Lead with latitude, not attitude!

I am not a plumber, but let something affect the plumbing flow in my house, and I can become one quick, fast, and in a hurry as the saying goes. I am sure you can do the same, if necessary. I remember one day while trying to sleep, after an extremely long and exhausting night at work, I laid down and as my head hit the pillow all I could hear was “blurp, blurp, bluek” over and over.

Come to find out the bathroom sink faucet was leaking. Forcing myself to get up and go to turn the faucet off properly because “people living in this house don’t know how to turn water faucets off” or so I thought; I turned the faucet off correctly and went back to bed. In just a few seconds there it was again, “blurp, blurp, bluek.” Talk about frustrating, not only had I become one of those challenged “people living in my house,” but I was also now forced to become a DIY practicing plumber.

As I spent time fixing the faucet, I started thinking, “What if I couldn’t have fixed the plumbing problem? What if a professional plumber wasn’t available to fix it?” If left unfixed, ultimately, it would drive me away before going crazy with the “blurp, blurp, bluek.”

Here is something to remember throughout the new year, a leader with an attitude is like a dripping faucet in the quiet of night, it can drive people crazy creating in them a desire to go away. Wow, talk about stopping the workplace flow. It can be downright devastating to mission success. Leaders with attitudes lose the ear, mind, heart, and soul of their people. What I do know is that it doesn’t have to end up like this, there is a better way!

If you want to lead authentically, if you want to keep good people on the team, if you want to be successful as a leader, then lead with latitude, not attitude. An attitude is binding (a discussion for another time), but latitude is unshackling. Latitude expands scope, it grants leeway, it allows for asymmetric thinking. By the way, “thinking outside the box” is asymmetric thinking, but it cannot occur without latitude.