Courage, Disappointment, Expectations, and Leadership

Leadership at times may feel lonely and expectations may not always be aligned, but the one thing that is constant is that you will have choices. Your courage to be vulnerable and simply show up no matter what may happen or if indeed, you will be able to control the outcome is something that will resonate for people everywhere.

Over the years I have reflected, listened, observed, learned and given it my all, and if that was not enough I have drawn on the experiences of others that have shared their journey in the most sacred and privileged of situations so that I now can engage with people wearing difference lenses, to better serve them in their journey.

I have some simple key beliefs in life and in work and at the core of it all, is to keep it real. I have vulnerabilities like everyone else, there is no magic to what I do and how I do it and I am happy to share it around with anyone who is prepared to share their journey with me.

There are some things that I thought I might share with you now, and that is that there will be moments of joy and equally there will be moments where you have a knot in your stomach and can’t see the forest for the trees. These latter moments, of when your throat feels like choking up and you feeling like you will be sick are the golden moments. They are what I call the points of breakthrough. It is where fear and doubt create a voice in your head and send you all sorts of messages and your sense of failure creeps in preventing you from pushing through.

These are not easy moments and most people will stop or project outwards and look to avoid or shift the situation, but if you have courage and create a space to allow yourself (or those sharing this experience) to feel safe and to be vulnerable, yes slow the process down and take a moment, catch your breath and take a leap of faith the outcome will be priceless. These golden moments come from working through obstacles and sticking with whatever is happening at the moment.

These are the most powerful, confronting and soul searching thought-provoking moments that will deliver beyond your expectations.

Sharing this with you is important not so that you know what can be achieved, but to also let you know that there may be times where you just can’t push through. You get stuck and feel disappointed. You feel like you have failed yourself and those around you. Well here is reality, I have been there, I am just as real as everyone else and I can tell you there have been moments where I too have held back and thought I did not need to explore things any further and left them as they are. In those moments, I call it for what it is... a moment that I have stopped.

A moment in time that I have held back and I look inward to explore what has created that obstacle. For most of us, it may be preconceived ideas or perhaps past experiences that prevent us from pushing through. These are very powerful things and both have a hold on us emotionally and physically (it's the knots in the stomach etc). Here is something that you can use that may work for you... Call it for what it is. Acknowledge it, share it. Yes, that makes you vulnerable but if you truly want to lead and be brilliant, it is in these moments that others will begin to trust you as they can relate. You become real. You share a different version of yourself.

Leadership today requires, no demands, that we are genuine and make ourselves relatable so if you are not there yet ask yourself why?

In my very early years in finance, I attended a course "Writing for Lawyers", this course was part of my training whilst I was part of the loan recovery team within the Bank. One of the first things that we learned was to write to our audience. This, at the time, seemed odd as my experience in all of my dealings with lawyers was that they spoke in jargon and usually made things difficult to understand. Over the years, however, I began to see the relevance of the course and how pertinent the point was. Being able to speak to your audience was so relevant; most people despite taking out a mortgage did not understand the full extent of what they were doing so when they fell behind in payments the impact was significant. Needless to say my eagerness to adapt and take on board these lessons began to influence the way that I engaged with our clients and also with people in everyday life.

We don't need to create a sense of mystery in how we do things, our role is to make things easy for those around us. That does not mean that we do everything for them, as this will disempower people, but we can certainly break things down and bring clarity as to why we do the things that we do and how. We can share our moments of failure, of disappointments and most definitely break down how we reached successful moments so that they too can follow in these steps.

We can ensure that we create moments of collaboration, and facilitate opportunities that allow people to shine and when we see that people have doubts or that people are not quite certain of how success is achieved we provide clarity and a footprint that leaves no doubt.

If you can see the changes that you have embraced share them. It is important that we begin to rise all of those around us and give opportunities for everyone to shine. If you feel you can relate share your story.