Leadership Weightlifting: Essential Responsibilities and Unnecessary Burdens

People lift weights for a variety of reasons - some for sport or hobby, others for health and/or fitness. While I am not an expert on weightlifting, I do know that you can make mistakes in how and what you lift – and doing it incorrectly can cause injuries and problems. Leaders are weightlifters too. Some of the weights they lift and carry are important – and doing those well are important to their success. But there are other weights they lift that they don’t need to be carrying at all.

This article describes the weights leader must lift, and those they would likely be better off putting down.

Weights Leaders Must Carry

There are some weights, some responsibilities that leaders must carry. Not carrying them doom your success. Not carrying them well reduces impact and increases your stress and anxiety levels. Here are some of the responsibilities or weights that come with leading.

• Modeling. Whether you like it or not, or know it or not, as a leader people are watching you. Your behavior is a model others are following. Stated another way, every leader is a role model – the only question is if you are modeling what you want them to follow. This is an important and sometimes heavy weight.
• Responsibilities. As a leader, you have ultimate responsibility for many things – but not all are things you actually do any more. One of the toughest transitions in moving from an individual contributor to a leader is how to deal with a change in your role of responsibilities. You are still responsible for outcomes, but less often for doing the work itself.
• Accountabilities. Accountability is ownership. The best leaders take ownership of the actions and outcomes of their teams. They are the outward face of the team and their work. This can be a heavy weight – especially if things aren’t going well.
• Expectations. The expectations of leaders come from all sides, the team, more senior leaders, customers (internal and external) and perhaps others. We will carry this weight far more effectively and with less stress if we are clear on what the expectations are.
• Culture. Culture is “the way things are done around here.” While leaders aren’t the only owners of culture, because of both position and modelling, they play a big role in the success or failure of the culture’s ability to impact results.
• Development of the team. As leaders we have a responsibility to help the team and individual team members learn and grow. If the team isn’t growing, we aren’t doing the job completely.

Weights Leaders Can Drop

There are other weights leaders are lifting and carrying that aren’t serving them. At a minimum, carrying these things fatigue us from carrying those more important. But carrying these can be worse than that – they can damage our psyche and results, increase our stress, and lead to overwhelm. Just like lifting too much weight physically can hurt us, carrying unnecessary weight as leaders is detrimental to ourselves and our work results.

• Impostor Syndrome. Impostor syndrome is a moment (or more often a habit) of doubting your skills, talents or accomplishments. Leaders can be plagued by the feeling that their role or accomplishments haven’t been deserved. Carrying that feeling and the anxiety that comes with it is a weight that isn’t serving you and adds to mental fitness challenges.
• Expectations. While there are plenty of expectations leaders do need to understand and carry, there are self-imposed ones, the weight of which can be crippling. Some of those expectations lead to some of the other weights on this list.
• Desire/need to know it all. Often people are promoted because they are subject matter experts. As leaders, acting as if they have (or need to have) all the answers no longer serves them. You can lay this weight down when you realize your team doesn’t need you to know it all – but know enough to help them by asking good questions, not correcting them or taking over at every opportunity.
• Micromanagement. That desire (of belief) of knowing it all often leads to micromanagement – a trait that no one has ever hoped for in a boss. Feeling you have to check or approve everything is a heavy weight on you – and creates weights of low confidence, anxiety and more in your team too.
• Perfection. Connected to others on this list, the weight of perfection is heavy. In a complex and uncertain world, chasing perfection is harder and more elusive than ever.
• Worry. Leaders may say they have plenty to worry about. Here is a more accurate (and healthy) statement: Leaders have plenty to care about. Most studies and personal experience will show that most worry is counterproductive and doesn’t help anyway. Worrying about things you have little influence on is a weight you can put down.

Leadership Weightlifting

Ask yourself how you are doing in carrying your required loads, but also what weights you are carrying that aren’t serving you and your team. When you drop those weights, you will be better able to lift and carry those you do need.

Leadership is complex and hard enough without carrying things you don’t need. Especially when carrying those weights damages your performance, mental and emotional health and fitness too.