You can’t fake it.
I’m really tired of the “Fake it ’til you make it” trope.
You either do or don’t. You walk the walk or be quiet.
I have been in too many meetings with managers who fill up their LinkedIn posts with leadership posts about empathy, listening, being open to new ideas and collaboration who then show up to creative meetings and don’t listen, can’t empathize, are stuck in their own very narrow boxes, and get mad at everyone for not doing what they’re told.
Showing up as a great leader means actually pointing out and articulating behaviors, especially yours, when you don’t measure up to the ideal. It means showing that you can be wrong and vulnerable and that you will enable your team to overrule you.
It means you can empathize without sympathizing. And it means that you unpack and explain your own fears and the pressures driving your own behavior in order to encourage others to do the same.
People watch for signals in their social groupings, especially at work.
If you are a leader who comes to the table complaining about work and clients, the rest of the team will start complaining about their work and clients.
If you are a leader who is afraid of the CEO, your team will deliver work to please the CEO, rather than the customers.
If you encourage people to share mistakes yet are unable to honestly own your own, no one will be honest.
Leadership is hard work. It is the hard work of being a very good and grounded human being. We don’t train people to be good human beings at work, we expect that parents have taken care of that and in some cases that is a weak assumption.
Stop talking and start acting. Stop faking and start doing. Leading is showing people around you the type of behavior you want them to model. And screwing up is part of the job.
There is no fake, there is only do.
