Do We Expect Too Much From Our Leaders?
People expect a lot from their leaders.
They want them to be:
confident and humble
consistent and flexible
decisive and inclusive
visionary and practical
If you are in a leadership position, these expectations can seem unfair, but they aren’t.
Leadership is a big responsibility, and it is full of paradoxes.
We need to learn to hold onto two contradictory points of view if we want to lead and succeed.
A Case In Point
Several years ago, I worked with a CEO in a fast-growing tech company. Her board expected her to be everything at once: a visionary leader, a team builder, a strategic thinker, and even a hands-on operator. The pressure was intense, and she was burning out after only two years on the job.
One day, she confided in me that she felt like a failure for not being able to excel in every role. But as we talked, she realized that the problem wasn’t her lack of ability—it was the unrealistic expectation that she could always be perfect. She understood she needed to lead the organization strategically toward a vision but was over-indexing on execution and stuck in the weeds.
Together, we identified her strength in setting the vision and empowering her team to execute it. She didn’t need to be constantly in the weeds; she needed to embrace her role as a visionary and allow her team to implement the vision. Once she let go of her desire to be perfect, embraced this subtle shift in her assumption, and settled into her strengths, her leadership effectiveness improved, and she started feeling much better about her position.
Practical Takeaways: How to Navigate the Paradoxes of Leadership
Here are a few ways to embrace the paradoxes of leadership without succumbing to the unrealistic expectations that weigh down so many leaders:
Accept That You Can’t Be Everything: Stop trying to be a visionary, strategist, team builder, and operational expert all at once. Identify your core strengths and lean into them. Delegate areas where others on your team can shine.
Master the Shift Between Confidence and Vulnerability: Leadership requires confidence in decision-making and the vulnerability to admit when you don’t have all the answers. Learn when to lead with strength and show vulnerability to build trust.
Balance Long-Term Vision with Short-Term Execution: Great leaders are both dreamers and doers, but it’s impossible to excel at both simultaneously. Learn to toggle between setting long-term strategy and managing short-term challenges by leveraging your team’s strengths.
Your Challenge This Week
If you are ready to take action, here is something simple you can do:
Think about one paradox you’ve faced in your leadership role recently. Maybe you’ve been trying to balance being decisive and inclusive, or perhaps you’ve struggled between being a visionary and focusing on execution.
This week, try shifting your approach.
If you’ve been leading with strength, lean into vulnerability.
If you’ve been focusing on details, focus on the big picture.
Pay attention to how this subtle shift impacts you and your leadership.
If you have any insights, reply to this email and share your experience! I’d love to hear about the impact this has on you and your leadership, and I want to share success stories from readers like the one below.
Subtle Shift Stories
I recently had a conversation with one of our readers about this very topic, and I was so excited to hear the following from him:
I was thinking about what we discussed the other day and wanted to share one of my takeaways. For so long, I thought being a strong, authoritative leader was the only way to go. I figured that staying in control and being decisive would keep everyone on track. But recently, I realized that my team wasn’t engaged, and people were hesitant to speak up or share their ideas.
After our conversation, I took your advice to our first team meeting. I told the team I didn’t have all the answers and asked them for their opinions on how to solve a problem we were dealing with. The response was terrific. Almost immediately, they started contributing more ideas and really stepping up. Being vulnerable and asking for their input completely changed the dynamic.
Resource: A List of Leadership Paradoxes
I recently created a list of several leadership paradoxes and posted them on my website. Check it out for a deeper dive into this topic.
Conclusion
Leadership is all about balancing contradictions. You can’t be stuck in one perspective and overcommitted to one contradiction. The most effective leaders are the ones who embrace the paradoxes and shift between them as needed. So, take a deep breath, let go of the need to be everything to everyone, and focus on making subtle shifts between all of the contradictions.
