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Leader, if it is “driving you crazy”.

(Which is a phrase I often hear leaders say about their organization, their team members, or things that are impacting them at the time.) 

Whether it’s a systems issue, a personnel issue, or an issue with the progress (or lack thereof) from your team, there are not many options. You can boil them down to a couple of main decisions. 

Leader, you have two options when things are driving you crazy: 

Do something about it.

  • Make the hard decisions. 
  • Get the right people in the right seats. 
  • Lead the needed change. 
  • Cut or add expenses. 
  • Refuse to compromise on the vision. 

Live with it and quit complaining. 

  • Learn to settle for what you have. 
  • Be content; knowing things may never change. 
  • Give up your vision/dream of achieving more. (Just being realistic here. 
  • Quit trying to motivate others.
  • Recognize the sense of loss others on your team probably are feeling. 

The choice is yours. After all, you are the leader. 

(And I realize this is overly simplistic, but sometimes that’s the way we have to view leadership.) 

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Ron Edmondson

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Join the discussion 7 Comments

  • Jim Pemberton says:

    There is a third option. Sometimes the things that drive a leader crazy involve his own poor leadership, whether it's being bullheaded and not listening to his capable team or being wishy-washy and not using his position to correct the issues only his position has the authority to correct. So the third option is to lead better, that is to go back through the kind of things you teach every week and follow your advice.

    I have plenty of real-world examples of this, but I'm just going to leave it at that.

  • Joe Lalonde says:

    Amen Ron. I think this applies to anything in our lives, whether it relates to leadership or not.

    It makes me think of those that complain they're overworked, overweight, or unhappy. They like talking about it but doing something? Oh no! That can't be done.

    Thanks for saying this today.

  • Pastor Ron! I would go with option – (1) "Do something about it" and leave the rest to God . Personally, I find it very difficult to "live with it and quit complaining."

    True, I feel desperate about things which don't fall according to my expectations. But, over the years, I have learnt a principle ~ "Do my best and leave the result to God".

    This strategy has helped me in maintaining peace in life.