What Are We Looking For?

What Are We Looking For?

John Paul Derryberry

Years ago, I sat in a bland office room meeting with even blander professionals talking with me about professionalism. They quoted cliched motivational poster lines in an attempt to get across their message. When that didn't work, the excuses, blaming their failed interventions on other staff, and the blatant disregard for their role in this outcome baffled me. I have been in numerous meetings discussing professionalism and leadership. Some of those meetings were about my professionalism, some about the professionalism of others. A lot of them are very warranted conversations. Leadership is tricky and not as easy as movies and TV shows make it look. But, I have often wondered in these meetings, did people seek out the role of leadership or did they seek out the pay of leadership, and the leading is an annoyance until payday.

I'm not the perfect leader; no one is. It's a constant battle to ignore your impulsive streak and worse instincts and attempt to go with your best thought processes and better qualities. After 18 years in the professional world, I have asked why anybody thought that particular person would make a good leader. Maybe they were the best of the bunch that wanted the job. Sadly, many of my conversations with other professionals are that same question, dissatisfaction with the leaders we choose. Does the question then turn to what are we looking for in leaders? After numerous studies of successful leaders and good-to-great leaders writing countless leadership books, how have we not solved this equation?

In some respect- leadership is overrated. A great group of folks can overcome one person's inabilities for a while. It's why a lot of leaders suffer from imposter syndrome. They sit around and think, how are we successful, because I feel in over my head. A feeling I have had once or twice when starting as a leader. But in other respects, it's vastly underrated. Because in times of crisis, we look to our leaders and see how they are reacting. Maybe we should conduct interviews for leadership positions in a simulated emergency. The famous Mike Tyson quote comes to mind here, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

More so than anything, as I have been an agency-wide leader for the last five years at two different agencies, I think the answer lies with why you first decided to take the path toward leadership. It was dissatisfaction with the treatment of front-line staff in the field. Too many leaders in my orbit treated us as an afterthought in the decision matrix. I carry that feeling with me every day and ask myself constantly whether this decision will make it easy for my front-line staff to do their job. Will this decision show the front-line staff I respect what they offer our community? And does this decision communicate the respect I have for folks working directly with clients?

Maybe that's the correct way to tackle this task of leading; perhaps it isn't. Possibly that's the trick to leadership, never thinking you have it figured out. After a career in the same field, I don't think people truly know what makes a good-to-great leader. We are still blindly throwing darts at the wall, or worse, we feel we have it figured out and are casting the wrong types of folks into leadership roles. It brings us back to the original question: What are we looking for from our leaders? I think a whole lot more than we are currently getting.