Hey Pioneer! What about…?
(Part 2 of 2)
It doesn’t end there because it isn’t enough to “circle back” just to inform everyone else what we, as leaders, have decided to do based on what we have seen up ahead.
Instead, we must inform, and then solicit input. To continue with the analogy I used earlier, if I scout the territory ahead, and then simply inform my wife, “We’re moving,” I am making a terrific mistake. But even leaders who do the “circling back” part well often fail at this second step.
Leadership is not a brain trust. It is not huddling in a secret room somewhere, or on a private retreat, dreaming up ways to “cast our vision” or create “mission statements” to plaster on every wall available.
When I coach leaders who talk about their visions or their mission statements, I often ask them, “How many people contributed to that?” If the answer is a handful or fewer, I know we have some work to do together.
Back to my house example: my children are 7 1/2 and 6 years of age. When I “circle back” to them (this must be done both individually and collectively–another point at which leaders fail), I certainly do not expect them to decide where we will live. However, I do have to be very careful that once some of the decisions that only their mother and I can make are made, we provide them with some autonomy and influence on other things. For example, my wife has initiated the idea that we will let them choose from among several options for the decor of their rooms. This way, they have some ownership in the direction we take together in furnishing and creating our home. Incidentally, this idea never would have surfaced if I had not “circled back” to my wife, and then heard her input in earnest. It is a great idea, and I cannot take credit for it, because I would not have thought of it without her. It has improved my thinking about our move, though, and therefore my leadership:
Just this morning as we walked to the bus stop, my daughter commented on the beauty of a neighbor’s flower bed.
“Would you like to have flowers at our new house?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Then you can help us pick them, and then help us to plant them. Would you like that?”
“Um hmm, I can dig the holes.”
“Absolutely, and you can put the plants in, too.”
It is especially important for our family to engage my daughter in this process, and to find ways in which she can own, and enjoy, this move. She is more embedded in her school activities and friends than my son is, and has expressed hesitation and sorrow about leaving them. Giving her these experiences will soothe those fears, in part, and help her to accept our new area as desirable because she did something to make it that way.
The difficult work is not circling back, it is suspending judgment for long enough to ensure that the voices of our constituents are heard, and then ensuring that our path takes a direction informed by their input.
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