Serious Miscalculations That Can Cost You Your Leadership! #1
Someone once said, “those who don’t make mistakes don’t make anything.” Everyone makes mistakes, but some errors are more consequential than others. In some instances, an unintentional miscalculation can lead to great losses. For example, we have the case of The Mars Climate Orbiter. In 1999, NASA’s Mars orbiter was lost because NASA engineers used metric units of measurement while the contractor used imperial units. It was an error that no one seemed to notice—until the orbiter was flying past Mars.
When you lead in the middle, there are many opportunities for success and many opportunities for miscalculation. Here’s one no middle leader wants to miss.
Miscalculation #1: Trying to lead-up when you feel the boss is not a good leader.
Not long ago, I was talking with a middle leader who told me his story. It went something like this: “I’ve been leading-up for years. My boss doesn’t know what he’s doing, and so I have to tell him how to do his job continually. If it weren’t for me, he would have lost his job a long time ago.” As we talked, I could sense he was frustrated. I could also sense that the leadership/followership equation was out of balance. This dissonance would be challenging to live with for a short time, but it would be incredibly frustrating to have to live with for years.
Leading-up is always a delicate task. It takes trust and relationship. Without both trust and relationship leading-up can rarely work. But bear in mind, even with trust and relationship, leading-up can be tricky.
In the book Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win, Michael Unseem gives several circumstances where leading-up may be necessary. Here are two of the most common.
The leader is “micromanaging and not macro thinking.”
The leader can give “clear directives but can’t see the future.”
Even though leading-up may be warranted in these situations, Unseem warns, “If handled poorly, such upward courage may prove little more than reckless abandon, a career-shortening or even career-ending move.”
Don’t let this miscalculation cost you your leadership. Here’s the key: Only attempt leading-up by invitation of the leader and then only try it once or twice, even when encouraged.
Leading-up is one of the rare opportunities to speak to something when you would typically be told—kindly I hope—”this is not your place.” But if the invitation comes, you must be ready to deliver the needed advice in a way that maintains the relationship you have with the leader, but also lets the leader know that you are prepared and concerned. In other words, you are not advising because you want to advance in the organization, but because you what to be a valuable member of the team.
However, it’s always good to remember that having the opportunity to lead-up, is like receiving an invitation to come to dinner at someone’s home. Even in the best of circumstances, it would be extremely pretentious for the guest to attempt to advise the chef on how the food should have been prepared. Even if asked, don’t do it!
But if you feel you must—I still don’t recommend it—approach the subject with fear and trembling. Wisdom dictates beginning with a compliment, then moving to a sentence that begins with the words,“I’m honored.” The next words should be concise, thoughtful, and respectful. It’s a dangerous walk along a razor thin rope, over the grand canyon. Don’t start if you don’t think you can pull it off, both safely and gracefully.
Close with a compliment. Smile, and enjoy your meal and the evening. And then never, ever feel that you are welcome to do it again! Because you either just spent all of your relational currency, or have only a few coins left for another time when it’s a matter of life and death.
It’s a dangerous business this leading-up. Sometimes it’s necessary, but most times its just plain dangerous. Don’t let this miscalculation cost you your leadership. In the next post I’ll share two more miscalculations that can cost you your leadership. See you then.
