Be a BAD leader

Leadership notes #1.

How to be a bad leader so you can be outstanding at the things that matter the most.

I always did poorly in maths when I was in school. It didn’t matter how much or how long I studied; there was no improvement. In elementary school, I studied a lot. I would come home from school every day and immediately sit down with my homework. The house rule was ‘homework first’ - a rule that is vigorously enforced when your mother is a teacher, the fuck around and find out-teacher at that. 

I had to study many, many hours to become only a little bit better. And once I was a little bit better, I was still bad. The return on investment was awful. But I didn’t have much choice in school, I had to stick with it and work my ass off just to pass even if it felt like a huge waste of time as I would never be any good. And the truth is, it was a huge waste of time. 

Here’s what I learned that’s now become a staple leadership lesson we encourage all leaders and entrepreneurs, current and future, to take on board:

You have to be bad at some things to be great at what truly matters. 

The fact of the matter is that you can’t do it all. You can’t be great at everything, and trying is a waste of time. Trying to master everything is what’s creating all the tension you’re feeling; you don’t have enough time to support those around you to the extent they need, you don’t have the time to support yourself the way you need so you can show up as your best self, you frequently have to say no to meetings you feel like you should attend, you work overtime and miss dinner with your loved ones, and so on…

In an ideal world, one optimized for me to succeed, I would have taken the time I spent studying for maths and spent it studying for something I was great at already to make sure I excelled. Because becoming incredible at something is always going to be preferable to being okay-ish at something else.

You can’t be great at everything.

Get used to that truth now, and save yourself some stress. Here is the good news: you’re not supposed to be great at everything, and you have the opportunity right now to take a proactive approach and start figuring out what you do that matters the most to 1) yourself, and 2) those around you, so that you can do more of that and be great at it. 

If making the biggest impact is your goal, and it almost always is in one way or another as a leader, then you need to focus your resources on the things that make the biggest impact. 

So today’s homework for any current or future leader is this:

Ask yourself: “Of all the things I do, which matters the most to me?”

This is a good starting point, but to maximize the effect of this audit, I want you to ask your direct reports, your team, your partner - whoever may be the people most directly affected by your leadership the same question:

“Of all the things I do for you, which matters the most?”

You should put all your resources into these things and become excellent, incredible, and amazing at. 

In order to do that, you have to allow yourself to be bad at what matters less. Remember, you can’t master everything. If you’re going to have the capacity to be great at the things that matter, you have to relocate the resources spent on what matters less to what matters most. The consequence is that you will have something you’re bad at.

But I’m going to let you in on a secret; you were already bad at something, and this is nothing new. Now, you’re making a conscious choice to allow yourself to be bad at the things that matter less, which is a way better decision than remaining ignorant and accidentally being bad at the important things. 

Armed with this new knowledge, your job is to plan how you’ll make up for the things you’re bad at.