Biggest Mistakes I Made As a Leader
As discussed in my recent LinkedIn Live, before taking over as CEO of I.G., my leadership journey has been a long one, with lots of twists and turns. I’ve done a lot that I am proud of, but there’s a lot I would also do differently if I could start again. In the spirit of our new Leadership Lab, I wanted to share a few of the mistakes I made along the way, in the hopes you don’t have to repeat them!
Trying to never get anything wrong
When I discover I have done something wrong, the floor drops out from under me. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an error in a budget spreadsheet, mispeaking in a meeting, or making a hire that doesn’t work out - I always feel as though I am in trouble and will be punished in some way. Trying to avoid this feeling has driven me to burnout sometimes, by trying to essentially never get anything wrong - to be perfect. But, not only is this an impossible standard to set for myself, it’s also not a good way to be good at your job as a leader.
Failure, and getting things wrong, is literally the only way we learn - we don’t learn anything from success or perfection. Actually, having years and years of doing everything really well, and constantly working to never mess up, did very little for my development as a leader. But, every time I struggle, slip up, admit I need help, or process the feelings that come up when I don’t do as well as I want to - I grow. A huge part of this is bringing my challenges, weaknesses and mistakes out into the open - within my team, my bosses, my clients, my communities, my coaches - and owning them. But it’s also about being brave in the face of something I might not get right, and doing it anyway.
Working to become the leaders I admire
I’ve only worked with a handful of leaders that I truly admired, and every single time I immediately placed them on a huge pedestal, and set about trying to become exactly like them. Now, sometimes this leads to learning and development, and I think being inspired by the values, skills and behaviours of those you work with can be a brilliant way to grow as a leader. But, the problem with trying to emulate someone rather than just be inspired by them, is that you can lose who you are, and a strong sense of self is vital for any leader. If you don’t have that, when things get difficult you can end up trying to perform a response that feels like ‘what they would do’, or ‘what they would want’, rather than truly connecting with what you believe is right, or what your instincts are telling you. You can also end up continually comparing yourself to them, instead of comparing yourself to who you want to become - the former leads to imposter syndrome, and the latter leads to ambition and motivation. Don’t try to become anyone else, and don’t try to act based on what someone else would want - only ever lead in a way that feels true and right for you, and when you learn from others, that way will evolve too.
If you’ll forgive me for revealing my guilty pleasure of reading Taylor Jenkins Reid novels, I’d like to share the advice the fictional tennis star Carrie Soto received from her father (and coach) after she lost a match: “You are not yet who you will one day be. You were not born that person. And that is why you must best yourself every time you get on the court. Not so that you beat the other person, so that you become more yourself. ~ Until you’ve reached the fullest of your potential”.
Taking responsibility for solving every problem
I’m a very quick person - I think fast, talk fast, and problem solve fast. This meant that, honestly, I didn’t fall behind with any of my work (even when under ridiculous pressure and mountains of tasks) until I was more than a decade into my career. I really never learned how to not solve every problem that came across my desk, or rescue people from every problem they brought to me as a manager, because I had been able to do a pretty good job of doing it all until then. But, the more senior I became, this started to bite me in two ways: firstly, by being so self-sufficient myself, I wasn’t fostering enough self-sufficiency in my teams, and their reliance on me was bad for me and them; and, secondly, I simply wasn’t able to keep up with the quantity and complexity of problems I was having to grapple with, so my solutions started getting less effective (or failing). I was also missing out on the benefits of reflective, slow thinking on problems, and the solutions that others were able to suggest that I would never have thought of. And, worst of all, I was trying to solve problems that weren’t mine to solve - especially things that should have been others’ responsibility to hold.
What I learned from this was to focus on the right problems (the ones that are critical for the mission, the resilience and the people of the organisation), make peace with the fact that some things cannot be solved for at all, and to ask others what they think we should do before even thinking about my own solution. I shifted into a mode of helping everyone else to figure out their own solutions to problems, rather than trying to solve them all myself. And, I started to define what ‘my 50%’ was in any situation, and expect others to do their 50% too.
Feeling like I have to be good at everything
I am the epitome of a generalist. Having worked in small activist and community groups, small charities, and start-up businesses, I have almost always been in jobs that were ‘a little bit of everything’. So, my default approach was to figure out how to do something well (usually by reading, researching, and experimenting) and then just do it. I did this with everything from graphic design and election campaign management, through to accounting and PR. As I became more senior, I carried on trying to do this with every new area of work I encountered, but it’s sadly impossible to operate at a senior or expert level in every part of an organisation - I couldn’t be Director of Fundraising, Graphic Design Lead, HR Manager, Web Developer, Legal Counsel, and also show everyone how to fix the printer when it jammed. And, it wasn’t fair on me that when I saw people at the top of their game in their specialisms I felt like I was failing because I wasn’t as good as them (in any of the 29348743 specialisms I was trying to balance). I sometimes didn’t place enough value on the years of effort, listening, learning, mistakes, knocks, studying, pivoting, crises and incremental changes that it takes to get there.
A huge learning here was to ask for help - hire in the right advice and support, ask others to specialise or learn how to do something instead of me, and also admit when something is beyond my capacity (in terms of time, skills or interest). I also found that even when I am not the one who is good at something (or even when I have no idea how to do the thing), I still learn and achieve impact by working alongside the people who do, so I get to keep my Generalist badge.
Thinking I’m the only one
Pretty much every other leader I see, seems to have it all worked out. They know their stuff, they’re cool, calm and collected in the face of crises, and they have absolutely no messy emotional needs. I always felt like I must be the only one who finds elements of leadership difficult, stressful or overwhelming, and that being ‘needy’ or revealing the extent of my uncertainty or challenges with certain things was out of the question, because I felt like I was the only one who was struggling.
As you get more senior, you can feel more and more alone with these things. You feel more pressure to be what your team needs from you, to keep besting your previous work, and you feel less able to ask for support and reassurance from your bosses because you want to be seen as one of the grown ups too. The wild thing is - everyone feels like this. Alone. Right next to each other.
In our Impact + Grow Leadership Lab, you don't have to be alone. You can find your people, discover how many of your challenges are shared, and get the training, support and inspiration you need to be the kind of leader you want to be.
Do you want to work with me, the I.G. team and a community of peer leaders over 6 weeks (4 hours per week) to learn, experiment and level up your leadership skills, personal career plan and professional brand? Apply to join here by 3 May 2024.