you are awkward. embrace it.
post 2 of 3 in a series. post 1 is here.
Some things that are really useful and healthy for A Diverse Group of People Trying to Do Something That Matters are weird and uncomfortable in the normal course of life.
If you are a conflict-avoidant person or a people pleaser or have had a relative with an addiction (or you are all of those things (like me)), you’ve spent a lot of years and thousands of social interactions growing antennae that probe the air, facial expressions, microtones of voice, “vibes”, “energy”, and maybe even patterns of the stars to discern what “works” with another person and what doesn’t.
My definition of “working”, when I’m relying on old habits and all those antennae is “completing the interaction without causing offense or triggering difficult feelings or even sparking the worry in myself that those things may come to pass later and hopefully in the process affirming something in that person and let’s not forget looking good while all of these landmines were dodged and the glass cases surrounding these eggshell egos were smartly polished up.”
That’s a long and complicated criterion for success.
Fabulous news from the world of Doing Things that Matter with a Diverse Group of People is the criterion can be much blunter and simpler:
“Did I prompt this person to grow?”
Leaders often believe that the quality of their ideas will carry the day. If you think and say something smart and inspiring and perceptive and understanding enough, your team will draw some kind of insane vibranium energy from that immaculate thought and carry you to victory.
Reader, I hate to tell you this. (Actually, I love to tell you this.) That is b(upku)s.
More often than not, it isn’t the brilliant, charismatic leader who inspires the enduring victory. It is the awkward, gutsy leader. The one who exercises the low-grade counter-cultural courage to do things that are socially risky in other contexts.
To illustrate: imagine doing any of the following with the friend you occasionally see for drinks or your romantic partner:
Delivering direct, critical feedback on a relatively small “move” they make in their regular activities
In each of the first several interactions, stating clearly what you think true excellence looks like in your shared context, your expectation that they achieve to that standard, and your belief that they will
Reminding them explicitly of the purpose of the thing you’re doing together every single time you see them and do that thing
I cringe just writing this. Pulling these moves in “normal” social situations would be hopelessly awkward. If I did this, I think each one of my 1,000 self-protecting people-pleaser antennae would wilt and burst into flames and then I would gratefully die asphyxiating on their ashes. Night night, game over.
But when I’m trying to Do Something That Matters with a Diverse Group of People, these same antennae-defying moves are the ones that lead to the greatest success - of the Thing That Matters, and - this part is intensely counterintuitive for me - of the relationships with each of the folks in the Diverse Group of People, too.
Unless you are naturally authoritarian, those moves - the feedback, the expectation setting, the return to purpose - are awkward. Yet, effective founders pull them all the time. They have to. You’re trying to pull something real and new out of the quicksand of what has always been. The macro and micro-cultures we live in build resistance to this into each of us. The leader can overcome that resistance with their hopefully - not hopelessly - awkward bravery.
Leader, you are awkward. Embrace it. The ones you serve and the ones you work with will be grateful.
