Invested Leadership · Chapter 06
06Change What You Can and Partner to Cover the Rest
You cannot be everything to everyone. Staff around it honestly.
“None of us is as smart as all of us.”Ken Blanchard
The problem
You cannot be everything to everyone. Staff around it honestly.
By this point in the book you know your gaps. The temptation is to fix all of them yourself, immediately, by force of will. That produces the worst possible outcome: care that is performed rather than felt, which your people will read correctly and hold against you.
Some leaders are not naturally the warm one and never will be. Pretending otherwise backfires. The question is not how to become a different person. It is how to make sure your people get what they need anyway.
Buffett and Munger
Warren Buffett has enough self-awareness to say plainly that he does not understand certain industries and technologies. Charlie Munger brought the other angles, challenged the assumptions, and focused on the risk. The Oracle of Omaha built the most famous partnership in business around a candid account of what he was not good at.
The chapter asks the same of you, on a smaller and more personal scale. Set aside time on a regular basis to inventory your strengths and weaknesses. Set aside time to learn how the people in your charge want to be cared for. Then set aside time to put the puzzle together.
Where you can build the skill, build it — and let recognition turn into intuition rather than into a checklist. Where you cannot, name the person on your leadership team who can, and hand that coverage to them deliberately. Doing that is not an admission of failure; it is itself an act of care.
The warning at the end is real: do not abdicate so much that you stop growing, or you will lose the locker room. And stop measuring yourself against other leaders. The only useful comparison is the leader you were yesterday.
Key takeaways
The authors’ own summary, from the end of the chapter.
- Be honest about your ability to care for those in your charge in each of the specific ways they require it. Do not force something inauthentic; it will backfire.
- Embrace the vulnerability inherent in working on yourself, and let others hold you accountable. True strength is born of growth, not smoke and mirrors.
- When you fill a gap yourself, let recognition lead to intuition and real change. Awareness is half the battle.
- You are not competing with other leaders. You are competing with the leader you were yesterday.
- Whenever you doubt your ability to authentically demonstrate care in some arena, lean on your leadership team to fill that gap. That is itself a way of demonstrating care.
- But do not abdicate too much leadership, or you will lose the opportunity to grow.
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.
Go further
Have them teach this
to your team.
This chapter is one talk in the keynote. The seminar is where your leadership team actually does the work.