Dealing with Difficult People and Building Winning Teams

As a young man, I knew nothing about leadership. Even though I found myself in leadership roles since childhood (chosen to give speeches, captain of teams, etc.), I didn’t know anything about it. If I happened to lead, it was by accident. Maybe it was intuitive or maybe I was modeling what effort looks like. I’ve always been competitive and strategic; therefore, winning simply felt right. Whatever it was, leading was certainly not conscious, informed, or intentional.

I did not know that leadership starts with consciously evaluating and leading me. I didn’t know it was about serving others. And I did not realize how complex I was – how complex people are.

I did not realize that I WOULD BE THE MOST DIFFICULT PERSON to lead.

I did not realize that we all have an inner person. Dare I say, inner persons? In some ways, I was mature beyond my years, and in other ways, I was more like a teenager or a child. It’s like I was one person with several different preferences depending on the situation.

I’m not done yet. I did not realize leadership was about doing what needed to be done. It is not about doing what I like doing. It is not about doing what I am good at doing. Nor is it about doing what I want to do. It is about doing what needs to be done, what’s best for the team and the organization.

It sounds foolish now but I did not realize leadership is about accomplishing worthy goals with others and through others. Leadership is all about people. When we don’t come to this deep truth, we see people as difficult. They are difficult because leadership requires a lot of time, energy, and love. People seem difficult because many of us who lead still have not realized how selfish we can be. How needy we can be. How much empathy do we need?

To practice effective leadership, we must start with ourselves. We must realize that the most difficult person to lead is ourselves. We must see leadership as service and we must see it as a difficult task. When we start here, we have a better chance of connecting with others and building teams that win.

More next time.

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