, unclear or unreasonable expectations, a lack of support, budgetary restrictions, competing priorities, conflict with a colleague or boss … any of these can get in the way of our progress.
- WE GET IN OUR OWN WAY. Highly ambitious, successful people tend to be more self-critical, place greater demands on themselves, and generally feel an outsized pressure to succeed. Many leaders bear the weight of performance pressure and accountability more heavily than others, while quietly we harbor self-doubt and a deep fear of failure. These are the issues that are borne from within—our inner drives, natural inclinations, and motivating factors—and they’re often deep-rooted, part of our psychological makeup. Professor and leadership researcher Laura Empson points out that high achievers tend to blame themselves when they feel inadequate, taking colleagues’ success as confirmation of their own inadequacy. In an effort to conceal their perceived shortcomings, they don’t share their struggles with their colleagues, “thus perpetuating the myth of the invincible professional, which encourages their colleagues to feel inadequate in turn.”1
Which Lens—Leader A or B?
The truth is, we all struggle from time to time, and we all have days in which we regret how we responded to or handled something. Finite “clock” time will never go away, the work ahead will likely become more complex, difficulties and conflicts with other people are bound to crop up from time to time, and naturally, our organizations will continue to have their ups and downs. With these conditions in place, every professional I know—and certainly I include myself here—fluctuates between Leader A and Leader B mode. The image that comes to mind for me is of an internal teeter-totter—we all have our up days and down days, shifting back and forth from A to B and back again. I wish I could tell you that I’ve figured out how to be Leader A all day, every day, but what I’ve come to realize is that the very expectation to be Leader A 100 percent of the time is not only unrealistic, it’s actually a surefire way to slip into Leader B mode.
The real danger is that if we are not aware, we can end up in Leader B mode for so long that it becomes our operating norm, and not only do we become less effective, but so do our teams and possibly our organizations. So how can we recognize when we start to shift from Leader A to Leader B? And how can we recognize the triggers that set us on the slippery slope?
The first step toward answering these is to recognize that the lens is variable. If we’re looking out at the world through a Leader A lens, problems look like opportunities for us to flex our expertise and hone our skills. We feel energized, fully present, and satisfied as a leader, even during those inevitable crunch times. We’re like the surfer who doesn’t fight the current but works with it, using it to her advantage to ride right into the perfect wave.
On the other hand, if we’re looking at the world through a Leader B lens, we may find ourselves whipped off the board and struggling against the waves. When we’re in a Leader B mindset, problems can feel insurmountable, and we may find that our effectiveness, presence, and internal satisfaction have been compromised.
Falling into the Four Pitfalls of Doing
What I have come to understand is that more often than not, the shift from the clear-eyed view of Leader A into Leader B’s cloudy vision begins as a coping mechanism. In response to some sort of challenge or uncertainty, we turn to our go-to form of relief. This makes perfect sense, as all coping mechanisms offer a short-term benefit, such as temporary relief from anxiety and stress. But inevitably, most coping mechanisms reach their limits, and if relied on too long, they can lead us into a deeper hole. The progression can look like this.
I’ve found that there are four types of pitfalls we typically fall into, which keep us in a cycle of stress, ineffectiveness, negativity, or feeling overwhelmed. I call them the Four Pitfalls of Doing:
- The I’ll Just Do More Pitfall
- The I’ll Just Do It Now Pitfall
- The I’ll Just Do It Myself Pitfall
- The I’ll Just Do It Later Pitfall
FIGURE 1-1
A slippery slope
The following section describes each of the pitfalls in detail, and I recommend reading it twice. Sometimes it’s easier to think about others before turning the focus on ourselves, so the first time through, think of a colleague, direct report, or someone you are mentoring and consider whether one of these pitfalls might be at play for them. Then, come back to the beginning of the section and read it again, thinking about how the pitfalls apply to you.
The I’ll Just Do More Pitfall
There will always be more to do than we have the hours in the day to do it. Most tempting to those with a high bias to action, the I’ll Just Do More Pitfall leads us into a false comfort zone crammed with volume, motion, and activity.
The mindset: When we’re in the I’ll Just Do More Pitfall, we believe that as long as we keep working—harder and longer—we’ll be able to add more value, get ahead of others, get more out of life, or just feel okay.
In this mindset, our lens becomes clouded with all that’s going on, and we lose vital track of how our work and choices are connected to passion, contributions, meaning, or progress. Instead, we get caught on a hamster wheel of doing, of sheer activity, and despite our strenuous efforts, we don’t get the results we hope for and we don’t have a sense of internal satisfaction in what we’re getting done.
This mindset is easy to fall into because the world around us tells us this is what we should be doing to succeed. Greg McKeown, author of the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, describes the “more” bubble in which we somehow feel we must do it all, have it all, or achieve it all. More than any other time in history, McKeown explains, we are aware of what others are doing, which subsequently influences what we believe we “should” be doing. As a result, says McKeown, “We have been sold a bill of goods: that success means being supermen and superwomen who can get it all done.… Not only are we addicted to the drug of more, we are pushers too. In the race to get our children into ‘a good college,’ we have added absurd amounts of homework, sports, clubs, dance performances and ad infinitum extracurricular activities. And with them, busyness, sleep deprivation and stress.”2
The mode: For a while we can derive the benefits of the I’ll Just Do More Pitfall, but they are usually short-lived. It may feel good temporarily to be needed by others, demonstrate that you have a high tolerance for stress, or relish the excitement of taking on something new. But eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns.
You know you’re in a full-on pitfall when you feel overwhelmed, like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. While you take pride in being someone others need or count on, in this pitfall you start to resent the people you’ve been trying to support, or you begin to resent those you see leaving the office earlier, or perhaps friends or loved ones who are in jobs or have life situations where they work fewer hours or don’t work at all.
When you’re in this pitfall, you feel exhausted and wonder when you can get off the hamster wheel. Each time a new request comes into your inbox, you experience it as an imposition rather than an opportunity. Despite your complaining and venting to friends and family, you find it increasingly harder to say no, and keep saying yes. You often hear the voice in your head insisting you “should” do it. And on projects, you often do more than is required just because you can.
The consequences: In addition to physical and mental exhaustion and eventual burnout, the toughest consequence I’ve seen from the I’ll Just Do More Pitfall is career stall-out. This happens when the hardworking professional has done everything the organization has asked but then hits a ceiling in terms of the next promotion. Instead of applauding your long hours and hard work, your boss begins to question if you have the chops to do anything other than churn out high volumes of work. You’ve cemented your status as the “worker bee” and can’t progress to the next level.
The I’ll Just Do It Now Pitfall
If the first pitfall is about our relationship to volume, then the second is about our relationship to time.
Looming deadlines, long to-do lists, and overfull inboxes are all realities in modern work life. Meeting deadlines and getting stuff done quickly are important. However, when we’ve fallen into the I’ll Just Do It Now pitfall, we’ve started to overdose on adrenaline, and our responses become knee-jerk and impulsive.
The mindset: The Leader B mindset in this pitfall becomes fixated on getting things done ASAP. You begin to cope by believing that as long as you use your speed and ability to push, then all will be well. The thrill of crossing things off the list does give some temporary relief—until you realize the list is endless.
The mode: Rather than demonstrating an appropriate level of urgency for the situation at hand, you’ve fallen into a constant state of emergency. Rushing is your operating norm. Your conversations, meetings, and emails are all marked by an intensity and sense of urgency that is disproportionate to what the situation calls for. People get blasted with one-liners from your cell phone without context or clarity. In meetings, you dive right in without setting much context or an agenda. In 360 reviews, others may describe you as reactive, abrupt, or overly focused on execution.
We all need to sprint from time to time, but the healthy dose of adrenaline that fuels a push now goes haywire—your body is nearly always tense and contracted, and you start to hold your breath or shallow-breathe as adrenaline and unhealthy levels of cortisol flood your veins. You hear every ding of your email or phone and react immediately, with a constant glance at technology or social media. Your nervous system feels like it’s in overdrive, and the coffee and snacks you grab on the run only worsen your agitated state. You radiate tension and stress as you power through the day in a state of fight-or-flight reaction.
The consequences: When you stay in this mode too long, you might find that when you finally slow down, even a little bit, you end up getting sick because you’ve finally let your guard down. On the career front, you start to experience the downside of being overbiased toward (urgent) execution: you run the risk of getting pegged with a reputation as the “fix-it” person who just isn’t strategic enough for more senior roles.
Your teams and organization may feel the brunt of this pitfall. Your internal voice screaming at you to “get it done now” telegraphs outward; even if you don’t say so explicitly, others pick up on that pressure and start to think, “You better get this done ASAP!” Your team begins to experience each ask, whim, or reaction from you as gospel, putting everyone into a constant state of high alert.
The I’ll Just Do It Myself Pitfall
There will always be things we are able to do better or faster than others, and there will always be things we want done a certain way. And frankly, there will always be things we simply love doing ourselves.
But there comes a point when our instinct to do everything ourselves creates an overdependence on us. When we refuse to wean ourselves off a task and insist on doing it all ourselves, we can create bottlenecks that are detrimental to ourselves, to our teams, and to the goals we’re trying to achieve.
The mindset: This mindset is guided by the false belief that you must do everything by yourself or that you have to rescue others. Either can feel really good temporarily, for any number of reasons. Perhaps you do something yourself because it’s fun even though it’s no longer your highest and best use in a larger role. Or maybe you love the sweet taste of moving quickly and keeping control of something that you know you’re able to do faster and better than others. Or perhaps you feel relief from avoiding the conflict of difficult performance discussions or tough personnel decisions by taking on things in order to protect an employee who’s been loyal to you or has worked for you for a long time. Whatever the underlying motivation, at some point you end up feeling overloaded, feeling more stressed, or doing more than your fair share.
The mode: When you’ve fallen into the I’ll Just Do It Myself Pitfall, others keep coming directly to you, rather than your team, for information or deliverables. You get involved in many conversations and decisions, and often, your team feels they don’t have the autonomy to deliver on their own—they have to wait to talk to you first. You often say things like, “Oh, I’ll just handle it” or “He’s going to get there—I just need to give him more time and don’t mind taking on some of the pieces until then.” Even when others offer to help, you ignore or refuse them. Your go-to response is, “No worries, I got this.”
The consequences: By routinely doing things that others could do for you or by doing things yourself because you’re compensating for a weak performer on your team, you can become a bottleneck and end up compromising your vision. Ultimately, if you remain in this pitfall, you won’t be able to scale beyond your own capacity, and you risk inhibiting growth not only for yourself but for your team and your company. This often leads to incremental progress rather than the breakthroughs or transformations many companies are looking for.
The I’ll Just Do It Later Pitfall
While the first three pitfalls are about coping by exerting your will or finding a way to feel like you’re still in control when things around you feel uncertain or out of control, this fourth pitfall is about procrastination or putting yourself last.
The mindset: This mindset kicks in when we assume that we’ll get to important things that matter to ourselves later. For example, your goal for getting in shape or taking more vacation this year can get shuffled down the priority list when other things seem more important—yet again. You find yourself making excuses like, “Something else came up,” “I’m just too busy,” or “I’ll get to that eventually.”
The mode: You find yourself often frustrated that you’re putting off important things. Other people’s needs—or indeed any other need that comes up—take priority over your own agenda, and you find yourself continually sidetracked. There could be an underlying conflict avoidance in play, or perhaps you have weak boundaries with others, either of which makes it easier to put yourself and your own priorities last. Or there could be an underlying fear of failure that’s causing resistance to working toward your goals. Whatever the cause, it can feel like you’re not performing up to your potential. You are relentless in reminding yourself of what you’re not accomplishing, and you may struggle with a constant thrum of anxiety about not meeting your goals.
The consequences: The impact on ourselves can be hard in this pitfall. While others’ needs are being met, your own health, well-being, networks, relationships, and professional or personal growth are compromised. You don’t fully embrace an opportunity, or you miss one altogether. You risk not moving the ball forward on an important or meaningful project, and at work, your contribution can plateau. Putting off or ignoring the big initiatives and objectives, over time, has the potential to derail or even end a career, and the stress of remaining in this pitfall can easily lead to negative impacts on health and relationships.
As I mentioned at the start of this section, it’s often easier to think about the pitfalls in the context of what’s happening for other people rather than for ourselves. In my case, it’s always been easier for me to spot a pitfall happening for a client than for myself. After all, holding up the mirror is never easy.
There was a point during the writing of this book, for example, when I realized I wasn’t going to meet my publisher’s deadline. This was a painful realization. I was disappointed in myself and embarrassed. I’d told all my colleagues and friends about the book schedule. And I couldn’t figure out how I’d gotten to this place, after six months of intense work and a desk littered with edited drafts, notes, new pages, and Post-it notes. Even after all that time and effort, I didn’t have a manuscript I was happy with, and I was increasingly overwhelmed and stressed.
When I took a step back to observe the situation, the irony nearly bowled me over: during the book-writing process, I’d experienced every Pitfall of Doing.
I had not fully appreciated the extra workload the book would add to my already full schedule. I assumed I could just do more and control and push my way to a manuscript. My anxiety mounted as the deadline loomed, and any time it peaked, I’d feel a surge of adrenaline and my mind would convince me I could just do it now. So there I sat, reactively and impulsively typing away, but not producing my highest-quality work. Then, because I had one book under my belt already, instead of asking for help I tried to just do it myself. But inevitably, client work would come to the forefront, and I’d procrastinate on the book and convince myself I could just do it later.
It was a sobering wake-up call to realize I had fallen into the pitfalls I’d been writing about. Ultimately, it was good to lift out of the noise and look at what was happening with a more clear-eyed view and get honest with myself. Following is the exercise I used to assess the situation. You can use it whenever you feel like you’ve slipped into Leader B mode.
EXERCISE
Assessing the Pitfalls of Doing
This exercise has the potential to raise some discomfort. Yet it’s vitally important to pause regularly and do some honest self-spectating. This exercise can be especially helpful to get you back on track when a situation, project, or initiative isn’t going the way you’d hoped.
- Take several moments to reflect on a project, initiative, or goal that isn’t going the way you’d hoped or planned. As much as you can, observe the situation without judgment.
- Now identify which of the pitfalls might be at play and getting in the way.
- Finally, use table 1-1 to assess what is happening.
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TABLE 1-1 |
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Assessing the pitfalls of doing |
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Pitfall |
What does it look like or sound like for you at this time? |
What emotions or feelings is it bringing up? |
What is the impact on you, your goal, or others? |
What is an action you can take to shift out of this pitfall? |
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I’ll Just Do More |
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I’ll Just Do It Now |
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I’ll Just Do It Myself |
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I’ll Just Do It Later |
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As you begin to get a better handle on what these pitfalls look, sound, and feel like to you, over time you’ll more quickly be able to recognize that you’re headed toward a pitfall well before it’s taken hold and created unintended consequences and negative effects.
In my case, thankfully I caught onto what was happening with the pitfalls with five months to spare on my publishing deadline. This allowed enough time to have a thoughtful conversation with my publisher to explain where I was and what I had learned, to ask for an extension, and to share how I was going to do things differently to meet the new deadline. The actions embedded in each of the five Ps also indicated what I needed to do to get back on track: realign with my purpose in writing the book, update my processes to create realistic work goals, reach out to people who could help and collaborate, cultivate the presence to stay focused and deal with the range of emotions I was experiencing, and, with peace, loosen my grip on the process and trust that I would create the manuscript I most hoped for.
The Leader You Feed and the Five Ps
As we become more aware of when Leader B has become the operating norm, and the triggers that cause us to slide down the slippery slope, we increase our ability to lift out of the noise and consider a different way of looking at things. We realize that every moment presents a choice between being Leader A and Leader B, and that we have the power to choose the course of action that will bring us back to Leader A.
The choice we have between Leader A and Leader B reminds me of a Cherokee Indian legend. Here is how this story goes.
A Cherokee elder was teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
To me this legend captures a profound truth: whatever we “feed,” whatever we sustain with our time, energy, and action, is what will flourish. We can nurture and sustain an attitude of anger, arrogance, or inferiority, just as we can nurture and sustain an attitude of peace, empathy, or compassion. So it is with anything: what we feed is what will flourish.
How do we feed Leader A? The first step is built upon self-awareness, and this is where our inner spectator comes in. Knowing which wolf you are at the moment is a prerequisite to feeding the right one. We need to become a spectator to our own experience so we can recognize when we’ve fallen into Leader B mode and understand what led us there. Getting back to Leader A after you’ve been in Leader B mode requires the ability to “clean the lens” and take a larger, more elevated view from above the fray. It requires the willingness and the ability to come out of the trenches and regularly take stock of ourselves. As we mature and our self-awareness deepens, we will recognize more quickly when we start down the slippery slope and can arrest the slide well before entering a pitfall. We learn the particular set of factors that help us to be our most effective, present, and authentic selves.
FIGURE 1-2
From pitfalls to performance enhancers
When we continually feed Leader A and can habitually look at life through the Leader A lens, we can even turn a pitfall into a performance enhancer. Take a look at how it can work.
The Leader A lens allows a kind of alchemy to happen. I’ll Just Do More becomes “I’ll do more only if they are things that add value.” I’ll Just Do It Now shifts to “I’ll do it now only after weighing each decision and determining that the task is truly urgent and in my wheelhouse.” I’ll Just Do It Myself becomes “I’ll do it myself only if it’s my highest and best use and it benefits the team and organization.” And finally, I’ll Just Do It Later becomes “I’ll do it later only after assessing the situation and making a conscious decision to de-prioritize a project or a task.”
The good news is, we don’t have to do any of this work alone. Attending to the five Ps provides a methodical framework for remaining in Leader A mode as much as we can, and for feeding our good wolf after slipping into Leader B mode or even a full-blown pitfall. The five Ps, in fact, are a reliable antidote to each of the pitfalls—they give us confidence that there is a way to get back on track, and when regularly attended to, they enhance our overall performance. As often as we need to, we can align and realign ourselves to the five Ps.
Leader A stays connected to purpose and regularly infuses it into her day-to-day. She upgrades her processes as needed to execute her highest and best work. Leader A relies on the people around him—he creates an invigorated and effective team and a strong community of support. Leader A has a presence that is calm, stays focused, and doesn’t react impulsively. And ultimately, like the tale of the two wolves, Leader A is able to be at peace, leading from a place of generosity, humility, and servant leadership rather than from striving, greed, false pride, or ego. He knows that a mix of Leader A and Leader B is all part of the entire leadership experience, and he can put all of it to work for the greater good.
It’s time to begin. Our first leg of the journey introduces us to the first P, purpose, which undergirds and threads through every moment of leadership we’ll encounter.
What to Remember:
- All leaders fluctuate between Leader A and Leader B mode. The key is to recognize when our lens begins to shift from Leader A to Leader B, and to become aware of the triggers that start us down the slippery slope to Leader B.
- Once we’re on the slippery slope, we risk falling into one or more of the Four Pitfalls of Doing, which keep us locked in a cycle of stress, ineffectiveness, negativity, and feeling overwhelmed: I’ll Just Do More Pitfall, I’ll Just Do It Now Pitfall, I’ll Just Do It Myself Pitfall, and I’ll Just Do It Later Pitfall.
- As we become more in tune with ourselves, we become increasingly able to lift out of the noise and consider a different way of looking at things. We realize that every moment presents a choice between Leader A and Leader B, and that we can choose the course of action that brings us back to Leader A.
- Habitually feeding Leader A allows us to turn any pitfall into a performance enhancer. The five-P framework gives us a way to keep feeding Leader A, and to align and realign ourselves to these principles of effective leadership as often as we need to.