5. APPRECIATION—CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT THE CREDIT?
Someone once said, “What’s causing so much disharmony among the nations is the fact that some want to beat the big drum, few are willing to face the music, and none will play second fiddle.” The reality of leading from the middle of an organization is that you are not going to get as much public recognition and appreciation as leaders at the top. That’s just the way it is. The greater your desire to receive credit and recognition, the more frustrated you are likely to become working in the middle of an organization. You need to decide for yourself if you receive enough satisfaction to keep you going where you are.
HOW TO RELIEVE THE TENSION CHALLENGE
It’s not enough to merely recognize that leading from somewhere in the middle of an organization can be stressful. It’s not good enough to simply survive. You want to thrive, and to do that, you need to learn how to relieve the tension. Here are five suggestions:
1. BECOME COMFORTABLE WITH THE MIDDLE
We often think leadership is easier at the top. The reality is that it’s actually easier to lead from the middle—if a really good leader is above you. Good leaders at the top break ground for their people. They create momentum for the entire organization. Haven’t you seen average or even below-average leaders succeed because they were part of an organization that was led well overall? Haven’t you seen colleagues overachieve because their leader made them better than they were on their own?
When you have excellent leaders, you don’t need as much skill and energy to make things happen. You benefit from everything they do. So why not enjoy it—and learn from them too? I’ve long admired the following poem by Helen Laurie:
How often I’ve been put to the test
To make the best of second-best,
Only to wake one day and see
That second-best is best for me.
Being in the middle can be a great place—as long as you have bought into the vision and believe in the leader.
So how do you get comfortable with the middle? Comfort is really a function of expectations. The wider the gap between what you imagine to be and reality, the more disappointed you are likely to be. Talk things out with your boss. The more you know about what’s expected of you, what’s normal in the organization, and how much authority you have, the more comfortable you will be.
Comfort is really a function of expectations.
2. KNOW WHAT TO “OWN” AND WHAT TO LET GO
Nothing frees a person from tension like clear lines of responsibility. When I became the senior pastor at Skyline Church in California in 1981, even before my first day, I found out what I had to own personally. (Even leaders at the top can still be in the middle—the board was my boss.) I asked the members of the board to give me their short list of things I had to do that no one else could do for me. There were four things on that list:
• Take final responsibility. The buck stopped with me. I answered for whatever happened in the church.
• Be the main communicator. I needed to determine what was communicated during the services, and I needed to be in the pulpit most Sundays.
• Be the main representative of the church. I was to be the primary face and voice for the church, within the congregation, and to the community.
• Live a life of integrity. Author and entrepreneur Byrd Baggett defines integrity as “doing what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, and how you said you would do it.” Nothing is more important in the life of a leader who desires to represent God to others.
One of the best things you can do is ask what is expected of you, and then maintain a dialogue concerning expectations with the people to whom you answer. Todd Mullins, who works on staff for his father, Tom Mullins, at Christ Fellowship in West Palm Beach, Florida, often found that ongoing communication helped them to resolve this tension in their somewhat fluid environment. Tom does a lot of speaking around the country, and when he would come back to the church, he would want to step back into leadership in some areas where others had been leading. Todd learned to ask, “Is this mine or yours?” (And by the way, in cases like this, it is the responsibility of the staff to communicate with their leader.) That made it possible either for Todd to step back as Tom stepped in, or for Tom to be gracefully reminded not to make a mess in an area where he didn’t really want to lead.
3. FIND QUICK ACCESS TO ANSWERS WHEN CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE
I can think of few people who get caught in the middle more than executive assistants. They experience the Tension Challenge to a high degree every day. I know that’s true for my own assistant, Linda Eggers. The people she interacts with on my behalf are very demanding. And for that matter, so am I. One of the best ways I can help Linda is to get information to her as quickly as possible. If she asks me a question, I try to give her an answer right then. When I am traveling and we haven’t spoken in twenty-four hours, I call her. She always has a list of questions to ask and issues to discuss. If I don’t keep her waiting, she can do her work much more effectively.
Everybody needs to find a way to get quick answers in order to succeed when caught in the middle. Sometimes that can be difficult, especially if the people you work for are not communicative. In such cases, you need to find others who can help you. That may take time. And it will require that you have good rapport with the people around you. As you develop the skill of 360-Degree Leadership, it will become that much easier for you.
4. NEVER VIOLATE YOUR POSITION OR THE TRUST OF THE LEADER
If you want to know what will increase the Tension Challenge to the breaking point, it’s violating the trust given to you with your authority or position. That can mean abusing the power of your position, intentionally undermining your leader, or using the organization’s resources for personal gain. David Branker, executive director of a large organization in Jacksonville, Florida, said, “Trust is built one block at a time, but when it is violated, the entire wall comes crashing down. When you have been empowered with authority you exercise that on behalf of those you report to. It’s never to serve your own interest. Over the course of your leadership journey your character and integrity will invariably be tested.”
“Trust is built one block at a time, but when it is violated the entire wall comes crashing down.”
—DAVID BRANKER
As someone leading from the middle of an organization, your ability to sustain the authority that has been invested in you is entirely dependent upon your faithfulness in serving the people who gave you that authority. Accordingly, you must guard against the temptation to try to advance at the expense of your leader. And it would be wise not to allow yourself to have an “if I were in charge” conversation with another staff member. If you have difficulties with your leaders, talk to them about it.
5. FIND A WAY TO RELIEVE STRESS
You will never completely eliminate the stress of the Tension Challenge, so you need to find a way to relieve it. Rod Loy, who leads a large organization in Little Rock, Arkansas, says that when he was a leader in the middle of an organization, he kept a file called “Things I will never do to my team when I become the top leader.” As a leader in the middle, he knew that his natural temptation would be to let off steam with his coworkers. He short-circuited that tendency to vent his frustrations to others by simply writing down his observations and putting them in a file. It cleared the air for him, prevented him from violating his leader’s trust, and ensured that he would remember the lesson of any mistakes made by his leader.
That kind of thing may work for you. If not, find something else: hit golf balls, jog, take up kickboxing, do aerobics, take a walk, get a massage—it doesn’t matter what, as long as it is a good, healthy outlet for when the stress of the Tension Challenge gets to be too much for you.
Nobody said becoming a 360-Degree Leader would be easy. Leading from the middle of an organization is stressful, but so is being the top leader. And so is being a worker who has no say in how his job should be done. The key to succeeding is to learn to deal with the tension of whatever position you are in, overcome its obstacles, and make the most of its advantages and opportunities. If you do that, you can succeed from anywhere in the organization.
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