Latest / The Growth Project / Growth Spurt: Leave It Alone

Transcript

Growth Spurt: Leave It Alone · The Growth Project

• 0:02
  You.
• 0:03
  drew Brandon here with amylose, and I want to talk about one of the superpowers that I have seen in some of the best leaders I've ever worked with. Now, really, really grateful that as I look back over the course of what I've done in my career thus far, I have had some very unique opportunities to work with leaders across many different industries,
• 0:24
  that do what it what I feel like as a very high level.
• 0:26
  So grateful for the chance to work with these folks, learn from these folks, and have allowed them to really shape some of my notions of what does it truly mean to be a great leader? Many of us are trying to figure that out, right? How do we crack the code on the qualities and the traits and the skills of elite levels of leadership?
• 0:46
  So one of the ones that I have seen and wholeheartedly believe in that I want to talk about today, although it might sound, a little bit less conventional or maybe more of kind of an speed pitch would be a leader's ability to leave things alone. Now, I want to be clear about what I mean, and I don't mean by that.
• 1:03
  I'm not simply talking about a leader's ability to delegate. That is different. I'm talking about a leader's ability to just leave things alone. Meaning something's going on. It could be a discussion that's being had. It could be a problem that people are trying to solve for. And you're aware of what's happening. And there's a part of you that feels this tug of, okay, I want to share my opinion.
• 1:28
  I want to go fight for this. I want to have a seat at the table. But you don't. You find a way to consciously choose to leave it alone. It can be so difficult to do that, right? It could be the example of there's someone in your organization that has a strong belief, that they're not they're unhappy with you, they disagree with you.
• 1:52
  And guess what? They're lacking context. So they don't even have the whole story. And, you know, things that they don't know. However, you realize attempting to get into a discussion with this person about whatever this matter might be isn't going to yield anything of worth at all. So what's the best play there? Leaving it alone. Many leaders can't do that.
• 2:17
  They struggle to do that. They're unwilling to do that. They have to be heard. And I have just seen that one of the differentiating things of what I would consider to be truly elite, high level leaders is they can leave it alone. They don't have to be heard. They don't have to air out their opinion. They don't have to prove somebody wrong.
• 2:37
  Now, in order to do that. Well, in order to do with any type of consistency, you've got to have healthy humility. And you don't have to. You can't be the person who needs to be the center of the universe, or the person who needs to always win the day with his or her opinion, right? That doesn't work when it comes to elite, high level leadership.
• 2:59
  So the challenge for many leaders out there, I think, is when you get into these situations that you're aware of, that maybe end up on your desk, on your plate, in your inbox, whatever it might be. Can you recognize whether or not this is one you should even be a part of? And if you are tagging in on all of them, you probably aren't making the right decisions.
• 3:20
  So have an inner circle. Be willing to get feedback from people that you trust on whether or not you should even be involved in the dynamic of what we're talking about, and be willing to leave it alone. It's amazing how often this situation will resolve itself and how valuable it can be for you to just be stay out of it, not be a part of it.
• 3:46
  Again, really tough for leaders, but I want to just throw that out there and put that on your radar as what I have seen to be, an ability and capability of leaders at the highest level.