Leadership Lesson 2b: Good Leaders Inspire… People Who Aren’t Exactly Like Them
As it turns out, some people need more “you got this” vibes than “punch today in the face” vibes. I know, that was news to me too.
A recruiter reached out to me with what seemed like an unbelievable opportunity—leave my PE-backed private education company (which I loved), and move to Denver to be the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer of DSST Public Schools. The more I researched the organization, the more excited I became about the opportunity. The prospect of using my hard-earned skills to help historically underserved students gain a great education and admission to college proved too difficult to turn down. I was also excited that the organization wanted to scale; I knew I had the skills, expertise, and experience to replicate the existing model and effectively open new schools.
During my first month, I brought my three teams together and held a strategic planning session to set goals. We had some fun with spaghetti and tape, performed a SWOT, and had a stop/start/keep discussion. Once we got to the goal setting process of the session, I used my tried and true methods of getting people inspired and excited to meet those goals.
For some reason, people seemed hesitant. Some even seemed resistant.
I realized I was the new person on the block—some of my team had been at the organization for over 10 years—so I ended the session committed to figuring out why some of the team members seemed to need more persuasion.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long. In a one on one meeting with someone on my strategy team that week, she told me—”Catherine, just because there is a goal or number to hit doesn’t mean that people actually care about hitting it.”
Her comment shocked and humbled me. My prior teams stared down ambitious goals and exuded “punch today[‘s goals] in the face” vibes. I knew I had to level up, and find a way to link our goals to our mission and purpose with a “we got this” spirit.
I was lucky to have an executive coach that helped me learn how to inspire people that were different than me. I also found many online resources like this article from Harvard that helped me realize that:
People care about the impact their organization can make on the world, well beyond making a profit
My role as a leader in the organization was to identify, define, and communicate how my team member’s roles supported that impact in a way that made sense to them as individuals
My team would hold me to a high standard—I needed to ensure my leadership aligned with not only our organization’s purpose, but also our core values
As Simon Sinek wrote in Leaders Eat Last, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
In most cases, leadership requires a whole lot more than giving your team a number to hit.
