Leadership Essays | Positive Difference Leadership

In Which I Go To a Tattoo Parlor and Am Reminded That Leadership Is Lonely

Over the weekend, I went to a tattoo parlor with two people who were getting tattoos. I expected to feel out of place; I don’t have any tattoos and wasn’t planning on getting one. However, the tattoo parlor employees were welcoming and friendly, and I felt more comfortable than expected. Watching my companions get their tattoos began to work on my mind. I looked at the tattoo art on the walls and wondered how some would look on me. Getting a tattoo would link me closer to my companions; we would always have this experience in common. Later, when I looked at my tattoo, I would never forget my companions and our shared experience. The longer I was in the tattoo parlor, the more I rationalized getting one. I would no longer be an outsider within the tattoo parlor, I would be part of the group. Although I didn’t get a tattoo, the experience caused me to reflect on the loneliness of leadership.

As leaders, we often have to do unpopular things or things others disagree with. When this happens, we are separated from the herd. We know that others criticize us, sometimes to our face and behind our backs. We find ourselves in a space by ourselves, feeling pressure to change our behavior and rejoin the herd. We are social beings, and being alone evokes a knee-jerk reaction to finding our way back into the group. This natural human response began working on my mind in the tattoo parlor, causing me to consider getting a tattoo and becoming part of the group within the tattoo parlor and the tribe of people with tattoos.

As leaders, we have to recognize this pressure when making hard decisions. This pressure sometimes signals that I am focusing on the right issue. This isn’t always the case, of course, but loneliness can be a leading measure of making the hard calls required of a leader.

As leaders, we have to find a way to accept our loneliness as part of what comes with being a leader. If we can take our loneliness, we can be resolute in pushing forward our vision and the decisions that come from our vision. Loneliness comes to leaders, followers, and even organizations.

The Grateful Dead is an example of an organization that accepted loneliness in return for following their vision. Deeply suspicious of business people and valuing their autonomy to make music as they saw fit, they made a series of lonely decisions. These included forming their record label (a bust that was eventually closed), touring with an enormous stack of speakers (the setup and take down became prohibitively expensive as well potentially dangerous to the band on stage), and making recordings of all their concerts (this proved to be an enormous windfall for the band and its fans, but it took decades before this became apparent). Committed to their vision, the band was able to withstand outside pressures to conform, and today, it is viewed as a pioneer in areas such as artists controlling their content and building a library of live concerts.

I once worked for a firm where a new CEO came on board just as the global financial crisis began. Like everyone else, our firm suffered during the crisis. The CEO responded by buying a badly damaged competitor that had been forced to put itself up for sale. To some people inside and outside the firm, the acquisition looked like a poor bet, a business that would struggle to survive and continue to decline in value. Looking back a couple of years later, it became apparent that the acquisition had been done at the bottom of the market and was now much more valuable. Those were lonely years for the CEO. At the same time, it helped give him confidence in his vision, and he subsequently went on to a very successful run at the firm.

Recently, a former colleague of mine recounted how she challenged the CEO and CFO of her firm during a meeting. She challenged them on specific commitments the company was making internally and externally. In her view, the company was not living up to these commitments. She explained her views and challenged them to do better. She is far removed from the CEO and CFO, and challenging them put her in a lonely place. To date, their response has been positive, and she regularly meets with portions of the senior team to give them feedback on how the company can meet their commitments.

Leadership is lonely. It is also the price to pay for achieving your vision, or, in my case, not getting a tattoo.

The Most Persistent Question

My wife Michelle and I are training for a marathon in late April. Today, as part of our training regimen, we ran for about 3 hours through the streets of nearby towns, sometimes following the train tracks that run in and out of the west side of Chicago. At our halfway point, we stopped at a Starbucks to get water and to use the bathroom. It was a cold and gray day with temperatures in the low 20s, and the Starbucks was warm and comfortable. Having stopped, it was hard to leave and resume our run in the cold. Stalling at our departure, I began reading the bulletin board in the store and saw this quote from Martin Luther King:

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is “What are you doing for others?”

This question is one of the most difficult challenges leaders must wrestle with. Who are the others we should be doing things for? Is it our team? Is it the shareholders or owners of the business? Is it the customers? Is it the business itself? And what about ourselves, where do we fit in?

What happens when we set out to do something for the team, but it conflicts with the best interests of the ownership? Or what if the best interests of ownership conflict with the business's long-term health? What if doing the best thing for the company means eliminating our jobs?

What’s a leader to do to resolve these conflicts? Rarely are there easy answers. During my journey while wrestling with these questions, I have come to believe the following:

Start with everyone else. Putting yourself first is wrong. It’s also transparent to everyone else, and it will undercut your authority and support.
When considering everyone else, ask what is in the common good. For example, a friend told me about some underperforming staff members in her workplace. The staff in question is performing poorly, is unhappy, and is impacting the morale of other employees. They have little contact with customers, so firing them would have little impact on customers or revenue. The company, however, has chosen to demote them, hoping they will quit. Predictably, no one is happy, not the staff, not the employees in question, and not their supervisors. In this instance, letting the employees go would be in the common good. Taking half measures has only made things worse.
Determining what is in the common good is often unclear and murky. I once worked at a sleepy firm where many employees were content with the status quo so long as they kept their jobs. When a new, growth-hungry CEO took over the firm, the staff began passively resisting his efforts. The CEO found himself in a difficult position. If he placated the employees, they would be happy in the short term, but unhappy in the long term if the company failed or had to be sold. However, placating the employees meant acting against the best interests of the shareholders, who wanted growth in the short term. If he accommodated the shareholders and let some staff go to reduce expenses, it might result in the loss of customers and possibly jeopardize the business in the long term. He might also lose the support of the remaining staff. But if he failed to grow the business, would he be able to keep his job? It seemed as if every action available to him was helpful and harmful when considering different components of the common good. Ultimately, the CEO embarked on a series of acquisitions that helped grow the business. Employees who were unhappy in the new, larger organization left or were let go. The acquired companies infused the company with new talent that soon drove the business forward, leading to a significant increase in the share price. The long-term outlook for the business improved, shareholders were pleased, the staff who wanted to be part of a growing firm prospered, and the CEO went on to a successful tenure there.
Grow some calluses. There will always be someone unhappy with your actions. There will always be someone critical of you. In the example above about the CEO, he endured much criticism. But he was resolute in pushing forward because he was resolved to act for as much of the common good as possible.
The tug of war between doing what is best for yourself and doing what is best for the common good is eternal. Considering what to do is always done on a case-by-case basis. Once, I was part of a division that was in the process of undergoing layoffs. The senior team met to discuss who would be laid off, including some senior team members. I had a raging stomach flu, but I came into the office that day because I wanted to keep my job. I had more value to add, particularly in helping grow the business in the future. Between bouts of vomiting, I successfully fought to keep my job. On another occasion, however, I voted for a transaction where I knew I would lose my job, which I loved. In that instance, I knew the transaction was in the best interests of the common good. While some people, including myself, would be let go, I knew it was the best opportunity to protect as much of my team as possible. It would also create an environment where the people leaving would be well-treated.

The dirty little secret about leadership is that doing for others can bring you into conflict with those others. And while you can linger in the warm Starbucks while you put off engaging with the conflict, you still have to get back out in the cold and run home...

Becoming The Voice In Someone’s Head

My grandma Louise lived in Hollywood, Florida, when I was a boy. I didn't know much about Florida as a small boy. I knew it had palm trees, pink flamingos, alligators, and Grandma Louise. My siblings and I occasionally received presents through the mail from Grandma Louise. It was always exciting to receive a big, brown box with a Florida postmark- we knew it had to be from Grandma Louise. Once she sent us squirt guns shaped like alligators, I couldn't have been more thrilled. After that, I always looked for the postman to see if he was bringing another package from Florida.

One week, a card arrived from Grandma Louise. Rather than sending us gifts, she had sent a check for $35. $5 apiece for my siblings and me. $5! It was all the money in the world to me. I could buy enough candy for the rest of my life and have money for toys. I couldn't wait to get my $5.

Shortly after Grandma Louise's check arrived, Dad returned from work carrying a big box from Sears.

"What's that, Dad?" we all said.

"It's a telescope," Dad said. "I used the check from Grandma Louise to buy a telescope."

It took me a few more questions to work out that Dad had used all our money, my money, to buy the telescope. I couldn't believe it. I didn't want a telescope, I wanted my $5. Dad explained how great the telescope was and how we could use it to look at the stars and the moon. It slowly became clear to me that the telescope was Dad's. He wanted to look at the universe and used Grandma Louise's check to get his telescope. Worse still, it wasn't used for looking at birds, planes, or across the street. It was for looking at the moon and the stars. Boring!

In the evening, Dad would get out the telescope, look at stars or the moon, and invite us to peer through the telescope and see what he was seeing. The best nights for looking at the universe were cold, crisp nights during winter. Standing outside in the cold dark, waiting to see a twinkle, had no appeal to me. Although Dad tried bribing me with hot chocolate once when we went back inside, I didn't like hot chocolate, and after a while, I refused to stand outside.

Before I stopped going out in the dark, Dad tried teaching us some of the constellations. I only learned one of them, Orion the Hunter. I only knew Orion because I thought it was called OBrien for a while, and it seemed incredible that there was a constellation with the same name as me. Orion is a winter constellation in the Northern Hemisphere, most easily seen from November through March. As I grew older, I came to have a love/hate relationship with Orion. On the one hand, Orion reminds me of childhood and Dad and Grandma Louise; on the other hand, he represents wintertime's long nights.

I had mostly forgotten about Orion after I became an adult. One morning in August, I went out for a short run. I am not a morning person nor a morning runner, and I always feel creaky and ancient shuffling through the pre-dawn darkness. I felt this way when I hit the halfway point in the run. Pausing for a minute in the parking lot of a park, I stared up at the sky, looking at the stars. Up in the dark sky, I saw Orion. How could that be? It was August, not December. After doing some research, I learned Orion begins to appear during the early morning at the end of the summer. As summer turns to fall, he seems sooner and sooner until winter, when he rises soon after sunset.

Since then, I have come to view the August sightings of Orion as another harbinger of fall, like seeing the first aster flowers that wink on during August and the cottonwood leaves that begin falling as school starts. August Orion helps remind me of the world's rhythm and how it keeps turning with or without us. Like him or not, Orion will still appear every August shortly before dawn and signal that winter is coming.

We are here on this earth for a short while and have even less time as leaders. We never know how or what people will remember us for. Was it our brilliant insight in the Monday morning meeting? Probably not. Or was it doing something to show you cared about your team? Maybe. Was it teaching someone something they will remember decades from now? Perhaps. But if you teach and care, it's possible somewhere decades from now, someone will remember you and smile as they look up at the night sky...

And now you will excuse me while I search for alligator squirt guns on Pinterest...