And people will expand or contract to fill it.
Something I’ve forgotten about leadership–that leaders still forget–is it’s about the people. Sure–the work is important. But it’s easy to forget about the people who grow through the work laid out before them. It’s easy to default to being a manager and getting to the task or step level of what you want your people to do. But interfering at that level diminishes their sense of ownership when the major accomplishment is complete.
If I’m telling someone how to cook a meal–they’re going to take less pride in serving it to others.
Or as Wally Bock notes, “The people work is the real work.”
How easy it is to forget.
The Space
People expand or expire based on the space given to them to exceed or extinguish expectations.
Leadership is as fragile as a candlelight. It’s simple to say (yes, alliteration is intended)–but it’s also simple to let slide. Contact is still a law of nature–experts from Robert Sutton to Gary Vaynerchuk agree with the science: If you are too negative on your people–they won’t be your people for long. One of you will have to go.
Space and contact are related. There is a space between leaders and the led where initiative can take shape. Where leaders can set their followers up to exceed their own expectations. Where there is could be abundance–where successes compound on themselves.
But there is also potential for constriction and collapse.
Here’s the problem. A leader defines the accomplishment to achieve–and recon the environment and make sure the success is mostly possible. It’s the follower’s job to bring their skills, capacity, and motivation to bear in accomplishing what’s before them.
The gap between leadership and followership in The Space.
In The Space–anything is possible. Ideally–followers expand to fill in the space. They grow, they learn, they stumble, they fail, they get up, they try again, they win. It can be frustrating for a leader to see this–especially if a leader already knows what should be done and could just do it and move on. But that’s not why these two people are in these roles. That’s not leadership.
On the inverse–it’s easy for that leader to step in just before they fail and show their followers the right way. It’s easy for that leader to practice rock management (this isn’t what I want–but I’m not going to tell you why). It’s easy for the leader’s frustration to emanate and dissuade or discourage the follower.
But then the leader is taking up The Space. By asking about some asinine inanity or lodging a concern because they are risk averse–the leader takes over. There’s no growth–there’s just the grind. Leaders who self-aggrandize themselves by taking The Space–who think they are too important–are just fooling themselves.
If we don’t build our followers through The Space–then there is no space for leadership.
Imagine how your baby learned how to walk.
Your baby had to fall–sometimes pretty bad–in order for them to become comfortable with the habit of walking. Which in turn becomes the habit of running, climbing, and jumping (which leads to a different leadership experience when the terrible two’s come around).
Yes–I’m comparing leadership to child rearing.
But the metaphor works. Babies are playing in The Space. For them–it’s literal. They are learning how to navigate physical space in a new, unique way. And as they stumble and fall over themselves to acclimate to that space, they get better. They get resilient. They they get gone.
Growth or Comfort
“The safety zone has changed, but your comfort zone has not. Those places that felt safe–the corner office, the famous college, the secure job–aren’t. You’re holding back, betting on a return to normal, but in the new normal, your resistance to change is no longer helpful” –Seth Godin, Icarus Deception
Either growth or comfort takes place in The Space. Give your people space to prove you wrong–don’t take The Space to prove yourself right.
It’s been hard for me to understand–this is a foundation in the relationship of leadership. It’s easy for me to want, know, and need to know more details–but it’s harder for me to want my people to be better than me. And isn’t that what being a leader is about? Helping people become better and bigger than what their job description is?
Isn’t it about making the experience of being led and finding the way reverent?