It’s Spooky, It’s Scary…. It’s Leadership

It’s the last week of October and, yes, Halloween season is here! Maybe one of your favorite activities is to pay good money for you and your kids (or just you!) to be scared by a creepy haunted house (why? Just why? lol). Or maybe you watch terrifying movies (Jason and hockey mask maybe?). Sometimes for leaders, the scariest things aren’t limited to October and Halloween. Sometimes the scariest things show up in the hallway, our inbox, in the newspaper, or at a board meeting

Monsters. Are you facing a monster of your own making? This is often the crucial conversation that you know you need to have but keep avoiding. The longer you put it off - the more it grows like a green, oozing Jabba the Hutt! It also usually is impacting a significant price on the culture of your organization. Have the conversation now - with kindness and clarity - and directly with the person who needs to hear it. 

Zombies. Sometimes you pick your head up as a leader and take a good look around - and the energy and enthusiasm and heart are missing - everyone is physically present but not really ALIVE! Sometimes we recognize this and try to add in some fun and engaging activities for staff - and that's a positive and necessary thing. But what people really need is purpose, meaning and recognition - consistently, not a one-off here and there.

Ghosts. Our organizations are often haunted by the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ - oops, that’s the wrong month and the wrong holiday! We are actually haunted more by ghosts of some way things were done before, or some way that someone else led …. Some sense that may sound like “we’ve always done it this way”. Change feels like loss and risk - remember that and be patient and bring people into the conversation about change and encourage them to help build better ways of doing things.

The Horror Story. We often talk about all the best and shiny parts of leadership and our particular leadership story. But the truth is that a lot of the time leadership is messy, and hard, and heavy - and like any scary horror movie, we are often in the dark of night alone with what feels like a broken flashlight!  

So, what’s a leader to do? 

Here’s the secret every horror movie fan knows: the scariest part is the anticipation. The fear before you open the door is almost always worse than what’s behind it. Leadership works the same way. Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s opening the door anyway. So this Halloween, grab your flashlight (and some extra batteries!), take a deep breath, and walk toward the thing you’ve been avoiding. The monsters are real, but so is your courage. Happy haunting, leaders!