What teenagers can teach you about leading your organization

When my twin boys were approaching high school, a remarkable resource titled Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers challenged my husband and me to update our leadership styles (yet again) to better match the needs of our metamorphosing clients-at-home. In it, Michael Riera warns that at an unexpected moment in a child’s teenage years you'll be fired as their manager (like it or not) -- and that one’s best hope is to get rehired as a consultant!

That role shift helped me more effectively parent these boys who’d transformed their capacity over years of initiative and hard work. They were earning freedoms I could barely keep up with. They depended on me to grow my own capacity to coach them through the next wave of increasingly sophisticated challenges, doubts, mistakes and celebrations.

Most of us frequently and unconsciously shuttle between mentor, colleague, consultant, teacher, coach, visionary, and etc., even when our job title suggests a more specific role. Similarly, we alternate between moments of ‘rocking it’ and times we need to up our game. Trouble can emerge when we lack clarity about which behaviors most effectively match the situational needs and desires of our “client” (direct report, coaching client, business partner, child) ... and when we neglect to build on ways we naturally ‘rock’ our leadership while simultaneously improving in the areas where we most often fall short.

Done well, adapting one's leadership behaviors can increase retention rates, enhance employee satisfaction and expand an organization’s capacity to achieve a growing vision, but there’s one big problem ... how will you know?  

This doubt rings louder the higher one climbs and the faster an organization grows. Especially in a fast-moving start-up, dramatic shifts in roles and responsibilities can feel so intense that it seems barely possible to keep up.

Unfortunately, employees don’t act like teenagers in the ways we might hope. Whereas most 16-year-olds push back in spontaneous can’t-possibly-ignore-it protest against a parent who misses the mark (even slightly!), staff members may silently wither -- or seek employment elsewhere -- if your leadership fails to inspire and fails to welcome truthful dialogue.

Even in a culture that encourages dissent or challenge, many adults fear interpersonal conflict and won’t verbally object to how they’re being led unless there’s a solid structure in place making it “safe enough” for them to offer candid, timely feedback and to make bold requests.

Other reports or colleagues may behave too much like teenagers when dissatisfied, harnessing the promise of risk-taking, yet providing feedback in such a caustic or clumsy manner that you struggle to find the valuable ideas nestled inside their poorly-delivered complaints and mumbled suggestions. They may have great insight, but a lack of mastery in communication makes it easy to misunderstand or prematurely dismiss what they've said.

A leader with courage and humility can address these challenges by inquiring into non-verbal signals, inviting open dialogue, taking in feedback curiously and non-defensively, and sincerely looking for the 'kernel of truth' whenever a stakeholder takes the risk to speak up ... and then, by taking brave action to modify behavior according to the needs of their expanding organization. Including these timeless tools in your leadership repertoire can support you in growing companies capable of meeting -- and thriving in -- tomorrow's next wave of organizational challenges, doubts, mistakes … and celebrations.