Leadership is Hard

As a leader, you are both the observer and the observed.

You are being observed, even when you are:

• Losing confidence, doubting yourself and questioning your capacity to live up to your personal aspirations, and the often-elevated expectations of the role. This feeling is often called the ‘imposter syndrome’.

• Lacking energy and focus, overwhelmed and distracted by the weight of responsibility and breadth and depth of issues. Emotionally drained and physically tired, you are trapped in the busyness of your life, working long hours but never seeming to make progress, working meeting to meeting, email to email.

• The results are not coming, despite setting goals and working hard., and when they do, it provides just the smallest respite, often serving to mask the real issues, personally and in the context of your team.

• Dealing with the complexity of leadership. Layered issues within your team that seem unresolvable, behaviours that are clearly outside of the purported values of the organisation, lacking accountability for actions and outcomes. Meanwhile, you’re struggling for ideas, inspiration and drive to fix it.

• Feeling isolated and exposed. You were once part of the team, now it feels like it’s just you, increasingly distanced from your team, and often, your personal support structures.