People will warn you about meeting your heroes. Outsized expectations can easily breed disappointment. Or, maybe, your hero just turns out to be a jerk in-person. But, that’s not what this post is about.
This post is about giving more thoughtful consideration to the stories of larger-than-life figures that you take on as inspiration. What it’s really about is the realization that you truly have to consider multiple perspectives and points of view for any given story-as-lesson.
It was sometime within the last two months that I heard a great anecdote from a successful entrepreneur/founder. The interesting part wasn’t necessarily the company he built or how he built it, but what he did after it became a success. He disappeared. To hear him tell it, he thoughtfully planned a smooth transition out of the day-to-day and empowered his team to make the right decisions within their roles without his oversight or input. The end result was that he was able to remove himself completely from the company’s operations and go do…whatever it is he was planning to do.
Well, a few months after hearing that story and thinking to myself (repeatedly) what a great idea it was, I met one of his former employees. It was a crazy coincidence. I said, “You worked at {{company}}? That’s awesome. I really admire {{founder}}.”
I said, “You worked at {{company}}? That’s awesome. I really admire {{founder}}.”
“Haha, yeah. {{founder}} was…interesting.”
As it turns out, {{founder}} wasn’t all that impressive to a lot of his employees. In fact, what I heard was that he’d just disappear for months at a time. No one could get ahold of him for questions and they were just left to fend for themselves. Nothing about it indicated thoughtfulness and intentional empowerment.
I was shocked. Could it be true that the story that had been at the top of my mind for the last few months was bogus? Not necessarily, but it now certainly seems embellished. What was perhaps a great idea was executed (in all likelihood) poorly and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, now gets conveyed in its retelling as a thoughtful and carefully architected management play.
Now I don’t believe {{founder}} wanted to shirk responsibility or intentionally leave the company in near-chaos but that was what the experience of the people on the other side of this story reflected. I don’t know that {{founder}} retells this story these days (years late) with the intention to deceive or gloss over a questionable call, but I think that we are all the heroes of our own stories.
I’ll make an effort to remember that moving forward. That every potential decision I make as a leader impacts many people. When I perceive that a decision will make me the hero of my own story, I should be careful that it’s not just the result of my own mental gymnastics or my narrow field of vision. It seems easier now than ever for folks to spin any questionable entrepreneurial play as a calculated risk taken by someone with great instincts and an iron will. Let’s make sure that the judgment is only made after we’ve considered the perspectives of everyone that play impacts.
Image Credit: William Fitzgibbon
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