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What’s keeping you from growing into the powerful leader you want to be?
“My biggest challenge is letting go of things and allowing others to take on important tasks,” an executive confessed. “It’s not that I don’t trust people; I just don’t like to risk having things – or people – fail.” Believe it or not, these are the words of a division president from a successful corporation. And they describe a situation that is not uncommon.
The executive quoted above is a typical high achiever – self-taught and self-motivated. He learned to be successful through his own sophisticated game of trial and error. He works hard, knows how to get things done and has exceptional skills. The trouble is, this approach isn’t working for him anymore. He has hit the wall. Working harder and longer isn’t helping, and the people around him aren’t developing as leaders. He’s trapped in his comfort zone and on the edge of burnout. It’s time to find his “growing edge” – a balance of new challenges and familiar territory that creates invigorating energy and improves leadership skills.
Have you ever gulped, shivered or gotten the cold sweats when thinking about your goals and challenges? Like the time you were thrown into a college calculus course after having completed only basic algebra and geometry in high school? Then you’ve exceeded your growing edge; the situation is too threatening to be a growing experience, and you’ll likely shut down. In contrast, if you feel bored or don’t get the slightest bit nervous when thinking about your leadership, you are falling short and not reaching your growing edge.
The definition of the growing edge is that place in your learning that slightly exceeds your comfort zone. For the executive in the example described above, finding an incremental way to engage others in challenging, important work – and then letting them succeed or fail – could be an excellent growing edge experience.
Yes, the experience is slightly uncomfortable, but it should not be so threatening that you retreat or give up. Working at your growing edge is also energizing and exciting because you realize it will be a stretch but also a great accomplishment. If you learn to operate consistently within that place, you will enjoy your work there more.
So, how do you go about finding your growing edge?
Conduct a rigorous self-assessment and develop
self-awareness. The first important key to finding
your personal growing edge is to be completely honest with
yourself during the search. If you
don’t, it simply
won’t work. Over time, you will
learn to judge and think about your reactions and comfort level
when contemplating challenges, new learning and growth
experiences.
You will need to ask yourself some tough questions:
Your honest answers will start you in the right direction.
Get quality feedback from others. Self-awareness is necessary to find your growing edge, but it is not sufficient. The next step is to rely on trusted colleagues and effective feedback-gathering tools to help you identify you leadership strengths and weaknesses. The tools you use can range from the informal conversations to a formalized 360-degree feedback survey. As your design your feedback system, it is important to include ways to ensure that you will get feedback on a regular basis. Remember, the most effective feedback happens in the moment, all year round.
Ask a coach to challenge you. Most senior leaders have a difficult time getting straightforward feedback because their employees are afraid to be “on the level” or they have learned to tell their leaders only what they want to hear. That’s one reason executive coaches are being more widely used today. An executive coach can help you identify the most helpful feedback and then use that information to help you find your growing edge. A coach is also geared to be deeply engaged with individual leaders, and good coaches are adept at ratcheting up the intensity to keep people fresh and engaged in their development.
Rely on a mentor to support you. In order to operate effectively when you are slightly outside of your comfort zone, you need a base of support and security. Just as a coach can help you push the growing edge, a mentor can help you by describing or demonstrating how he or she approached particular tasks and challenges. When an organization formalizes coaching or mentoring programs, growth in leadership skills happens much more intentionally.
Set goals that focus on the growing edge. Leaders need to recognize and support the need for learning leadership skills. That means intentionally setting goals and pursuing initiatives where learning, growth and leadership development are as important as achieving business results. These goals should be explicit, should be made public and should be matters of importance to both the individual and the organization. It’s important not to set too many goals; two or three critical objectives are plenty.
Finding your growing edge involves some hard work, but
it’s invigorating and definitely
worth the effort. The LeaderBuilder™
executive coaching team at MDA Consulting Group helps executives
become sharper, more motivated leaders who are always learning and
challenging their colleagues to do the same. Ask
yourself… am I
“churning and
burning” or really growing as a
leader? Your answer will help you gauge your need to find
your growing edge.