It’s a funny thing I notice about LinkedIn. Posts about vulnerability, authenticity and psychological safety get a lot of interaction. Which is great, as these are important, if nuanced, topics in leadership.
However, posts about some of the harder parts of leadership, such as dealing with an underperforming team member, or making challenging commercial decisions – you know, the decisions that leaders have to make day in and day out – are roundly ignored.
Leadership often needs you to use soft skills to do hard things. Needs gentleness and firmness. Involves constant judgement calls about vulnerability vs decisiveness, authenticity vs shining a light.
It means making the tough calls which we don’t like to talk about, but have to face. Because they still need it be made, and it is a part of leader’s responsibility to make them.
The best way to bring all of these conflicting pressures together when you’re leading is to be clear in your values and what they mean to you.
And to accept that even then, some decisions will just be hard, uncomfortable, and still necessary. Sometimes the right thing to do is the hard thing. And we still need to get it done.
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