Patio Pondering: They Already Know
Rain overnight means we are out of the fields for a few more days here in our part of NE Indiana. I enjoyed a hot cup of coffee on the patio admiring the flowers after the rain cleansed them. This is the time of year where you see all the promise in the landscaping as the early spring flowers give way to the late spring and summer ones. As I was gazing at the white tulips that continue to defy the calendar, I thought back to a leadership experience I had a few months back.
Recently I observed and experienced the difference between seen leadership and behind-the-scenes leadership. It was a reinforcement of a frustration I've had almost my entire career. The loudest in the room gets praise while others just do what's needed.
I worked with a small group of inexperienced people to explore expanding their leadership skills. The group worked on several tasks and changed leaders with each task.
The coordinator laid out the day, objectives, and suggestions, then ended with the criticisms. Had the coordinator stopped at suggestions, this essay would not be written.
Where the contrast comes is when I was observing my group work. I "led" by allowing the student leaders to do their jobs and kept my mouth shut until asked for advice.
Between tasks I shared some of my experiences, not as boasting, but as "when I had a similar challenge I approached it this way." Not as a dictate but as a discussion between me and the students about how to think through challenges.
In another instance the group leaders made a mistake, not a catastrophic one but a mistake nonetheless. I knew they erred but said nothing. Not two minutes after I noticed the error, the team co-leaders came up to me and asked for clarification and guidance. Instead of giving them the answer, we looked at the available data together, discussed it, then I asked for their analysis. They saw the error after this discussion and their own analysis. I did not give it to them.
This unseen leadership was not shared with the coordinator, it was not seen by the other mentors that were chastised publicly, it was not blasted over social media. This unseen leadership was just lessons and guidance to a group of students and it worked.
The unseen leaders are everywhere. They are the ones keeping things moving, teaching without a podium, and solving problems before anyone knows there was one. They do not need the debrief mention or the social media post. They already know what happened.