The Cost of Leadership: Giving Up the “Disliking Others” Card

Leading others comes with a cost. And while we like to talk about the benefits that come with leadership, we don’t like to focus on those costs. One of those is the “right” we feel we have to dislike others.

Part of being a relationally intelligent leader is the ability to engage in crucial conversations at the right time, in the right way, and in the right place. And to be effective there has to be both the skill to navigate those conversations and the will to have them in the first place.

It is that pesky “will” part that is the problem.

Let’s face facts. It is difficult to engage in productive, crucial conversations with people we don’t like.

Remember our definition of leadership, though.  “A leader does what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, regardless of how they feel about it in the moment.” In those moments when we aren’t “feeling” that engagement, it is our will that has to take over.

True leadership means giving up the “disliking others” card. It means sublimating our own feelings for the good of those we are aiming to help. When it comes to tough conversations, we have to be the ones to go first in setting aside the emotion of the moment to get to the root of the challenge.

This doesn’t mean that we have to become robots. It does mean that we have to be intentional about building the capacity of our emotional intelligence. That is a skill.

When the skill of our emotional intelligence aligns with the humility of our will, we are more apt to go first in paying the price for this part of our leadership. That cost means giving up the perceived “right” we sometimes feel like we have to dislike others.

That payment is something we must give to those we lead.