Here are 7 high costs of leadership:
Personal agenda
Good leaders give up their personal desires for the good of others, the team or the organization.
Control
What you control you limit. Good leaders give freedom and flexibility to others in how they accomplish the
predetermined goals and objectives.
Popularity
Leading well is no guarantee a leader will be popular. In fact, there will be times where the opposite is
more true. Leaders take people through change. Change is almost never initially popular. I wrote a whole
chapter about this principle in my book The Mythical Leader.
Comfort
If you are leading well you don’t often get to lead “comfortably”. You get to wrestle with messiness and
awkwardness and push through conflict and difficulty. It’s for a noble purpose, but it isn’t easy.
Fear
Good leadership goes into the unknown. That’s often scary. Even the best leaders are anxious at times
about what is next.
Loneliness
I believe every leader should surround themselves with other leaders. We should be vulnerable enough to
let others speak into our life. But, there will be days when a leader has to stand alone. Others won’t
immediately understand. On those days the quality of strength in a leader is revealed. This one should
never be intentional, but when you are leading change…when it involves risk and unknowns – this will
often be for a season a significant cost.
Outcomes
We follow worthy visions. We create measurable goals and objectives. We discipline for the tasks ahead.
We don’t, however, get to script the way people respond, how times change, or the future unfolds.
As leaders, we should consider whether we are willing to pay the price for good leadership. It’s not cheap!
The Cost Of Leadership
by Kathryn Edmunds Florida Atlantic University Feb 22, 2016
National Campus Leadership Council
1.1k
Many are willing to accept the benefits and perks that come with leadership, but few are
willing to accept the true cost of being a leader. Are you ready to pay the price?
1. You will never do enough.
A common aphorism is that you can’t please everybody, and this is particularly true in
leadership. Someone will always be sure to tell you that your point of view or your
actions are not enough or are simply wrong, and this is usually followed by a series of
statements telling you how to do your job. This is not to discredit those who are very
supportive and who have good advice or input. It is simply important to remember that
many will very suddenly speak as experts on leadership when situations don’t end up in
their favor. As leaders, we must be conscious of this fact. Much is expected of us, but
great work can feel adequate to others when it is all that is produced.
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2. You will often be alone.
Leadership can sometimes feel lonely. This is not to say that you are absolutely alone in
your struggles (if you are, then you are not practicing good leadership), but not
everybody is willing to put in the effort and the long hours and deal with the myriad
issues that seem to constantly arise. When the storm hits and the sky falls, very few will
be willing to stand firm; sometimes, nobody does. As leaders, we must remember that
we work for others rather than for ourselves and that we can’t expect more of others
than we do of ourselves. With our backs to the wall, we must simply muddle through the
struggle. We have to be willing to work the hardest, even when everyone else has
dropped out.
3. Your freedom will be sacrificed.
As leaders, much is expected of us, but what many don’t realize is that much, typically
most, of the work comes at a very personal cost. In order to truly practice leadership and
to truly make an impact in others’ lives, we have to sacrifice ourselves for the greater
good. Free time doesn’t exist; time is sparing, and most of it is consumed by or
prioritized for the work, leaving very little time for personal lives with friends and family.
Free speech also disappears. As a leader, especially one who represents many
individuals, your personal opinion doesn’t matter. You must be able and willing to put
yourself aside and speak as a representative rather than as an individual. You will
constantly be on call to carry out your role and you will always be expected to do the
work, even when others are unwilling.
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4. You might lose yourself.
The best leaders put others first, but this can be draining. When leaders are constantly
beset by put-downs and surrounded by dissatisfaction, working so hard and for so long
feels useless. We begin to lose faith in ourselves and in our work, wondering who we are
and why we are here. This is why effective leaders work in teams: with many hands at
work, both the effort and the support are more readily available. It is important to
remember why we work and what we value most. In times of pain or loss, these things
can become easy to forget, making it easy to forget who we are as individuals and as
leaders.
5. And your friends, too.
The bond of friendship is a powerful one, but it can be strained by the effort involved in
leadership. Great leaders always put others first, which often results in allotting the
majority of our time for work rather than for play. Friends and family will feel left out or
unappreciated because they are not given as much time as they would like. We don’t
spend so little time with friends and family because we don’t care about them but
because we prioritize the people that we serve. Leadership is a relationship, and leaders
have relationships with more than just their friends.
6. You are always being watched.
The metaphor of the fishbowl is oft-used in leadership education. The theory is that
leaders reside in a giant fishbowl, working with only a few individuals but always being
observed by others. Every move, every word, is under incredible scrutiny. As leaders,
we have to continuously be conscientious about our decisions, our words, our actions,
even our facial and bodily expressions, so that we best represent those whom we serve.
This is not to say that we misrepresent ourselves, simply that we must sometimes
censor ourselves or behave very intentionally so that we serve others as best we can
and so that we can maintain credibility and authenticity.
7. You will see more hypocrisy than you can
handle.
Leaders are expected to genuinely care about others and to always put others before
the self, but many individuals in positions of authority do not practice this self-sacrifice.
Many are unwilling to risk comfort or public perception for others’ sakes; in fact, many
individuals working in positions of authority often take opportunities to help themselves.
It is always difficult to work in a system that is meant to build others up when those in the
system seem determined to tear others down. Sometimes we feel powerless to stop the
injustice of hypocrisy, but this is what we fight for. Leadership is about serving others—if
we do not fight our hardest to fix these broken systems, the people we serve will never
see real progress.
8. Not everyone will like you.
It is impossible to reach everybody, and it is inconceivable to be liked and understood by
all of those whom we reach. Many people will not take the time to get to know you and
your message. Others will default to hostility and actively oppose you, for one reason or
another. It is important to understand that there will always be naysayers. We must
remain vigilant in our struggles, ever diligent in our work, or none of it will matter.
9. You will doubt yourself.
With all of the mounting pressure, the constant naysayers, and the lack of immediate
results, the first thing you will do is begin to doubt yourself. You will feel inadequate and
only see the shortcomings in your leadership. You will question who you are as a person
and suddenly feel like the only result in all of your efforts will be failure. Don’t forget that
if you doubt yourself due to the overwhelming weight, it means that you care. Everything
we do as leaders comes with the risk of failure or of simply not being enough, but we
know that it is more important to always do our best rather than to simply quit.
10. You will have to make the hard
decisions.
Leaders are often faced with what seem like impossible decisions. We are sometimes
forced to make decisions that have the potential to help some and hurt others. At other
times, there is a single positive outcome in which all benefit, but the outcome comes at
the cost of a greater benefit to some and a potential harm to others. These are the lives
we lead. Our decisions carry impact because of the positions of power in which others
place us. Always remember your values and the needs of the people. Remove yourself
from the equation, think only of those you serve, and do your best to create the greatest
positive change for all.
11. You will fail.
This is perhaps the most important lesson. Time and again, you will fail. More than once,
the people and the circumstances on which you depended will disappear. All of the effort
and the time will feel wasted and those around you will demean you and will begin to
doubt the vision. We must remember that the most worthy causes are often the most
difficult. Failure is a learning experiences that demonstrates what actions and
circumstances work and which don’t. It is impossible to succeed without first failing.