Read this article, which describes how leaders often need to respond to various external and internal challenges that often present themselves unexpectedly to take advantage of opportunities when they arise.
Leadership constantly presents challenges to a leader and their abilities. These challenges are an incitation to rise to another level, to test yourself and improve in the process, and to show that you can accomplish something that may seem difficult or even impossible. This section describes the kinds of challenges a leader faces, and suggests some ways in which leaders can weather and benefit from them.
Being a leader is in itself a challenge. The challenges of leadership are really of three kinds: external, coming from people and situations; internal, stemming from within the leader himself; and those arising from the nature of the leadership role.
It is almost impossible to imagine a situation where a leader does not have to cope with external challenges. In an organization, such issues as lack of funding and other resources, opposition from forces in the community, and interpersonal problems within the organization often rear their heads. Social, economic, and political forces in the larger world can affect the organization as well. To some extent, the measure of any leader is how well he can deal with the constant succession of crises and minor annoyances that threaten the mission of his group. If he is able to solve problems, take advantage of opportunities, and resolve conflict with an air of calm and a minimum of fuss, most of the external issues are hardly noticeable to anyone else.
If the leader does not handle external challenges well, the organization probably will not, either. We have all seen examples of this, in organizations where everyone, from the director to the custodian, has a constantly worried look, and news is passed in whispers. When people feel that leaders are stressed or unsure, they themselves become stressed or unsure as well, and the emphasis of the group moves from its mission to the current worrisome situation. The work of the group suffers.
While leadership presents to each of us the opportunity to demonstrate the best of what we are, it also exposes our limitations. In many cases, good leaders have to overcome those limitations in order to transmit and follow their vision. Fear, lack of confidence, insecurity, impatience, intolerance (all can act as barriers to leadership. At the same time, acknowledging and overcoming them can turn a mediocre leader into a great one.
It is often very difficult for people, especially those who see themselves as leaders, to admit that they might have personality traits or personal characteristics that interfere with their ability to reach their goals. Part of good leadership is learning to accept the reality of those traits, and working to change them so they do not get in the way.
Sometimes, what seems to be an advantage may present a challenge as well. A leader who is extremely decisive may alienate followers by never consulting them, or by consistently ignoring their advice. A leader who is terrific at developing relationships with others in the organization may be unable to tell someone when she is not doing her job. Some characteristics can be double-edged swords, positive in some circumstances and negative in others. The real challenge is in knowing the difference, and adapting your behavior accordingly.
Real leadership makes great demands on people. As a leader, you are responsible for your group's vision and mission, for upholding a standard, often for being the group's representative to the rest of the world and its protector as well. These responsibilities might be shared, but in most organizations, one person takes the largest part of the burden.
In addition to its responsibilities, leadership brings such challenges as motivating people – often without seeming to do so – and keeping them from stagnating when they are doing well. Leaders also have to motivate themselves, and not just to seem, but actually to be, enthusiastic about what they are doing. They have to be aware of serving their group and its members and all that that entails. In other words, they have to be leaders all the time.
One obvious – and correct – answer to this question is "all the time", but in fact, some times are more likely than others. Leadership is usually the most difficult when the situation is changing or unstable. When a grassroots group is doing well – gathering allies, getting its message across, attracting funding – no one much notices what the director does; but when something unexpected happens, she is expected to take care of it, often in a very public way.
Some particular times when challenges may arise:
One community-based organization faced all of the above circumstances at once. The organization had gone from a staff of three – the founders – to a staff of ten in less than a year, as a result of a drastic expansion in its operations. During that year, it had also changed its structure, from a corporation owned by the three founders to one owned by a Board of Directors. As if that were not enough, at the end of the year, the director – one of the original three – became extremely ill and resigned, and another of the founders took over as director. It was up to him to pull the staff together, learn how to work in the new system, manage a larger and more complicated budget, deal with everyone's feelings about losing one of the founders, and at the same time establish himself as the leader of the organization.
The challenges of leadership are ongoing and occur daily. Knowing when the greatest challenges are likely to arise, however, can prepare you to meet them successfully.
As we discussed above, there are challenges that come from external sources (other people, situations), from internal sources (within the leader herself), and from the circumstances of leadership. We will examine each of these categories, and consider some strategies for addressing them.
The world surprises us at every turn, throwing up barriers where the way seems clear, and revealing broad highways where there seemed to be only brick walls. Both kinds of surprises – sometimes the positive more than the negative – present opportunities for exercising leadership, with all the challenges they entail. Some common situations that call for leaders to use their resources include:
This is by no means a comprehensive list, and most Tool Box users will be able to think of many other possibilities from their own experience. It is clear, however, that leaders are often tested by external events and people. What are some of the general strategies they can use to cope with these and other external – and therefore often unpredictable and uncontrollable – circumstances?
Be proactive.
Regardless of the situation, it is important for leaders to do something. Waiting is occasionally the right strategy, but even when it is, it makes a group nervous to see its leader apparently not exercising some control.
At the beginning of his first term, in the depths of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt created government agencies and programs, took steps to control the economy, and generally looked like he was in charge. Not everything he tried worked, but the overall – and accurate – impression people got was that he was trying to control an awful situation, and they took comfort from that. Throughout his long presidency, Roosevelt continued to be proactive, and history has largely proven the wisdom and effectiveness of his strategy.
Be creative.
Try to think "outside the box", i.e. in unexpected but effective ways. If disaster has struck (you have just lost a major source of funding, perhaps ), how can you turn what looks like the end of the world into a new beginning? Can you change the way the organization operates to deal with the loss? Can you use the fact that you are about to lose services to gain community and political support? Is this an opportunity to diversify your funding? Can you expand your horizons and your reach through collaboration? Do not just look at the obvious, but consider a situation from all perspectives, and search for unusual ways to make things work.
An important piece of information, one that has often quoted in community work, but which cannot be overstated: the Chinese character for "crisis" combines the characters for "danger" and "opportunity".
Face conflict squarely.
This does not mean come out fighting, but rather identify and acknowledge the conflict, and work to resolve it. This is true both for conflict within your group, and conflict between the group and others outside it. Far too many people, leaders included, act as if conflict does not exist, because they find it difficult or frightening to deal with. As a result, it only grows worse, and by the time it erupts, it may be nearly impossible to resolve. If it is faced early, nearly any conflict can be resolved in a way that is beneficial for everyone involved. It is a function of leadership to have the courage to name the conflict and work on it.
If there is a philosophical difference among the staff of an organization, for instance, it is important that it be acknowledged and discussed. If that is done in a matter-of-fact way, without any finger-pointing or accusations about lack of political correctness or philosophical purity – before it gets to the point where people are angry with one another – it can lead to an exchange of ideas instead of insults and rancor. The mix of ideas in the organization can become richer, everyone can feel that his point of view is taken seriously, and the whole staff can benefit.
Always look for common ground.
If there is opposition to what you are doing, it may only be to one specific part of it, or may be based on a misunderstanding. There are few groups or individuals who do not have some common interests. If you can find those, you may have a basis for solving problems and making it possible for people to work together.
Retain your objectivity.
If you are mediating a conflict within the organization, do not take sides, even if you think you know one side is right. That will come out if you mediate objectively and well. If you are faced with detractors or opposition, do not automatically assume they are villains. What are their concerns, and why do they disagree with what you are doing? Do not get sucked into a fight unless there is really no alternative. Even rabid opposition can often be overcome through a combination of respect, political pressure, and creative problem-solving.
When you do feel you have to fight, pick your battles carefully. Make sure you have the resources – money, political and other allies, volunteer help, whatever you need – to sustain conflict. Battles can advance your cause, or they can kill your initiative once and for all. Do not get into a fight you have no chance to win.
Look for opportunities to collaborate.
This is important both within and outside your group or organization. Within the group, involve as many people as possible in decisions, and make sure they have control over what they do. The more they own their jobs and the organization, the more enthusiastic they will be, the more effective the organization will be, and the more effective you will be as a leader.
Outside the organization, try to forge ties with other organizations and groups. Let them know what you are doing, get and give support, and work with them to the extent you can. Make common cause with other groups that have similar interests. In numbers, there is strength, and you will be stronger as an alliance of groups than any one of you could be individually.
As is stated often in the Community Tool Box, it is important that any collaboration you enter into be consistent with your mission and philosophy. Being part of a community coalition that includes organizations and groups with very different goals and philosophies is usually not a problem. You can work together on issues on which you agree, and choose not to where you disagree. But entering into a contract or collaborative grant arrangement with an organization whose philosophy is very different from yours can be disastrous.
Leaders are human. That is hardly news, but it means that they come with all the same problems and failings as everyone else. One of the greatest challenges of leadership is facing your own personal issues, and making sure they do not prevent you from exercising leadership. Acknowledging the attitudes and tendencies that get in your way, and working to overcome them, is absolutely necessary if you are to become an effective leader. Among the most common personal traits that good leaders have to overcome or keep in check are:
The administrator of a state agency constantly voiced his commitment to listening to the opinions and judgments of those in the field. To his credit, he often consulted with providers about new directions or new initiatives that the agency was planning. When the advice from the field was negative, however, he invariably ignored it, and got angry if anyone suggested that he was not really being collaborative if he only listened to advice when it confirmed his plans or beliefs. He behaved the same way with his subordinates in the agency, often to the point of screaming at people when they disagreed with him.
The result was that, far from providers feeling included, they felt shut out and cheated by the administrator's actions. He instituted a number of regulations and reforms that did not work because of his inability to listen to negative feedback, and his relationships with those in the field deteriorated drastically. He continued to tout his willingness to ask for opinions and advice from providers, but was never able either to accept disagreement, or to accept the suggestion that he was anything but completely open and collaborative.
Harry Truman made the decision to drop the A-bomb on Hiroshima, and then went to bed and slept all night. Regardless of what you think about the decision – the human costs were staggering, and historians still dispute whether it saved lives in the long run by eliminating the need for an Allied invasion of Japan – Truman's response to it is instructive. He struggled with the decision itself...but once he made it, he accepted that it was done, and there was no point in agonizing further.
In addition to character traits that can get in a leader's way, there are the effects of health and personal crises. The director of a health care organization who was being treated for liver cancer decided to resign because she felt she needed to put all her energy into recovery, and could not do justice to her leadership position. The director of a community-based organization continued to work while his wife was being treated for cancer, but found himself making serious mistakes in a variety of situations. Divorce, deaths, personal financial reverses – in short, any of the same personal issues that anyone else might have to face – can beset any leader at any time. It is important to understand that those kinds of crises will probably have an effect on your leadership, unless you are extremely good at separating the different areas of your life.
Again, this list is far from complete, but it includes many of the most common stumbling blocks that leaders throw in front of themselves. Fortunately, there are some strategies that can be used to identify and remove those stumbling blocks, or at least cut them down so you can jump over them more easily.
Listen.
Listen to people's responses to your ideas, plans, and opinions. Listen more than you talk. Listen to a broad range of people, not just to those who agree with you. Probe to find out why they think or feel the way they do. Assume that everyone has something important to say. If you hear the same things from a number of different and diverse sources, you should at least consider the possibility that they are accurate. If they are about things you do that you can change, you might give it a try.
Ask for 360-degree feedback...and use it.
This is feedback (people's views of you) from everyone around you – staff, volunteers, Board, participants, people from other organizations or groups yours works with – anyone you work with in any way. As with listening, if you hear the same thing from a lot of different sources, it is probably true. Act on it. All the feedback in the world will not do you any good unless you do something with it.
Look at what is going on around you.
Are you the center of controversy and chaos? Or do calm and good feelings seem to reside wherever you do? The chances are that the answer lies somewhere in between these extremes, but it probably should be closer to the calm and good feeling side. Even if you are involved in a battle with the forces of evil, you can foster calm in yourself and those you work with. At the same time, your group could be on top of the world, and you and your colleagues could still be climbing the walls if that is the kind of atmosphere you create.
Another question to ask is whether the people you work with are happy and enthusiastic. If you are meeting their needs, the chances are they will be. If you are insensitive and impatient, if you play favorites, if you are disengaged from them and from the cause, or if you are downright nasty, they will probably wish they were somewhere else. Taking a look around will tell you a lot about what – and how – you are doing as a leader.
Reach out for help in facing internal challenges.
Most of us find it difficult to change entirely on our own. A psychotherapist, a good friend, a perceptive colleague, or a trusted clergyman might be able to help you gain perspective on issues that you find hard to face. Many people find meditation or some form of self-discovery helpful in understanding themselves and in getting through change. Do not feel you have to do it all on your own.
The difficulty here is that, if you are defensive, you are likely to be defensive about being defensive. If you are insecure, you may well be insecure about finding help – there is always the chance that you will find out that your insecurity is well-founded.
One of the greatest challenges of leadership is shouldering the responsibility it confers. Part of that responsibility is the responsibility to deal with those aspects of yourself that can keep you from being an effective leader. That is not easy, but the rewards are great.
A leadership position brings with it unique demands. Leaders can be looked on as authority figures, as saviors, as fixers of things that are broken, as spiritual guides, as mentors, as models, as inspirers, as teachers...in short, they may be seen however others choose to see them. This in itself carries a set of challenges, in addition to those posed by what all leaders indeed have to do in order to keep things going. Some of the issues that leaders have to cope with specifically because they are leaders are:
Perhaps even more threatening than burnout is "burn-down" – the loss of passion and intensity that can come with familiarity and long service. You may still care about what you are doing, but the enthusiasm just is not there anymore. In many ways, this condition may be even harder to deal with than burnout. At least if you are burned out, it is obvious: if you are burned down, especially if it happens over a long period, neither you nor others may have realized it.
So how can you continue to be a leader and also continue to be a functioning human being? There are things you can do to retain both your sanity and your competency.
Create mechanisms to revisit your vision.
Hold occasional meetings and at-least-yearly retreats to discuss vision and renew commitment. These will serve both to review the vision to see if it still resonates (and to rework it if necessary), and to renew your and others' purpose and pursuit of it. They will help to remind you of why you are doing this in the first place, give you an opportunity to work on group solidarity, and – ideally – leave you feeling refreshed and ready to carry on.
Share the burden.
Surround yourself with good people who share your vision. If you can find others who are competent and committed to whom you can delegate some of the tasks of leadership, it will both remove pressure from you, and make your group stronger. One of the greatest mistakes a leader can make is to be threatened by others' abilities. In fact, sharing responsibility with capable people makes all of you more effective, and strengthens your leadership.
Having competent people to depend on also means that you can develop systems and know they will work. Organizational maintenance becomes much easier, and you have more time to devote to the actual pursuit of your vision.
Find an individual or group with whom you can discuss the realities of leadership.
In many communities, some heads of organizations meet on a regular basis to talk about the difficulties and rewards of their situations with others who truly understand. Some such arrangement can be a valuable hedge against burnout, and can also help you gain insight into how you function as a leader. It can introduce you to alternative ways of doing things, as well as giving you a chance to vent, and to realize you are not alone.
Make sure you have personal time.
The founder and director of a prominent think tank once went seven years without a day off – including Sundays. That is 2,557 straight days of work. (That includes two leap year days, for those of you doing the math.) Even if that does not cause burnout, it is not good for your creativity or your understanding of the world. Everything becomes work or related to work: the world holds no other reality, and leadership becomes all you do.
In order to maintain perspective and to keep yourself fresh, you need to take time away from being a leader, and away from your organization or initiative. It is important to have an activity that gets you away from your daily concerns, and to take days off from time to time. Some people meditate every day, others play music regularly, others participate in sports or fitness activities. Your getaway does not have to be an everyday thing, but it should be something you love and look forward to, and it should be frequent and regular. It may be as simple as taking a walk with your kids for an hour every evening – whatever it is that relaxes your mind and feeds your soul. Rather than detracting from your effectiveness, your time off will increase it.
A program director at a community college negotiated a month off every summer when he would not be on-call, or even reachable, no matter what happened. He and his family would go away, not telling the college where, and he would do his best to forget about work for that month. He came back recharged, often with new ideas, and ready to get on with the year.
Depending upon how you approach it, leadership can be a hard and lonely road, or an exciting and collaborative trip to a new place. The more, and more useful, strategies you can find to cope with its challenges, the better leader you will be.
Leadership poses a host of challenges. They come in three categories: external (from people and situations); internal (from within the leader herself); and stemming from the circumstance of being a leader. They often arise in periods of instability or change, such as when a program or period of work is beginning or ending, or when a group or organization is in transition. Some are concrete and limited – dealing with a particular situation, for instance – but many are more abstract and ongoing, such as keeping your group focused on its vision over the long term.
For each category of challenge, there are strategies that can help leaders cope. For the external, these include:
For internal challenges, some strategies are:
Finally, strategies for coping with those challenges that stem directly from the circumstance of leadership:
If you can employ some or all of these strategies to cope with the challenges that leadership brings, you are likely to be an effective and successful leader.
Source: Phil Rabinowitz, https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-ideas/leadership-challenges/main
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