Latest / The IDEA SANDWICH Podcast / You're Not Ready ... Lead Anyway!
Transcript
- Ara Topouzian: To make a great sandwich, you need great ingredients. And the same goes for your work and yourself. The way you layer them, balance them, and maybe even toast them a little. That's what makes something memorable. I'm Ara Topouzian and this is the idea sandwich, where we mix the right layers of creativity, business, and life to make something worth biting into. I read a quote recently, yes, another one, that stuck with me. You never feel ready because being ready is a decision, not a feeling. I had to sit with that for a minute and reread it a few times. Because how many times have we said, I'm just not ready yet? Not ready to apply for the job, not ready to have the conversation, not ready to put an idea out there where someone might actually have an opinion about it. We convince ourselves that one day we'll wake up and feel ready. How many times have you said, Well, let me sleep on it? The nerves will disappear, the questions will stop, some little voice will say, Congratulations, you are now fully qualified to move forward. I'm still waiting for that voice. Apparently it's very busy. But this matters when we talk about leadership. Because leadership puts us in situations where we have to act before we feel completely comfortable. We start with a difficult conversation. Someone on your team keeps missing deadlines. You know you need to address it, but you want to find the right words. You don't want to damage a relationship. You're worried about how they'll react. So you wait. You rewrite your opening sentence in your head. You decide Friday is a bad day. Monday feels too harsh. Suddenly it's Thursday again. Meanwhile, the deadlines are still being missed. Other people are picking up the work. And the person who needs your feedback may have no idea how serious the problem has become. Your discomfort has now become everyone else's problem. Let alone the anxiety you're most likely feeling over this delay. That's a hard thing to recognize, but it's an important leadership lesson. Waiting is a decision too, and it comes with consequences. You may never feel excited about the conversation. You can still prepare for it, approach it respectfully, and have it. That brings me to another layer: preparation. Because I don't hear this quote as permission to wing everything. Please prepare. If you're presenting a budget, know the numbers. If you're proposing a change, understand who it affects. If you're taking on a new responsibility, be honest about what you still need to learn. The question is whether your preparation is helping you move forward or helping you moving forward. There's a point where the fifth version of the email just doesn't make it any better. It just keeps you from hitting send. There's a point where another meeting about the idea produces another meeting about the idea. And there's a point where you have to ask yourself, what information am I actually missing? If you can name it, go get it. If you can't, you may be waiting for a guarantee that nobody can give you. Leadership involves making thoughtful decisions with some uncertainty still in the room. And you can still say that out loud. You can tell your team, here's what we know, here's what we still need to figure out, and here's the next step I think we should take. That gives people direction. It also gives them room to contribute, which leads to the third layer: how we help other people become ready. Think about someone who's growing into a leadership role. Maybe they've never run the meeting or delivered a presentation or managed the project. It's easy to keep doing those things ourselves because we're experienced and we know how we want them done. But if we wait until someone looks completely confident before we give them responsibility, we may be waiting a long time. Sometimes our job is to say, I think you can handle this. Let's talk through what you need, and I'll be here to support you. Give them a clear assignment. Agree on where they should check in. Let them try. People need opportunities to discover what they can do, and that includes us. Confidence can grow from having evidence. I tried something difficult. I handled the parts I understood. I asked for help for the parts I didn't, and I learned enough to do it better next time. So here's something to think about this week. Pick one thing you've been putting off because you don't feel ready. Just one. We don't need to reorganize your entire life before lunch. Ask yourself these three questions. Number one, what do I already know? Two, what help or information do I still need? three and what is one reasonable step I can take now. Maybe you can request the conversation. Maybe you send the proposal. Maybe you volunteer to lead the next meeting. You don't have to solve the whole thing today, but you could give yourself something more useful than another week of wondering. You can give yourself a start. And maybe that's what readiness looks like. You've prepared, you understand what's at stake, and you decide to take the next step. even with a few butterflies coming along. I'm Ara Topouzian and this has been the idea sandwich. Now go take a bite out of something you've been putting off. And if you're waiting for the butterflies to leave, pull up another chair. Apparently they're joining us for lunch.