As we have previously examined, leading or driving change is often a defining trait among leaders. As a result, leaders are refered to as change agents..
Despite its ubiquity, however, most change is as ill-focused and misconceived as it is well-intentioned.
Why? Because too many leaders are are primarily focused on changing things around them rather changing things within them.
The reasons for this may be inclusive of, but are not necessarily exclusive to, the following:
- the insecurity of the leader
- a lack of self awareness by the leader
- overestimation of self by the leader
The best leaders, however, realize that they can not lead people where they (themselves) have not already gone. Thus, they focus their most ruthless efforts at change upon themselves.
These leaders realize how hard it is to change; how much energy it takes to change; how much diligence it takes to stay with change; and what it feels like to be under the ruthless reign of their own efforts to change.
Because they turned the hotest flames of change upon themselves, they know what is feels like to be pushed too hard and they know what it feels like to breakthrough when you feel like you are going to breakdown.
These leaders understand that meaningful change is not just moment in time but over time and that ground hard won must be defended at great cost against the forces of retreat and entropy.
These leaders, if they are really good, have been such regular subjects of their own efforts to change that they know, first hand, the deep joys of success and the crushing dissapointment of failure under their own leadership.
All of this does several things for the extraordinary leader who drives change from the inside-out. In them, theory becomes experience; knowledge becomes wisdom, insufferability becomes empathy.
The brave leaders who have willingly and frequently subjected themselves to the hammer, file and fire of change have earned the leadership "cred" to ask others join them. These leaders can invite those they lead to change via the clear evidence of "been there, done that, have the scars".
Great leaders don't simply point in a difficult direction and command those they lead to go . . much rather, they see the great difficulty before them and courageously lean in; encouraging others to follow them.
In truth, those leaders who would exact ruthless change upon others while sparing themselves the same "priviledge" are little more than cowards and tyrants.
In the main, these leaders are generally not succesful. Not in the true and lasting sense. Sure, they extract temporary measures of success from the earnest efforts of others . . but they will never be respected or revered. Only the most shallow and materialistic will hold them in any esteem . . fleeting at that.
The great leader, however, turns the knife of salary cuts most harshly upon their own income. They forgoe pleasures and privileges they could have because they know those that they lead dream of pleasures and privileges they can never have. Great leaders don't make a big deal of the little they do while making little of the big work those they lead do.
When I was a young boy, I once camped outside in an empty refrigerator box. As no camping experience would be complete without a flashlight, I remember closing the flaps on my box and turning on my falshlight in the pitch-blackness of a cloudy summer night. I can still remember how that flaslight lit up the entire inside of the box. A little later I went outside and turned the beam of my flashlight on the dark sky above me. I still remember being struck by how the light beam seemed to just get absorbed by the vast darkness. Despite shining my light out upon the darkness around me it seemed to have no impact as the vast darkness simply swallowed up the light.
This has become a powerful metaphor for me regarding change. The impact of the light of change is much greater when it is turned inside than it is when it is focused on vast things around us.