Leading with Joy
Here’s an interesting question for you: what about your job gives you joy? I bet that something does. I hope that lots of it does! But I’m also willing to bet that even for projects and tasks where you and your colleagues are 100% on the same page in terms of timelines and goals, different people enjoy different aspects of the process.
You may like the creative, blue-sky, brainstorming at the beginning. Someone else may like the planning. And someone else the execution or the analysis. That’s all great! It’s important that people enjoy different things. When it becomes a problem, though, is when leaders don’t acknowledge that joy is different for different people and important for everyone.
Become the Chief Joy Officer of Your Life
Richard Sheridan calls himself “Chief Joy Officer” partly to keep this important facet of leadership front-and-center. He realized pretty quickly in his career that what motivates him about a job isn’t necessarily what motivates his team. What gives him joy at work isn’t the same as for others. And when you try to lead “around” that fact, you lose. However, when we are authentic and trust our people to do their jobs even if their motivation is very different, we can create fantastic, optimistic, highly productive places to work.
I hope you’ll enjoy this interview with Richard. He’s incorporated teaching into his leadership journey, and I think you’ll find that he has something important to teach us all.
Click here to listen on iTunes.
