Stop Making It Difficult

I’ve found so many leaders banging their heads against the wall because of their difficulties. They can’t see a way out. There’s struggle after struggle. 

Leadership is just difficult.

Or is it?

I live in Michigan. Our winters can be brutal. We get massive amounts of snowfall. 

One of the things that improves the quality of life during the winter months is having a snowblower. Years ago, I bought a Craftsman 2-stage snowblower. Why? Because Craftsman made a great snowblower.

After a few years, I began to have difficulties snowblowing my driveway, sidewalks, and backyard (yes, I snowblowed the backyard! I have to make a pathway for our Vizsla to run and use the potty). I could start the snowblower, but whenever I tried to increase the speed or reduce the choke, the snowblower would die.

Snowblowing became a frustrating experience. I couldn’t do it quickly; many times, the snowblower would stop working. I’d have to leave the job halfway done.

This year, I was tired of snowblowing being difficult. I resolved to find the problem the snowblower was experiencing and fix it. I soon discovered the issue: the carburetor was shot (from leaving gasoline in it).

I went to Amazon and looked up a replacement carburetor for the snowblower. A replacement was $20! I quickly purchased the new carburetor. When Amazon delivered it, I began working on removing the old carburetor and installing the new one. The process was pretty simple.

Now…

Snowblowing isn’t difficult. I can use the full range of speeds, and it doesn’t stall out for me. The snowblower runs perfectly!

For years, I made this task difficult. I refused to figure out the problem. I spent countless hours frustrated. 

Stop Making It Difficult

When I look at the leaders who complain about leadership being difficult, I see leaders who have resolved themselves to the issues they’re currently facing. The problems have always existed, so why wouldn’t they always be? That’s how I was with my snowblower problem.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can experience fewer difficulties in your leadership.

How? Try the following actions:

Do preventive maintenance on your leadership:

I could have run the snowblower dry in previous years. I didn’t. I chose to avoid this easy preventive maintenance action. 

As leaders, we can take steps that will prevent future issues. We can call these steps leadership preventive maintenance. 

Some maintenance you can do are:

  • Confront difficult employees early on
  • Lay out your ideal corporate culture
  • Meet regularly with your employees
  • Review the tools you’re using and what needs to be done

When you do preventive maintenance on your leadership, you stop issues before they become major.

Replace things that aren’t working:

We gain a lot of extra weight by continuing to use outdated software and equipment. There are often updates to the software we regularly use, but we don’t update it because it takes too long to update. Or we see our tool’s effectiveness waning. We continue to use them because they work but don’t work. You know?

As we see things wearing out, begin to replace them. Find a replacement for the software you’ve loved for ages but know it’s past its expiration. The tools, get rid of them and get something new. 

Or what about processes and procedures? Your organization may have outgrown what you initially implemented. Be willing to replace them.

It’s not easy to replace the things that aren’t working. We’ve put time, money, and energy into them. It feels like a waste.

No, the actual waste is continuing to use ineffective or dying equipment in an effort to save money.

Enjoy the improvement:

You’ve done the preventive maintenance and you’ve replaced the things that aren’t working, now it’s time for you to enjoy a less stressful, less difficult form of leadership. It’s okay to recline a bit and enjoy how things have improved.

When you do this, take note of what difficulties have been lessened. Keep it in mind for the next time you’re hesitant to do preventative maintenance or replace things that aren’t working.

You’ll be able to look back and go, “Oh, yeah… things are less difficult when I take care of the things that I can.”

While you will face leadership challenges and leadership will be difficult at times, we don’t have to make it more difficult than it already is. Let’s make leadership less difficult.

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