Thick-Skinned
As a leader, you are more than an individual human being. This isn’t always obvious, especially from inside your head. You feel the same as everyone else--just an imperfect, well-meaning person trying to do your job and be a good member of your team. But to the people around you, you are also a symbol. You are the representative of an organization, or an administration, or the team you lead. You are wrapped in an invisible cloak of authority and responsibility. You are the embodiment of the decisions you make and the policies you implement or defend. In their eyes, you are both more and less than a regular human being.
This is an uncomfortable truth, and we try our best to deny it. We try to act like normal people, and we do our best to break through those preconceptions and make real human connections. Hopefully, we mostly succeed. There comes a day, though, when you make a mistake, or an unpopular decision, or you’re just swept up in events that are beyond your control, and you suddenly find yourself with a target on your back.
What do you do when the very people you’ve been trying to support and serve point their fingers at you and blame you for their struggles? What do you do when people accuse you of doing things you didn’t do, or harboring intentions that you never had? What do you do when their justifiable frustration and anger is unjustifiably focused on you? If you want to be an effective leader, you take it.
You don’t admit to things you never did or felt, and you don’t subject yourself to abuse or disrespect, but you absorb your team’s frustrations without lashing back at them. You listen carefully and curiously until you understand their pain and their experience. You treat them with kindness, and demonstrate your caring, even in the face of their accusations. You search for a way to move through this rough patch together.
You don’t do this because you're a saint or a more evolved being. You do it because this is what you signed up for. Your job is to support your team, and to guide them through challenges just like this one.
The slings and arrows of everyday leadership aren’t ever going to go away. They’re part of your job description. No one’s forcing you to do this. The choice is yours.
