As Your Vision of Leadership Evolves, So Does Your Life

Balance scale

Source: PICRYL

Though every leader has a vision, they realize (soon enough) that “has” is not a static term. Maybe “lives with” is more accurate, since any starter-vision can evolve. It’s subject to experience. So, of course, a leader must evolve along with their vision. How else can they accommodate it? Over time, there’s a give and take. Pursuing a vision is an organic process where you’re also redesigning yourself.

Does this sound a little New Age? It’s not. Just think about it.

Any vision that we see for ourselves—as it slowly, even painfully comes into focus—must sync up with how we work on ourselves to achieve it. Along the way, we can’t expect total clarity as to who we may become (if for no other reason than we’re still becoming). We may even ask fundamental questions about whether we are up to the task and, even more fundamentally, whether what we are trying to achieve is right for us.

In other words, questions will arise as to who we are and who we want to be, which only we can answer. No one else can do our introspection for us. No one else has our imagination. So, my point is that setting out to make a vision a reality requires that we understand what motivates us, what really makes us tick.

At the very least, in becoming a leader we should be confident that that’s what we really want. It’s one thing to have an abstract idea (“I want to lead a dance troupe,” “I want to lead a green culinary movement”) and another to integrate that idea with our lives. Are we willing to sacrifice, and experience the demands on our time that are required if we commit to such an effort? Can we put up with the displacement of what used to be our priorities? Can we brush off comments by people who sigh, “I don’t know you anymore—you’re so obsessed”? In effect, when we start living our vision, we must be able to live with ourselves (though we may not have anticipated the challenges that that might entail).

Of course, we project our vision outwards, onto the world. But living with a vision draws us back towards ourselves in an exercise of getting to know who we are and feeling comfortable with that. If we’re not comfortable with ourselves, then it will be hard to maintain a vision, much less work towards making it a reality. If you display some misgivings towards yourself (“Oh, I apologize for seeming so singularly focused”), it’s unlikely that other people will be willing to follow your lead. They may wonder, for example, “If that person is so uncomfortable with what they think, why should I be any less so?” If you pick up on their hesitancy, you may become even less sure of yourself, creating a vision-killer vicious circle.

I’m thinking along these lines because my client Lee had to negotiate two competing visions for her life. One entailed leadership, one did not. She had to reconcile them and experienced a fierce either/or internal debate. She had to determine whether to take up the challenge—which she never sought—by determining whether it was personally right for her, given her other personal goals.

What’s interesting, however, is that even though she experienced a personal struggle, it entailed the intervention of so many other people. They all feel entitled to consideration. As my client came around to accepting the challenge, she discovered that even determining who she is/was/should be may not be so intimate a decision as she had imagined. But her experience is typical: A vision is rarely just our own. Nevertheless, we need to be comfortable with it. It needs to be sufficiently our own so that we can commit to it.

So, pursuing a vision requires a delicate balance among our own wishes and those of others (in which “others” may also include the cultural expectations in our community). Lee set out to find this balance, but not without some soul-searching and with a lot of help. So, as you think about how you would handle the self-exploration required to accommodate a vision, ask yourself:

• Am I an accidental leader, who more or less fell into the role? If so, what practical and psychological work must I do to a) accept the role with enthusiasm or b) definitively reject it?
• Whom do I trust to advise me?
• Is leadership in one area of my life compatible with my other roles?
• Will I like myself if I become a leader and need to adjust other aspects of life to continue in that role effectively?

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Self-Oriented Versus Other-Oriented Leadership

Very few roles in life are forever. If you accept a leadership position, there is no shame in finally concluding that it is not for you. Still, you don’t want to accept such a position lightly. Just as you need to like yourself as a leader, you’ll need to like and respect yourself if you walk away.

On the other hand, you might find that leadership suits you or that you‘re gaining valuable experience. To settle in, it’s worthwhile asking people who have done similar things and made the role their own. Leadership roles are malleable, and we should not be afraid of their becoming some rigid, all-encompassing prison. Nor should we be afraid that they will make the rest of our lives impossible. A leader remains in control of how their vision affects their life.

Thus, while leadership is always more than just a job, it need not be totally transformative. You will still have a personal life outside your role; much depends on how much you give to that role. If you can get the job done in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable level of effort, then you are in he clear. Worrying and obsessing over what a leadership role will do to your life—how it will change your relationships and sense of self—is pointless until you have embarked on it. Save your stress for when you actually begin to lead.