Leadership Mindset: Kitchen Sink Warriorship
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In an attempt to come up with a phrase that encapsulates all of leadership into one bubble, and all that it entails, I settled on and really like the concept of kitchen sink warriorship.
To unpack this a bit, “kitchen sink” because great leadership really does require a myriad of many different skills, character traits, abilities, and wisdom. And “warriorship” because of what that word represents when it comes to bravery, courage, poise, and taking action.
There are so many soft and hard skills required to be an exceptional leader. On top of a healthy wisdom about people, you need soft skills like charisma, the ability to influence and inspire, self awareness, adaptability, and overall masterful communication, to name a few.
You also need hard, tactical skills, such as giving and receiving feedback, navigating conflict, and creating culture inside an organization.
It takes a lot, and it’s no small thing.
Tale of two bosses
Organizations should never lose sight of how important high quality leaders are for teams and the individuals on those teams.
For example, you could take the same employee and put them under two very different bosses: one who is an excellent leader and another who is a toxic, terrible leader.
The difference of how that employee will show up in those two situations is absolutely night and day. In terms of performance, engagement, productivity, and longevity, that employee will be exponentially more effective under the great leader. They’ll do better work, with a better attitude, and they’ll stay longer in their job.
Likewise, under the toxic manager, there’s a good chance the employee will dread coming to work every day, hate their job, have no respect for their leader, and phone it in when it comes to their performance.
Simply put, great leaders make great employees. And great employees are the make or break to the success of any organization.
And it’s not just skills and abilities, leadership requires a fair amount of people wisdom. Great leaders know people like great chefs know food. It’s not just ingredients and temperatures, there’s an art form to knowing how to cook and bring a recipe to life.
The perfect recipe: High reward, high responsibility
Great leaders understand that the more you give, the more you get, and the more you can ask from your people. There is a very beautiful balance to that which is very important.
When leaders show up in service of their team; to support them, have their backs, invest in their careers and success, and care about them as humans, then they earn the right to ask a lot from them.
When this dynamic is in place, they can set a high bar for their team about what’s expected of them in how they show up.
For a deeper dive on this, see our recent blog post “Servant Leadership & Giving Away the Farm.”
The kicker is that leaders, more than anyone else in an organization, need to walk their talk. The highest standard of expectations and behavior fall on the shoulders of leaders.
You cannot hold anyone accountable to a high bar unless you are are a consistent and steadfast example of that bar in action.
Warriorship because leadership is not for the faint of heart
Yes, there are a boatload of skills, wisdom, and abilities that leaders must possess. The other things leaders need to possess in spades are poise, courage, and bravery.
There is no question that being a leader means facing great challenges that require strength of character and a strong resolve.
Holding people accountable and engaging in difficult conversations about people’s performance or attitude. Owning that ultimately the responsibility of the team’s success or failures fall to you. Keeping a calm head when things go to hell and carrying the torch for the team. Sometimes having to let people go.
These and many more are heavy responsibilities. And the hard truth is that being a leader is not something a great many people are cut out for or can be successful at.
Exceptional leaders are not a dime a dozen, they’re rare. If you work for one or have one on your team then you should appreciate, recognize, honor, and reward them.
A diverse set of skills. A warrior spirit.
Kitchen sink warriorship. Just about sums it up.
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop (previously the #shiftyestribe). Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop