Leaders enter the danger.

Leaders don’t shy away from uncomfortable situations; they step right into the middle of them.  They enter the danger with courage to fearlessly deal with an issue that everyone else is afraid to address.  ~Patrick Lencioni

I should first clarify that when Patrick Lencioni made this statement he was actually referring to consultants as opposed to leaders.  I agree, this is great advice for consultants, but I also think it applies equally to leaders.

As I write this, I can think of numerous situations where clients are avoiding the elephant in the room.  In some cases it’s admittedly really difficult stuff, like a staff member who’s gravely ill but no one wants to talk about the implications of the work not getting done or even more importantly, the emotional impact it’s having on everyone, including the person who is ill.  In other cases it’s become a way of being or the modus operandi.  The issues are obvious, ranging from tension due to one or two team members who aren’t willing to be vulnerable and consequently it stifles any sense of trust among the team; or when there’s a blow-up between colleagues and they don’t apologize or talk it through, instead it’s handled very passively, essentially pretending like it never happened and we all just move on – or do we?

In some instances, I’ve seen these scenarios continue on for not only years, but decades.  Why do we put ourselves through this?  Why do we avoid this discomfort with such determination hoping that in time it will either resolve itself or simply go away?

There are probably a number of reasons.  One, and the most obvious, we just don’t like feeling uncomfortable.  We don’t like it so much that we’ll tolerate a lot of irritating discomfort until the situation turns into a crisis.  A physician friend once told me that he can tell patients what they need to do to improve their health but most don’t change their current M.O. until the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of getting better.  The same is true in organizations.  We’ll avoid addressing an issue or confronting a situation until the pain of avoiding it is greater than the pain of dealing with it.  Unfortunately, many times waiting until it reaches that point means someone may be asked to leave the organization.

Another reason we avoid these situations could be that we might have to face the reality that we, ourselves, contributed in some way to the uncomfortable situation.  The authors of Difficult Conversations distinguish between blame and contribution.  They say that blame is about judging, and looks backward, while contribution is about understanding, and looks forward.  The first question you should ask might be, “What did we each do or not do to get ourselves into this mess?”  The second question then might be “Having identified the contribution system, how can we change it?  What can we do about it as we go forward?”  Too often we deal in blame when our real goals are understanding and change.

As leaders, are we ready to enter the danger and fearlessly deal with an issue that everyone is afraid to address?  That elephant is going to stay with us until we gracefully and courageously coax it out of the room.