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Leadership: The No. 1 Thing Holding You Back As A Leader…Servant Leaders are Among the Most Effective & Passionate Leaders Walking the Planet

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Leadership isn’t nearly as complex as people make it out to be, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. The big difference between highly effective leaders and those just playing at leadership is often found in their willingness to do what Doesn’t come Naturally or Instinctively. Real leadership begins in the moment you realize leadership has little to do with the leader, and everything to do with those the leader serves.

Boss vs Leader... Who are You??

My belief (and my experience) shows leadership not linked to service is nothing short of a farce. In fact, it is understanding the link between service and leadership that underpins sustainability and fosters a true culture of leadership. I was recently asked the following question: If servant leadership is so powerful, why isn’t its use and application more prevalent? What a great question. While this question could be answered in many ways, any well-developed response would eventually boil down to the following theme: the practice of servant leadership is antithetical to our human nature and our current culture.

 

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We live in a culture obsessed with celebrity. And most people, if honest, will admit they spend more time trying to find their way into the spotlight, rather than look for ways to shine the light on others. That said, the concept of “servant leadership” and its resultant output of “service beyond self” are practices that resonate with everyone who has ever been on the receiving end of the service.

However the sad reality is our nature adversely affects our perspective, as service is often undermined by shortsighted self-interest. What most people intuitively understand, but fail to keep at the forefront of their thinking, is that our personal success and fulfillment will be much more closely tied to how we help others than what we do for ourselves.

While there are many motivating factors that underpin a leaders thoughts and actions, nothing is intrinsically more pure, and more inspiring than the call to serve. The dedication and commitment required to be a true servant leader requires a level of personal sacrifice that can only be instilled by a passionate belief in a greater good – something beyond one’s self. So, the #1 thing holding you back as a leader is YOU. It is you who must decide what you’ll pursue, and whether of not you’ll serve. Do you have the courage to surrender and serve?
Aside from ego, pride, and competing cultural norms, another aspect that impedes many leaders from becoming servant leaders, and in turn, from creating a culture of leadership is their inability to surrender. The application of servant leadership apart from surrender is nothing more than an exercise in frivolity. Here’s the big takeaway… The magic of servant leadership is found in mastering the art of surrender.
What amazes me is how rarely you’ll encounter the words leadership and surrender used together in complementary fashion. Society has labeled surrender as a sign of leadership weakness, when in fact, it can be among the greatest of leadership strengths. Let me be clear, I’m not encouraging giving in or giving up – I am suggesting you learn the ever so subtle art of letting go. A leader simply operates at their best when they understand their ability to influence is much more fruitful than their ability to control. Here’s the thing – the purpose of leadership is not to shine the spotlight on yourself, but to unlock the potential of others so they can in turn shine the spotlight on countless more. Control is about power – not leadership. Surrender allows a leader to get out of their own way and focus on adding value to those whom they serve.
If you’re still not convinced the art of leadership is learning the focus point should be on surrender not control, consider this: control restricts potential, limits initiative, and inhibits talent. Surrender fosters collaboration, encourages innovation and enables possibility. Controlling leaders create bottlenecks rather than increase throughput. They signal a lack of trust and confidence an often come across as insensitive if not arrogant. When you experience weak teams, micro-management, frequent turf wars, high stress, operational strain, and a culture of fear, you are experiencing what control has to offer – not very attractive is it?
Surrender allows the savvy leader to serve where control demands the ego-centric leader be served. Surrender allows leadership to scale and a culture of leadership to be established. Surrender prefers loose collaborative networks over rigid hierarchical structures allowing information to be more readily shared and distributed. Leaders who understand surrender think community, ecosystem, and culture – not org chart. Surrender is what not only allows the dots to be connected, but it’s what allows to dots to be multiplied. Controlling leaders operate in a world of addition and subtraction, while the calculus of a leader who understands surrender is built on exponential multiplication.
I have found those who embrace control are simply attempting to consolidate power, while those who practice surrender are facilitating the distribution of authority. When what you seek is to build into others more than glorifying self you have developed a level of leadership maturity that values surrender over control. Surrender is the mindset that creates the desire for leaders to give credit rather than take it, to prefer hearing over being heard, to dialogue instead of monologue, to have an open mind over a closed mind, to value unlearning as much as learning. Control messages selfishness, while surrender conveys selflessness – which is more important to you?
Servant leaders are among the most effective and passionate leaders walking the planet. One reason for their passion is they understand its true meaning. The word “passion” comes from a Latin root which means quite literally to suffer. If you’re passionate about something it means you care so much that it hurts. Remember that the world does not revolve around you, but what you can do for others
Keep this in mind – we all surrender, but not all surrender is honorable. Some surrender to their ego, to the wrong priorities, or to other distractive habits. Others surrender to the positive realization they are not the center of the universe – they surrender to something beyond themselves in order to accomplish more for others. Bottom line – what you do or don’t surrender to will define you. Assuming you surrender to the right things, surrender is not a sign of leadership weakness, but is perhaps the ultimate sign of leadership confidence. I’ll leave you with this quote from William Booth: “The greatness of a mans power is the measure of his surrender.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the practice of servant leadership, I invite you to join me at the World Leaders Conference next month in Miami, FL. It’s a conference dedicated to the practice of servant leadership. I’ll be serving as a backstage host facilitating discussions between speakers and attendees. Join me and come prepared to take your leadership to an altogether new level.

Thoughts?

Follow me on Twitter @MikeMyatt

Forbes.com | February 19, 2015 |  Mike Myatt

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How To Change-How You Change: 5 Mental Techniques To Help You Move From ‘Here’ To ‘There’…Quitters Were in a State of Temporary Discomfort & Ceded their Purpose for the Quick Fix of the Moment. They Forgot Their Why for Being at BUD/S in the First Place

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Inherent in any personal or organizational change is the mental and emotional faculties to do so. Specifically, the skill and will to look uncertainty in the eye, slap it across the face, and say, “Get outta my way! I got this.”

Navy-SEALs-in-water

Where does such mental preparation come from? In my coaching experience, I’ve seen clients bridge the gap between certainty and uncertainty bylearning how to build mental competence. All it takes is just a tiny change of perspective to provoke the “aha!” moment that replaces inaction with “let’s do it!”

Overcoming the barriers to change first starts with identifying what those barriers are. Once you know how high the so-called wall of change looks like then you know what size ladder you’ll need to climb over it. What this translates to is self-manage. In other words, the ability to regulate your emotions is an integral part to working through any sort of change. After all, you don’t want to carry a heavier ladder than necessary, do you?

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Self-regulation is huge. I’ve seen executives leave meetings more fiery-eyed and flustered than some of my teammates on the battlefield getting shot at–the source of which is attributed to how one sees the problem.

How you see the problem oftentimes is the problem  (especially if you label it “problem”). With a change in perspective, you can lower the emotional fun meter from the red-zone back into that happy green zone. To do so, here are five mental techniques for how to change:

Emotional maturity. There was something we referred to in the SEAL Teams as “tactical patience,” and it was having the mental wherewithal to wait for the ideal moment of opportunity to present itself, and then… Surprise!…We’re here! Key to tactical patience is knowing what “ideal” looks like.

Impulse control. Of the 174-ish volunteers in myBUD/S (SEAL training) class, 34 of us graduated. The rest quit because they let the moment get the better of them. In other words, had a lack of impulse control. Quitters were in a state of temporary discomfort and ceded their purpose for the quick fix of the moment. They forgot their why for being at BUD/S in the first place.

Humility. For change to occur, it must be accepted, and that means letting your guard down . Many leaders espouse humility but do nothing to build it. Instead, they expect humility to suddenly flourish from some other leader. Without a demonstrable example of how to change, subordinate behavior will never take root.

Need some exercises to build your humility? How about realizing your adult, I mean, childhood…ahem…dreams of showing up to school (or work) naked? Or, you could wear a Spongebob costume for a night on the town (which I’ve done, incidentally. True story).

If neither of these ridiculous ways to build humility appeals to you, then thenext best option is to build your self-awareness. Ask yourself these questions:

  • How many times do you reference personal experience in a conversation?
  • How often do you turn the conversation back towards yourself?
  • Are you more inclined to begin conversation topics with an “I” or “you?”
  • How much talking do you do compared to other people?

If you’re in the majority/say “yes” crowd for any of these, then Spongebob it is.

Shorten the gap between quick wins. Short-term goals generate momentum, build confidence, and ensure your personal compass stays aligned towards true north . What is lesser known, however, is the advantage that minimizing the delay time in between these quick wins plays towards overcoming change.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say the time it takes you to physically change out of your workout clothes and into your suit is 20 minutes. Condensing that time period to, say, 10 minutes affords feedback sooner on the other end. You’ll be able to identify irregularities sooner, find mishaps earlier, which means you can adapt on the fly sooner and, hence, effectuate change sooner.

Give up the driver’s seat. Control is a strong drug because it offers security and confidence. One challenge I’ve seen with coaching clients is the desire to maintain control. It’s normal to fear the uncertainty that accompanies change, so they avoid it and maintain the status quo only to stay unfulfilled because they realize they’re just perpetuating a lack of will.

To remedy this, make a list. Grab a sheet of paper, draw a vertical line down the center, and write the advantages to change in one column and the disadvantages in the other. List everything you can think of no matter how silly.

Next, rank the advantages and the disadvantages amongst themselves such that all the advantages to change are prioritized in one column, and disadvantages prioritized in the other.

Now, compare the top three advantages to the top three disadvantages. Will the world continue to spin if you choose change? Probably.

The key to overcoming change is to just start. Put another way, if you’re an astronaut flying the space shuttle, a tiny half-degree adjustment will place you on a different planet. It’s a small change, but it all adds up.

Jeff is an executive coach, speaker at the HarryWalker Agency, and a board member of  the SEAL Future Fund. Follow his daily blog at www.adaptabilitycoach.com