The loneliness of leadership (Part 5): Making deep connections through coaching others and other strategies

This is the fifth post in a series addressing the Loneliness of Leadership. Follow these links to read the previous posts (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) which explore why leadership can be lonely and what might assist.

Maintaining contacts and interests outside of school

As a coach, one of the questions I ask is, “So what are you doing to help keep your shape as a leader?”, “How are you looking after yourself?” These are important coaching questions, because losing shape as a leader contributes significantly to the feelings of loneliness of leadership. I asked this question of a first time principal recently and she very quickly reeled off a whole list of things such as: going away for a weekend in the middle of the term to catch up with a buddy and taking in some cultural activities; leaving school early a couple of times on early dart day; making sure to have a full day off each weekend; regularly catching up with friends on that day off and/or going out and doing something enjoyable; and sometimes even going out without a phone.

I was really impressed. This has been a very stressful start to the year with coronavirus and other issues, and, to be honest, I hadn’t really expected her to be able to maintain the strategies we have discussed in the past. But this first time principal is taking her wellbeing seriously and being self-disciplined about ensuring it. It is very tempting to try to deal with all the stress and pressure by simply working harder and filling up every hour with work related activities. Even giving yourself permission to work through one or two weekends can be a slippery slope.

Ensuring that you maintain contacts and interests outside of work is essential to maintaining your shape as a leader and helps to address the loneliness of leadership. Touching base with something normal such as the chit chat of old friends can ground you even though you might feel that there are things that you have to hold back and cannot share. It reminds you that there is more to life than work and it helps to put all the problems and pressures back into perspective.

Making deep connections through coaching others

Another question I asked was, “So what are you doing in your role as principal that brings you joy?” Her response was, “Coaching feels important.” In spite of the busyness and demands, she has been faithfully meeting with those teachers and leaders within the school who she has agreed to coach. In this series of articles, I have spoken several times of the importance of having a coach and mentor. Now I am suggesting that coaching others is a strategy that assists the loneliness of leadership as well as being essential to good leadership. Coaching others is service oriented - it provides an opportunity to connect with people on a deeper level and to help meet their needs. There is little more satisfying than contributing to the growth and development of people in your organization and seeing them achieve their personal and professional goals. Coaching others is grounding and helps to put things back into perspective; but it also assists with the loneliness of leadership because it is empowering – you know you are doing valuable work and making a difference both for the individuals and for the school.

Given that the personal and the professional are inextricably intertwined, coaching sessions generally also move into the realm of the personal. As coach, you are invited into the inner sanctum – to hear about the hopes and dreams, fears and concerns of others - and this enables close, empathetic connections to develop. These are not necessarily friendships, though they may become so over time, but they do become close and caring relationships. Coaching sessions also provide you, as leader, with the opportunity to selectively and thoughtfully reveal aspects of yourself to them - for you to let them know, to the extent that is wise, of your hopes and dreams, fears and concerns. This not only helps with the feelings leaders often have of not being known but it contributes to a sense of reciprocity – of ako – of learning from each other. It assists longevity in the coaching relationship because it isn’t completely one-sided.

Authenticity, being humble and removing that persona of perfection

One thing that adds hugely to the loneliness of leadership is the expectation of “perfection” that we often place on ourselves as we carry out our leadership roles. We feel that we have to be seen to have all the answers and to know exactly what to do, in order to prove our worthiness of being a leader. Of course, as leaders, we know that we are not perfect – it is only a “persona of perfectionism”, a mask that we might wear to hide the fact of our imperfection and of our deep lack of confidence in our leadership abilities. This persona adds to our feelings of loneliness, because not only are we not disclosing who we really are to others, but we are deliberately hiding it, and in doing so, we are acting without authenticity which creates a barrier between us and the other. While there is wisdom in not disclosing everything about ourselves to everyone, we should always be authentic and not pretend to be other than we are. There is a subtle difference.

And anyway, as much as we might try to give off the appearance of perfection, the reality is that everyone knows we are not! A much better approach is that of humility – to be humble and authentic, sharing your mistakes, at times, and letting others know that you are neither perfect, nor ashamed of the fact.

In my next and, perhaps, final post in this series, I am going to talk about the importance of each individual leader’s growth and development as a strategy that helps with the loneliness of leadership.

An important note: coaching sessions are strictly confidential and I received permission to share the material from a specific coaching session in this post.

Ngā mihi nui

Lesley

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