Welcome To Leadership, It Always Comes With A Price.

Leaders Are Like Little League Coaches, They Must  Endure The Price.

Experience is overrated.  I know it takes a lot of bloody noses to learn how to do some things very well.  Some of us are slower learners than others.  I know that, too.  Some of the best lessons we learn in life come from the worst experiences we have endured.  Some of the worst experiences we endure take a few times for us to get it down correctly.  At the end of this process we become experienced, worn out, but experienced.  That's why experience can sometimes be overrated.  Welcome to leadership.  It always comes with a price.

The harsh realities teach us a lot about how to do some things better.  Sometimes we become better parents, better coaches or better business owners from the terrible failures we produced in our life.  Our trail of failures can come littered with lessons that are well learned.  The mess we made of the lessons we learned can be made up of life long wounds.  That is why experience can be overrated.  The prices we paid to get it figured out may be with us forever.  Welcome to leadership.  It always comes with a price.

Some of the best leaders in this world have endured many perfect storms.  Those storms have managed to damage bits and pieces of the life trail those leaders performed.  The bloody noses they discovered while getting their life lessons have left a trail of obvious wounds.  Sometimes those wounds never seem to heal.  One thing is for sure, those leaders know what to do correctly the next time that kind of decision reaches the surface again.  Those leaders carry a lot more wisdom after the damage gets delivered from the decisions they failed to make properly the first time around.  We become a lot smarter when we try to fix how the bleeding started.  Welcome to leadership.  It always comes with a price.

Hindsight is 20/20.  We know that.  We also know how to see what we should have done when our decisions find a bloody nose result.  'Oops' usually does not cut it when a leader makes a terrible mistake.  Leaders must prepare for a larger line of criticism for the mistakes they deliver.  The expectations we place on leaders are higher.  We hold our leaders to some higher standards than we are willing to lay out for ourselves.  We give our own mistakes a lot more leeway than those made by the leaders we meet.  We expect our leaders to know more, to do more, to perform better and certainly to succeed more often.  We hold our leaders to higher standards than we are willing to perform ourselves.  It comes natural.  Welcome to leadership.  It always comes with a price.

If blame is to occur, the leader will likely learn how to wear it.  That is what leaders do.  They wear the blame.  They may not produce the ill that caused the blame to surface, but instead, they are often held responsible for not preventing the ill to arrive.  In the end it is the leaders fault.  The leader sitting in the leadership chair will be the one who carries the blame for the bloody noses we must endure.  That is exactly how leadership works.  Welcome to leadership, it's more than business.  It is life.

I watched a mother in a grocery store a while back have an episode with her young boy.  At that time, she was his leader.  Unfortunately, that episode did not reveal this truth.  The boy was in control and driving the bus with his terrible temper tantrum.  I could see many faces in the crowd that wanted the mother to smack the boy 'up side the head.'  He was rude, selfish, out of control and wrong.  His mother was paying the price.  She was getting a serious lesson on leadership.  Her bloody nose was growing.  She was growing more embarrassed while the boy increased how he was lashing out.  I could see the eyes of the other people standing around this scene.  They were blaming the leader.  They wanted to say, "Do something!  Take control!"  Welcome to leadership.  It always comes with a price.

Some Would Just As Soon Hide From Leadership Roles!

Many years ago another young boy was in a small prison somewhere in California.  He was serving time as an adult for setting deathly fires.  His prison cell was one of the early kind that was padded for the protection of the inmate.  This young boy was determined to be a threat to himself.  As a result, he was remanded to live his term in this padded cell for his own protection.  The prison was required by the courts to build this special 'padded' cell.  After several months of managing this process, the boy was able to find some matches inside those prison walls.  He eventually set fire to his padded cell.  He lost his life in that fire.  Two other inmates lost their lives in that fire.  A large portion of the prison was terribly damaged by that fire.  The families of the other two inmates successfully sued the management of that prison for installing the required padded material in that boy's cell.  Welcome to leadership.  It always comes with a price.

We forget about the price a leader must pay.  We consider it to be the same price we followers pay.  The prison did not strike the match.  It did not set the fire.  It did not raise the troubled boy.  It only paid the bill for what went wrong.  Our society is littered with this kind of activity.  Paths and trails are lined deep with wrong impressions about who pays the price.  If a single leader does not understand this truth...that leader has no business trying to accept a leadership role.  Life does not play fair.  Leaders soon learn this truth.  That is why it is so hard to get volunteers to step up to the plate and head a small project.  When asked in a crowd for someone to lead the way, nobody raises their hand.  Most want nothing to do with leadership stuff.  They know exactly what it brings.  When someone then gets appointed to lead the way, the jesting begins.  The others who did not raise their hands to be the volunteer leader, begin to go to work on bringing down the appointed leader with some clever jokes about what is expected.  Welcome to leadership.  Leadership always comes with a price.

When a person decides to begin their own business they agree to host the leadership role.  Business owners agree to leadership.  Leadership comes by default.  The prices that will be delivered for that owner to pay for the leadership they assume will be unwanted and sometimes cruel.  That is a certain truth.  The business owner will soon learn all about the price of leadership.  They will discover how expensive leadership can become.  They will learn how to take the blame for things they did not do.  They will learn how to endure false accusations.  They will learn how to manage misrepresentations.  They will be held accountable for results out of their control.  They will be judged by the way things turn out.  They will almost find criticism hanging around every single corner of thought and process they produce.  They will be condemned for the things they did not see.  They will be the ones who must address all of the complaints.  Welcome to leadership.  It always comes with a price.

I cannot tell a new business owner that this kind of stuff will not happen to them when they decide to operate their own business model.  That would be a bold faced lie.  However, I can tell them that they will learn how to grow up and become a better person for the things they will be expected to endure.  I can tell them that it will not be a walk of fairness, even though they must remain fair.  I can tell them that they will learn how to manage the world around them that represents a lot of forms of double standards.  I can tell them that nobody else will likely understand what they are trying to endure.  I can tell them that they will be held to higher standards than those standing around them.  I can also tell them that they will be able to see many things quite a bit differently than they did before their leadership role.  These few things I am confident that I will be able to comfortably share.  They will witness them.  Welcome to leadership.  It always comes with a price.  There is a reason why so few will raise their hand to accept this kind of role.  We all know what it brings.

Likely, when that mother was pregnant with that small boy, she did not recognize how she had quietly agreed to become his leader.  She most likely did not see her hand go up when that boy began looking for his leader.  She became it.  When someone lashes out like that little boy did in the grocery store, they lash out because they do not know how to solve problems.  The prison law suit included a lot of people who did not know how to solve problems.  The lawsuit was the result of some people who lashed out.  It is the leaders who are expected to solve the problems we all endure.  That is exactly why we do not raise our hands.  We do not have the right kinds of solutions to solve the problems we are all living to endure.  Leaders pick themselves.  They begin their leadership work by trying to solve some of the problems that run next to where they live, work and play.  Leaders find a way to surface where the fire is the hottest.  Harry Truman once said it best, "If you cannot handle the heat in the kitchen, get out!"

Welcome to leadership, it always comes with a price.  It is unavoidable.

Until next time...