It’s Ok To Lead With Encouragement
You can lead with encouragement, even if you want behaviors to change.
An editor’s job is to edit the writer’s words that they are working with to make them better. To tell you when you’re lacking, when something doesn’t quite land right, and to tell you when you’ve done a good job.
When a piece goes live on Medium, each writer gets a notification. And sometimes, there’s a one-line comment from the editor that looked over the piece. Other times, the comments and notes are a little more complex. Lately, I’ve been paying more attention to the words that the editors are bestowing upon me because they are unbelievably kind. They are something of praise. They are an acknowledgment of how hard I am working — and it makes me want to work harder.
Leadership is multifaceted. It’s hard to be the boss, to be the leader, to be the person who calls the shots.
Oftentimes it involves making the tough decisions that others may shy away from. Oftentimes it involves saying the things that must be said, but things that people do not want to hear — for a leader must always be truthful.
Leadership and truth are strands of the same braid — you cannot have one without the other. But the other strand of that braid must be words of encouragement — therein lies the trifecta.
There is a lie that we tell ourselves that says that to be an effective leader, one must leave out feeling and steel themselves against emotion. That they must be “tough” or that there’s somehow something to be revered with the ones who are crass, or inflammatory, or rough around the edges and with their words. But what’s the point of that? What’s the outcome of that? How on earth does that make a productive workplace?
Instead, what would happen if we changed our way of thinking, if perhaps we stopped believing the lie that we must be steel and stone-cold, and instead, see the humanity behind the human?
You can give corrections and critical feedback with compassion.
You can lead with encouragement, even if you want behaviors to change.
You can set the bar high without utilizing fear, and cruelty, and brash behaviors as an attempt to evoke change and results. In fact, one might argue that such tactics are inherently counterproductive, for shame is never a useful tool for growth and productivity.
When we encourage those who work for us with simple words of appreciation and acknowledgment of a good job, people want to work harder.
They feel seen.
They feel heard.
They feel valued.
They want to keep the level of praise that they’re at — and even raise the bar on themselves, too.
Previously published on Thought Catalog, here.
