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My daughter’s high school is near a freeway, and our city gets a fair amount of rain. That means bad weather creates a lot of traffic, and getting to school on time can be a challenge. Don’t worry — I’ll explain what this has to do with business leadership in a moment. Just stay with me here.
A couple of weeks ago, her school sent out an early morning email explaining that this very situation was occurring: the freeway had basically become a river, and traffic had become a log jam. No need to get here before the bell, the school explained — it’s better to take your time and make sure you arrive safely. It was a reasonable thing to say. After all, plenty of students are learning to drive themselves, and parents have busy schedules.
But rain doesn’t just pop up out of the blue. People knew a storm was coming. They could have sent an email reminding everyone that it would rain the next day and telling them to plan ahead by leaving early.
This illustrates a key difference between two different leadership philosophies: one guided primarily by a desire to nurture and one guided by a drive to foster accountability. Both of these instincts are valuable — but in this article, I’m going to explain why you have to keep them balanced if you want to keep your business healthy and your personnel productive.
Leadership is about overcoming obstacles — not backing down from them
Life is full of challenges, whether you’re raising a family, teaching in a classroom, or running a business. I don’t make the rules; that’s just how it is. Things are going to get in the way of you reaching your goals. At that point, you can either choose to abandon those goals or find your way around the obstacles.
The way we tend to deal with obstacles in our lives tends to have a lot to do with how we’re raised. As kids, we all want to be treated kindly and fairly, but if we get too used to having obstacles removed for us, we come to expect it. That’s why the American Psychological Association recognizes the importance of cultivating resilience in children — so they can grow into healthy adults who are prepared to deal with the unexpected themselves.
In adulthood, people who can handle adversity are more successful than those who can’t. For example, I run a company called FutureFund, which provides a free fundraising platform for K-12 school groups. We deal with unique challenges all the time — helping schools in low-income communities fill funding gaps to support critical programs, fixing bugs or features to comply with new federal regulations, etc. The stakes are high, and people’s lives are negatively impacted if we’re not effective.
That means it’s more important for me and my team to fulfill our key responsibilities than it is for us to feel good all the time. It’s not that I think anyone should be miserable at work — in fact, I’ve written extensively about how important it is to build strong working relationships based on understanding and mutual respect. But everyone who works for me still needs to be prepared to take action in case something goes sideways. I want to nurture my team, but I can’t sacrifice mission-critical tasks to do it.
What you can’t control vs. what you must
You’re not responsible for all the things that happen to you, but you are responsible for the way you handle them. Traffic and the weather might not be up to you, but what time you leave the house certainly is.
As a leader, one of the best things you can do is help your people see the difference between what they can control and what they can’t — but that isn’t just to help them stop worrying about things they can’t change. In fact, it’s about empowering them to see all the things they are capable of changing. Because once they recognize that power, they’re responsible for how they use it. You know what Stan Lee said.
Case in point: it would have been wrong for my daughter’s school to say nothing about the storm that morning and then discipline students who showed up late. But if they had issued a warning ahead of time and provided suggestions on how to safely handle the challenge, they’d show people it was in their power to solve the problem. In that case, it would have been reasonable to expect students to arrive on time, and the day’s lessons would not have been affected.
The same principle applies when you’re building a company culture. I can’t expect my direct reports to anticipate every potential problem with flawless accuracy — but by clearly outlining their duties and providing contingency plans to follow in emergencies, I can empower them to act when necessary and make them accountable for the results. That way, we can still succeed in the face of adversity instead of letting it paralyze us.
Related: What Parenthood Taught Me About Inspiring Self-Reliance in Others
Teach the right lessons early for less friction later
This is the lesson I wish my daughter’s school had taught. Instead, I worry that they taught these young people — and maybe a few parents — that it’s okay to stop trying if things don’t go the way you imagined. But when do things ever go perfectly according to plan? Not often, if ever.
The sooner people learn to prepare for emergencies and take responsibility for dealing with them, the more you can count on those people in a potential crisis. It’s a good lesson for kids, and an essential one for new employees.
Setbacks are still going to occur. That’s just part of life. But when they do, you want people around who can rise to the occasion.
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