The Leadership Lie

On a Friday in July, there were no office hours at Ursuline. So I didn't go in.

I went for a long walk that morning. I spent some time tending the flowers outside. I worked on my website. I read a book. I ran some errands. Later in the day, I ended up at Nora's pool.

It was a good summer Friday. Peaceful. Ordinary. From the outside, it looked exactly like what a summer Friday is supposed to look like.

And underneath all of it, part of me felt guilty.

Nothing was wrong. There wasn't a game. There wasn't an emergency that needed me at school. In the summer, so much of my work can be done from anywhere, and I was doing some of it that day.

Still, I felt like I was supposed to be at school. I felt like I was supposed to be working all the time.

There was another layer under that one, too. If people didn't see me working, they might assume I wasn't.

I want to be careful here, because I don't know that anyone was actually thinking that. No one was telling me I had to be there. A lot of that pressure was pressure I put on myself.

Somewhere over the years, I had absorbed an idea of what commitment looked like. Being there meant working. Being seen meant people knew I was working. Not being there left room for people to make assumptions.

After more than 30 years in this work, that expectation didn't need anyone to say it out loud. I carried it on my own.

What I'm learning now is that I don't want other people's possible opinions of me deciding how I live or how I measure whether I'm doing my job well. I know the work I'm doing. I know whether I'm doing it well. I don't need to be physically visible to prove I'm committed.

When I look back, I can see this pattern running through a lot of years.

When Nora and Luke were young, I often brought them with me to games and events. I wanted to be with my kids. I also believed I needed to be at work. So sometimes I solved that by bringing my family into my work schedule.

I want to be clear about this part. I had a supportive husband. I also had a supportive Assistant AD who understood that I was a young mom. Nobody was making me choose between my job and my children.

There are good memories from those nights. I also know Nora and Luke probably don't remember every one of them the way I do. Sometimes everybody adjusted because I believed I needed to be there.

That isn't regret. It's a pattern I can see more clearly now that I have some distance from it.

So this is the lie I'm working to stop believing: that good leaders have to be seen working, available all the time and needed for everything.

I believed it for a long time.

The "needed for everything" part shows up in more places than my calendar.

When I started the Global Community of Women in High School Sports, I wanted it to become something meaningful, visible and effective. At some point I realized I couldn't do that alone. I needed help.

Patrice leads our Mentor Program now. She is excellent at this work. Giving her real ownership of it has been freeing, and it has been gratifying.

One of the things leadership keeps teaching me is that my way is not the only way. I don't need Patrice to lead the Mentor Program exactly the way I would lead it. My role is to support her, give advice when she asks for it and make sure she knows I'm there if she needs me.

I also believe organizations are healthier when more than one person has meaningful responsibility. Leadership shouldn't depend on one person being at the center of everything. That includes me.

I keep coming back to that Friday in July.

It wasn't a day when I did nothing. I worked on my website. But I also walked. I tended the flowers. I read. I ran errands. I spent time at Nora's pool.

Work was part of my day. It wasn't my whole day.

A full life isn't the same thing as a full schedule. I've said that before. I think that Friday I was finally starting to understand what it meant.

Don has noticed something, too. He told me recently that he's noticed I'm happier.

I'm not offering that as proof that I've figured this out. I haven't. But it's a small sign that something has shifted.

I'm still learning this.

And the question I keep asking myself is this one:

What am I still trying to prove by being seen?