This has been a very interesting week in many ways, including a few emails and letters from Rotarians with comments and questions. I have spent some time pondering what the messages had in common with each other. From that pondering comes a thought or two about how every leader needs a whiskbroom in their leadership tool box.
Those who do us the great honor of following our lead occasionally fail, or sometimes they succeed at a level below their expectations. They need a compassionate leader who can help them back on their feet, brush the dust off their rear end and start them back on their quest for success. A good leader knows when the problem is to manage expectations or simply build better skills for success.
Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computers, once said “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” Failure should be viewed positively; if you don’t have at least one project or disappointing program, you aren’t taking enough risk.
I have observed a phenomenon that is not unique to Rotary, but the concentration of successful people in Rotary makes it a theme that seems to be more prevalent than you might find in the general population. It is the tendency of club presidents and district governors to take failure too personally; so personally that they see something not going according to their expectations and jump in to fix it. We have a term for that course of action, we call it micromanaging. Over the years I have learned that almost every one of us can do almost anything better than most of the rest of us; but very few of us can do everything better than all of us.
The result of micromanaging is twofold. First, the micromanager becomes an exhausted and bitter leader who can’t understand why they have to do everything. More important, the followers lose their enthusiasm for trying. I believe a wonderful – real life – example might be the old Soviet Union where no one was allowed to fail and almost nobody actually felt the joy of success.
You only fail by not trying, or not learning from disappointments. With that in mind my fellow Rotary leader; go get a whiskbroom to add to your leadership toolbox. There are followers who need your leadership. Build a platform for their success and don’t try to do everything yourself.