As Leaders we put a lot of focus on leading those around us and sometimes not enough focus on how well we are leading ourselves.
To what extent are we functioning to the best of our abilities? What is there, if anything, in the environment that’s hampering us? What aspects of the conditions we’re working under are influencing us negatively? If there are, we need to sit back, review as objectively as possible and consider our most appropriate leadership response. This is really important. How can we lead others if we’re unable to address the circumstances that are limiting our ability to lead ourselves? This isn’t intended to be damning just realistic albeit in what may be an unwelcome way.
Leading is about ‘how we show-up’. How are we showing-up whilst we’re fettered by some external constraint? We may be able to appear to lead just fine, but what toll is not addressing the situation taking on us? How well are we implementing self-care?
On the basis that there’s nothing fettering us from functioning to the best of our abilities we can consider our leadership impact from the perspective of whether what we do marries up with what we say. It’s known as the say-do gap. Do you have a say-do gap?
At first consideration we usually think, “No, no, I don’t have a say-do gap.” But then……. examples of this are asking people how they’re feeling but then not listening to their response or asking people to reply promptly to our emails but never replying promptly to theirs, imploring people to get involved with a particular initiative but then leaving before the end ourselves. The challenge of the say-do gap affects everyone. People notice say-do gaps. You will have noticed it in those around you.
Sometimes it is more difficult to recognise in ourselves because we don’t intend to have a say-do gap or we rationalise it away because ‘it was just a one off’ or ‘I don’t usually do that’.
One of the ways to evaluate our leadership impact is to consider our say-do gap. If we are unsure, we can ask those around us at home, work and socially, “what do I say I do but don’t?” … and be prepared for some potentially surprising answers. When we have these responses we can consider whether we are able to address the say-do gap and whether we want to address the say-do gap. Sometimes we need to enhance our abilities to close the say-do gap (so there’s something about being realistic about our abilities in the first place) and sometimes we need to improve our motivation to close the say-do gap, and sometimes it requires both improved ability and improved motivation.
Identifying and addressing our say-do gap(s) or blindspot(s) is an important step in improving our self-leadership particularly around our authenticity and integrity.