Stop being a hero

Heroes overcome odds. We need to change the odds.

I used to think I was a bit of a hero. I was proud of it, even. Beating the odds, I shifted my life story from high school dropout, teen mum, and no-hope foster kid to university graduate and business owner. Unlike many of my family members and friends, I kept off welfare and out of prison. I limited my addictions to caffeine and nicotine. My kids have a safe, happy and healthy home. It was a bumpy road, but I got there.

I knew my future, and that of my kids, wasn’t guaranteed. That if I wanted something different, I was the only one who could make it happen. So, for most of the last fifteen years, I worked every hour under the sun to make that future a reality. Now, I’m putting most of my energy into unravelling that heroism, so I can be a better parent, boss and leader.

If you want something done right, you do it yourself… right? Wrong. You can’t be trusted. The hero model is a risky strategy, cleverly disguised as a safe option – and I see this in my work with leaders all the time. They’ve reached the top through sheer grit, and not only are they exhausted… they’ve reached the ceiling of their effort.

When we’re heroes, we don’t trust others to deliver, and we stunt our potential to go any further. But if we can’t stop thinking of ourselves as irreplaceable, we get stuck.

When we operate a people leadership model, we reduce some of that risk by spreading it among others. We delegate tasks and functions into the hands of others and concentrate on supporting them to make it happen.  

Systems leadership takes an entirely different approach – it’s no longer just about what you can do, or what your teams can achieve. It’s about shifting the default so that our rules, processes and relationships make it work.

Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. If your system depends on heroes, it’s broken.

Heroes overcome odds. Systems leaders change the odds.