September 18, 2023
by Stephen T. Messenger
For many of us, our identity and our success are closely intertwined. When things are great at work, they’re great everywhere else. When things go bad at work, our professional, home, and social lives can suffer. While this mindset shows you care, it can also be very dangerous if your highs and lows at work determine your highs and lows of life.
The Varsity Soccer Team
This year, my son made the high school varsity team as a freshman, and he was elated. He worked so hard in the off-season on endurance and skills training throughout the summer. Come soccer tryouts, he bested kids three years older than him and sneaked onto varsity. He was selected the day of his first varsity match, and the kid was on cloud nine.
After thirty minutes on the field, he broke his arm. That night, he was devastated.
Afterward, I reflected on how much my identity would suffer if I had a setback.
Work Shapes Our Minds
We all spend so much time at work; for many, there are more waking hours there than at home. Work is more than a way to pay the bills. It’s where we achieve, win, fail, have friends, gain and lose status, and reinforce who we are.
Our professional wins can easily shape our behavior and affect how we act. Our losses can have devastating effects on others if we let the lows of life affect how we treat others.
I see it too often—a great win makes leaders even greater. They celebrate with others, thank them, and tout organizational success. A great loss makes some leaders terrible to be around. They are sullen, angry, or depressed when things go poorly.
They can take it out on their co-workers, peers, and sadly, their family and friends outside of work. We need leaders who are the same in victory and defeat.
Dampening the Sine Wave
In math a sine wave oscillates, rising and falling consistently all the way to infinity.
With football season starting, you can see this all the time. A touchdown results in the ultimate celebration. The coach on the sideline is elated. But then, an interception at the critical moment crushes a team who was previously winning. Suddenly, the momentum of the game shifts from one side to the other. The coach loses it. The team commits penalties. Fights break out from frustration. It’s the refs’ fault…
The highs are high, and the lows are low. We all want leaders who are predictable in the peaks and valleys. I can remember a boss whose reaction was unpredictable when hearing bad news. Some days he took it well. Other days he erupted in anger. No one wanted to be the messenger.
I see this in younger, successful people a lot. The ones who rarely fail. They walk through life with exceptional results, but when things start going poorly, they struggle to be the same great leader in the valley as they are on the mountain.
We all need to be consistent. Our people should know how we will react to good and bad news and be able to predict our response ahead of time. Our leadership identity cannot be tied to wins and losses, but to the people we serve, vision for the organization, and solving problems as they arrive.
In the highs and lows of organization, the best leaders can dampen their emotional sine wave and lead by focusing on helping the organization move forward from the last win or loss.
The Consistent Identity
It shouldn’t matter if you’re starting varsity or riding the bench injured, you must maintain a consistent identity. In my military profession, I know that one year I’m the commander of an amazing Army unit with a great office–the next I could be deployed into theater working behind a card table, laptop, and dirty pair workout clothes shoved in the corner. It doesn’t matter.
In my son’s case, he took it well. He’s on the bench for every varsity game supporting the team. He’s thinking about training when he’s cleared. He has a great attitude in a low of life. Sports, work, the military, and life give and take away, yet your leadership identity on and off the field should always remain constant.
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More on this topic: The Identity Crisis and the Lie We Can’t Believe
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