A Leadership Carol
Last week, I was present at a year-end staff gathering, a sombre yet necessary ritual with a client and their devoted team. As is the custom in these twilight meetings of the year, the good folk were bid to recount their small triumphs, both personal and professional, and to articulate the hopes—the meagre flickering candles—for the year yet to dawn. 'Twas a convivial exchange, replete with the honest sharing and fellowship that warms the coldest boardroom.
Yet, a certain utterance from one soul lingers with me, a ghost of a remark. This good person confessed a struggle, a deep inability to truly gaze upon the year that was, or to plot a course for the year ahead. Not for a lack of bright achievements to speak of, nor for a poverty of exciting ventures to undertake. Nay, the affliction lay in the crushing weight of the present moment—the burdens and the incessant pressure of today, which, like a fog of the grimiest London smog, prevented any proper contemplation of the past or the future.
This ceaseless pressure, this modern malady, acted as a spiritual block, a stout iron door against reflection and contemplation. And though the pressures were not always of a dark nature—indeed, some of the toil was of the most positive and fulfilling kind—the inability to gaze back and ponder ahead made me turn the lens upon my own weary soul. I recalled the seasons when the day's labours pressed down so heavily that they wrought a mental tension, a veritable vise, which strangled my very capacity for leadership. How many times did the spectre of too many deadlines, too many trifling tasks, or endless, droning meetings descend, bringing with it a profound and paralyzing decision fatigue? I was a man incapable of countenancing a single further choice, let alone the luxury of reflective thought.
This foul fatigue, this mental exhaustion, caused all my finer, intangible leadership qualities to vanish as if they were but wisps of smoke. Where once I had been a soul of curiosity, I became closed and guarded. Where I had been a spirit of engagement, I retreated into isolation. Where I had shown the blessed virtue of patience, I now bristled with irritation. Looking back, I saw this same chill creeping over countless others who laboured alongside me. When the fire of the work burned hottest, the hearts of the people grew coldest. But, blessedly, this was not the case for all seasons.
For I can also recall times when the volume of work and the demands were high, bordering on the unbearably difficult, yet this wretched decision fatigue would not claim me. I would hold fast to my leadership graces, and in some glorious moments, I would even exceed my accustomed abilities. What, then, was the secret, the hidden key? I believe the difference lay in the object of my pursuit.
As I have confessed, I have known the work that burns a man out and the work that makes his spirit flourish. The difference was not the sheer quantity, nor the difficulty, nor the pressure, nor even the nature of the task itself. The true difference, which I now perceive with the clarity of a winter's morn, lay in what I sought through the work. When I pursued work to merely feather my own nest—to secure personal advancement, to draw upon myself prestige and the shallow currency of respect, or to bolster my own paltry power—then I was most prone to being overwhelmed. I would sooner succumb to decision fatigue (Scrooge), lose my temper with a shocking swiftness, and find my ability to guide others to success utterly withered. This state of fatigue, while perhaps allowing the work to be finished (for my focus narrowed to the mere scraping by), was utterly devoid of that most precious commodity: joy.
Ah, but joy came when the pursuit through the work was turned outward. When my labour was a quest to make a genuine difference in the lives of others, when the work itself might generate a lasting legacy or an impact that transcended the simple completion of the task, or when the success would shine a well-deserved light upon the members of my team—in those moments, I found my leadership spirit not just maintained, but soaring. In these blessed times, I could inhabit the present with ease, reflect upon the past with wisdom, and contemplate the future with a steady, hopeful heart.
And so, borrowing the profound narrative of the great Charles Dickens and his "A Christmas Carol," I propose we explore how the three Spectres of Work—the Ghost of Work Past, the Ghost of Work Present, and the Ghost of Work Future—can impart the deepest lessons of leadership and restore the true joy to our daily toil.
The Ghost of Work Past
The Ghost of Work Past is a teacher of immense power, yet it can also be a formidable chain that binds our present and starves our future. It is a natural failing for us to gaze upon our past labours through a glass darkly, allowing the spectral hand to point out every error we committed, to assign blame to others for the inevitable failures, or to attribute all success to the talents of our teammates. To summon the best of this Ghost into our present and our future, we must reframe the tale our past tells.
When I am at my best, my Ghost of Work Past is a gentle mentor. It whispers of the actions I performed with grace and reminds me to repeat those salutary behaviours. It keeps my focus firmly fixed upon those things I can influence and control, preventing me from casting blame upon others, even when such blame might be richly deserved. Yet, the greatest boon my Ghost of Work Past grants is the profound revelation that personal and professional hardships have not broken me, but rather have been agents of change for the better. The scars and blisters earned in the difficult crucibles of work have refined me, for I have come to grasp the essential truth this Ghost sought to impart: "I control what I do with what happens to me." Knowing how to leverage my history to influence the now and the morrow was helpful, but by itself, it was not sufficient to forge leadership excellence.
The Ghost of Work Present
I confess, I love work; I relish a lively industry and the spice of variety. But I have long held a disdain for the tedious detail, the soul-crushing repetition, and the petty machinations of "politics." That was my weary man's view for many a long year. My Ghost of Work Present, however, has taught me a subtly different truth.
Today, I view my work through the prism of energy. Some tasks require but a paltry expenditure of my inner resources. If I am permitted to be creative, innovative, and focused on the grand sweep of a problem, I use up very little energy. But when the work is narrow, solitary, and mired in minutiae, my Ghost of Work Present warns me that a greater tax of energy will be levied. This Ghost has also shown me that my competence is a capricious thing, not simply correlated with the energy required. I can perform brilliantly in high-energy tasks and yet fail miserably in those that seem to require little effort.
To be the finest leader in the work of the moment, I must become a diligent steward of my focus, managing the endless distractions, seeking the conditions that foster optimum performance for the specific task, and surrounding myself with those people who genuinely support my success.
Furthermore, the Ghost of Work Present has debunked the tyranny of time. The notion that the clock alone creates pressure is, I find, largely a myth. Time is a constraint, certainly, but it never becomes the oppressive source of decision fatigue if the work I am engaged in is outwardly focused. In short, when the work possesses a depth of meaning and purpose that aligns with my deepest values, the clock's pressure vanishes. I always seem to find the means to placate the Ghost of Work Present, finding a vital connection to the task or to the people, thus ensuring I possess the requisite energy and competence for success.
The Ghost of Work Future
In the green years of my career, the Ghost of Work Future was but a faint and elusive presence. I gave little thought to the path ahead, simply accepting what came, striving to do my best, and never peering much into the distance. This all began to change after I had completed my MBA. I was toiling in a modest management role when a Vice President asked me a simple, staggering question: what did I truly desire from my career? I told him I loved the front-line work and imagined myself remaining there for a great span of time.
He looked at me and delivered the words that were the first clear utterance of the Ghost of Work Future: "John, you are very good at that work, and you make a real impact. But instead of impacting a mere few hundred people, you should be impacting thousands."
Within that very year, my perspective had been transformed. I sought out new opportunities, ventured beyond the confines of my expertise, began teaching, pursued a further Master's degree, and approached my daily work with a wholly new perspective. I began to ask myself, "How can I do work differently so that I will be different?"
The Ghost of Work Future has been a constant, faithful companion ever since. My current approach to labour now embraces elements that are distinctly transformational, that seek to generate intangible yet intended outcomes, and that are profoundly relational. This Ghost compels me to constantly contemplate: What relationships must I cultivate? What knowledge must I acquire? What experiences do I seek to gain from this work, even from the most simple and mundane tasks? Leadership is, at its heart, a future-focused endeavour, and it must permeate every action we take.
What I now perceive is that the three Spectres of Work—Past, Present, and Future—each possess crucial lessons to bestow, and all must be acknowledged and embraced. When I feel the creeping chill of work fatigue, and my leadership abilities begin to fail, I know I must call upon all these Ghosts to guide my weary steps back onto the proper path of success.
These spectres, in their combined wisdom, have revealed to me the true, shining meaning of leadership: it is the joy of giving, of supporting, and of encouraging success in the lives of others. It is, in its essence, a Christmas of the spirit, twelve months a year.
