I had a young leader I was working with mention that they had to “break” down a team of individuals they were working with so they could build them back up. In schools, I would imagine that we may hear this more from our athletic coaches talking about their athletes than anywhere else, but that is not the only place you hear this type of language. I say this because this is quite literally the underlying ethos of movies Hoosiers, Miracle, and many other sports movies.
Let’s start simple. The phraseology is terrible and should be abandoned. You DO NOT “break” human beings. Since that has been said, let’s move on.
When we move beyond the vernacular and examine the entire line of thinking I felt it was worthy of writing about because it is far more common than one would think. Many leaders when attempting to turn around the culture of a team, division, grade level, school, or organization think that they somehow must remove the habits or behaviors that they find do not align with their desired vision. These habits are almost never removed, they are changed.
It is almost as though there is this imagined time when through some type of coercion that the old habit vanishes and is replaced with the behavior that is more conducive to the desired outcome. Humans VERY rarely work this way. Change is a PROCESS.
Let’s start with the positive presupposition that every effective leader I know has – people want to be effective at whatever it is they are called to do. VERY few people wake up in the morning and say, “Let’s strive for average today.”
Another way of considering this is to think about how habits are built in the first place. Most people form habits out of success. That means they are repeating behaviors that once brought them success or at minimum positive reinforcement. So to change this behavior we must ensure they acutely understand WHY and HOW this behavior change is going to both benefit them and the organization.
If we behave in accordance with this positive presupposition, we would strive to replace old habits and behaviors in the same way the people we are leading initiated the habits and behaviors we wish to change. We teach, we explain, we provide the vision and the why, we support, we reinforce, and yes – we hold people accountable to the new expectation.
Leading is building people up from where they are at. To do that, we must know where they currently are and have their trust in order to move them forward. Breaking people relies on positional power and authority. To break someone down is quite literally the lowest form of leadership. If you have the ability to build someone up and help them establish new habits, you (the organization) will not only benefit from the changed behavior, but you will have an ally for life.
To summarize, breaking people exists from the presupposition that people can’t be better until they get worse first. True leadership should operate from the presupposition that people can’t be better until they’re shown the way they can be better and supported to get there.
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS TO GUIDE SOME THINKING
- When have you ever been ‘broken’ and as a result performed better?
- When have you ever been ‘broken’ and gained trust in the person attempting to break you?
- When you have been at peak performance, how did the person pushing you there behave?
- Are you willing to work harder for someone trying to break you down or build you up?
THE BEST THING I READ/WATCHED THIS WEEK
How to Break the Cycle of Bad Leadership by Kristi Busija
I really enjoyed this piece because it immediately recognizes that many leaders have a tendency to ‘act’ like a leader instead of critically thinking through their unique situation and their unique skills. Past that acknowledgement, there are a ton of solid tips in the short article. |
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