To Be a Better Leader Takes Practice

Several years ago, my daughter became engaged. After getting over the initial shock, my wife shared with me that we should take ballroom dance lessons to prepare for the father – daughter dance. My immediate reaction was to run away from this as fast as I could. My wife let it rest for a while but she brought it up again. To avoid dance lessons I developed a list of demands - private lessons, Monday evening & not expensive. I thought I had dodged this idea again.

I had a little bit of a reprieve until my wife found a dance teacher who met all my requirements. I was trapped. I had to go, but at least I wasn’t obligated to continue after the first lesson. At the initial dance lesson my biggest fears materialized. I couldn’t dance and I felt incredibility awkward. I was about to tell my wife that I wasn't going back when she preempted me by telling me that our daughter was very excited to hear about the dance lessons. The next time she was home she wanted to practice. I was stuck. There was no way I was going to disappoint our daughter on her special day.

The next lesson was worst than first because my apprehension about taking lessons had turned into reality. However, my wife was patient and the teacher knew how to coach me – build my confidence, get the simple steps going, let me fail and learn from my mistakes. After developing a bit more confidence and starting to be almost comfortable, the teacher told me it was time to get on the dance floor with other dancers and encouraged us to go to a dance. How do I avoid this?

There is a parallel between this story and trying to enhance leadership skills. At some point a manager is going to realize that they need to improve their skill set in order to deal more effectively with the challenges they face. With such an epiphany many of us are taken back. Denial and avoidance can set in as we try to work around the deficient skill. We are reminded over and over of this shortfall in our leadership skill set. It won’t go away.

At some point we may resign ourselves to addressing the need. We seek advice or read a book. But despite this preparation we remain hesitant to take the next step and put it into action. Why? Our reluctance to put into practice the new skill is partially attributable to the anxiety of doing something unfamiliar, the sense of awkwardness and the fear of failure.

It can be helpful to gather information and seek suggestions. However, to learn the new skills, you have to practice it in your work setting - you have to ‘get on the dance floor’. Eventually you muster enough courage to overcome those obstacles and try the new skill. There you feel insecure and conspicuous with a strong desire to flee. Most likely the initial attempts will be met with a sense of failure. Only through repetitive practice in the work setting do we acquire a new skill.

There are multiple requirements to achieving a change in your leadership skills – having a feedback system, understanding the mechanics, including coworkers in your efforts. All of these are important. The critical step to improving a skill is practice until the awkwardness dissipates and the skill is acquired.

One last note, we continue to take dance lessons. Our teacher wants us to learn how to tango. I’m not worried about it.