As with all high-performing individuals, leaders are susceptible to slumps. Just because the leader is in a personal slump does not mean that it will adversely affect the organization. When this phase in life is handled thoughtfully, the team can continue progressing toward the established goals.
An organization does not need to lag when the leader lags. If the mechanisms are in place, the people are trained to those processes, and the culture nurtures grace, then the leader can take care of their own issues without dragging down the whole place.
I was the worst at handling these performance setbacks early in life. Sometimes, I still feel that I am not as good as I should be at dealing with slumps. However, every time I find myself in one of these ruts, I start journaling how I am working out of the deficit to take away learning points from each of them.
I grew up believing hard work produced significant returns. If my performance was starting to slip, I thought it was because I was not working hard enough. I did not learn until later that my drop in performance was a product of my capacity. The diagram below shows how my performance would go through its life cycle. Whether it was as an athlete, a pilot, or a growing leader, these common trends presented themselves almost every time.
Desire and drive were naturally part of my character. These items, coupled with positive results, kept me moving intensely in my endeavor. At any sign of a stumble, I would just put more effort into it. As the stumbles started multiplying, I would keep adding more effort to overcome the poor performance. This “death spiral” would continue until I hit the breaking point where I would finally burn out. My ability to perform would fall to uselessness. Once in the slump of uselessness, the negative thoughts of self-worth would take over any desire and drive to rebuild. The low point got drawn out because of the negative mindset. At the bottom is where the greatest temptation to quit becomes appealing.
It is easy for leaders to fall into this trap as well. I call this leadership type “Martyr Leaders.” They will control everything, let everyone know they are dying for the group’s cause, and wear themselves to the point where they are useless. They begin to become emotionally bitter, which eventually leads to deteriorating relationships within and outside the organization.
MY OBSERVED PROCESS TO CHANGE AND IMPROVE THE PATTERN
What if I told you the solution for me was as easy as a skateboarder’s mantra? “Acknowledge, Accept, and Move On.” During college, I watched a group of skateboarders working their skills on the steps in front of the theatre department. When they crashed or fell, they would gather themselves up, knock off the dust, and go at it again.
I asked them how they could stay dedicated and motivated when they spent so much time on a particular maneuver. The group universally answered with the same ideology: Acknowledge (that the trick did not work), Accept (what was done incorrectly), and Move On (to try this again). This type of mindset kept negativity at bay. It let the skateboarder know that they were not likely to get a new trick on the first try. The fun was in learning how to make the impossible possible.
This new line of thinking enabled me to move out of my destructive ways and create a better training program for myself. It did not work well at first, but I came up with the idea in the diagram below to build a better growth pattern. The best part was that I stopped taking myself so seriously.
ACKNOWLEDGE YOU ARE HEADING FOR A SLUMP
The biggest mistake I made was pushing away any thought that I was on my way into a slump. I believed that if I did not admit to it, it would not happen. However, performance has a life cycle: it moves up and down like the stock market.
I’ve observed others in this situation lie to themselves too. Denying you are in a slump is the worst thing you can do for yourself. It forces you to push yourself (and others) harder than the current capacity will allow. Just because you deny the existence of the slump does not mean it is not there.
After you have acknowledged it to yourself, bring in your confidant - your trusted advisor. As a growing leader, having a confidant is invaluable. Not only can you admit to yourself that you are in a slump, but you can voice it out loud for you to hear. Your confidant is there to be your sounding board, not to solve your problem. By hearing it out loud, you start forming solutions to help you move into the next phase.
ACCEPT YOU WILL HAVE TO MOMENTARILY SCALE BACK YOUR EFFORT
Where I grew up in North Dakota, it did not matter how smart or talented you were, but whether you put equal effort into the community. It felt as if others judged me about the effort I put into my work or my athletic training more than the magnitude of the results themselves.
I would eventually learn about working “smarter, not harder.” When I gained more work experience away from North Dakota, I realized that the people in charge enjoyed my work ethic, but the results were more important to them.
Accepting that you need to scale back your efforts will allow your mind, spirit, and body to recover and reset for another phase of growth. It is not giving up but learning to rest for the next period of the cycle.
MOVE ON AND REESTABLISH YOUR STARTING POINT
I am not a fan of the phrase “moving on.” The sentiment seems non-committal. I find the phrase “moving forward” to show more direction and determination. It’s like the difference between velocity and vector: one is just movement, the other is movement in a particular direction.
Start with what you know best. Usually, it is in your basics that you excel. The idea is to gain some small victories, which will beget other small victories. Together, the small wins will become a more significant wins.
Expectation management is a vital skill to learn. Move one to your next known strength. Make some more small victories on top of the previous ones.
Next, assess where your new capacity limits are without judgment. If the goal is empirical, I begin to use a stretch goal of about a 4% capacity increase above my last known performance benchmark. It is usually an intermediate goal that builds towards the ultimate goal. By incorporating intermediate checkpoints in your progress, you do not get hung up on the immediacy of the end state.
As you noticed from the above graph, each cycle builds a little bit greater performance. The chart below shows how the Smart Strategy has more quality than the Herculean Effort.
I dislike setbacks as much as the next person. However, a good leader knows themselves well enough to work through their cycle. By understanding themselves, a leader can coach their team through their slumps as well. The team will now learn to recognize and provide grace to others working through a slump. When the team learns to support each other mutually, the organization’s culture grows.
A slump is not the end of the journey. Think of it like what sleep does for our bodies to recover. We learn to rest, so we do not quit. Understanding our pattern along the journey improves our ability to succeed in our goals. I was in the middle of a slump as I worked on this article for the last week. It was this process that allowed me to continue to be productive. We learn to Acknowledge, Accept, and Move On.
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