What Do You Need From the Team You Lead
When you feel compelled to remind everyone else that you’re the leader, it sounds more like you’re trying to convince yourself.
Photo by Fokusiert
One of my favorite quotes on leadership comes from Margaret Thatcher: “Being a leader is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are one, you probably aren’t.”
I’ve worked with people who regularly reminded their direct reports who the leader was. I always thought this was senseless because they were already the leader. Did they think everyone else forgot? When you feel compelled to remind everyone else that you’re the leader, it sounds more like you’re trying to convince yourself.
I’ve worked with others who just led, and everyone else just followed. They had the greatest influence, though they weren’t the smartest, the loudest or the most dominant. Sometimes they even had the title to go with it, but not always.
This is an example of how leadership behavior can expose the nature of leadership identity. What would motivate someone to consistently advertise his/her organizational authority? It could be a host of reasons, but a likely one is that his/her leadership identity is built around recognition and affirmation of others.
To say it plainly, some leaders base their leadership identity on the responses of those they lead.
“They had the greatest influence, though they weren’t the smartest, the loudest or the most dominant.”
And Your Point Is...?
When it comes to leadership, you can't authentically influence someone when you also need something from them.
So What?
It’s the same dynamic that's in play with codependency: It's dysfunctional to be in a relationship where you give something to someone to justify your need for getting something from them. It also shows up in parenting: It’s hard to develop children into adults when you also depend upon their affirmation.
Depending upon our team’s affirmation to define our leadership identity is an example of what I call an “Outside-In” approach, where we rely on the circumstances and relationships in our external environment to shape our internal leadership identity.
“It’s dysfunctional to be in a relationship where you give something to someone to justify your need for getting something from them.”
The opposite, more effective approach is “Inside-Out.” Being clear on our leadership identity—who are and who we want to be as a leader—positions us to genuinely influence them. It’s not about what we can get from them, it’s about what we can provide for their benefit.
The Big Picture
This Inside-Out approach supports the identity of servant leadership, where we lead with our teams’ interests and well-being in mind rather than our own. It’s not an identity we quickly or easily embrace. But it’s counter-intuitive, and it’s the most effective and influential identity a leader can have because it operates exclusively Inside-Out.
“It’s not about what we can get from them, it’s about what we can provide for their benefit.”
Your Next Step
Take some time at the end of each work week to reflect on how you interacted with your team, and take note of any time you become aware of needing affirmation from your team to feel better about yourself—whether you got the affirmation or not.
“It’s counter-intuitive, and it’s the most effective and influential identity a leader can have.”
