Weary Souls Leading Other Weary Souls
By: Wes Cochrane
Leadership is a profoundly human endeavor – we’re not dealing with robots. We’re dealing with souls.
And the soul demands care.
Another way to express this is that as leaders, we are responsible for “whole people.” Whole people are more than just their physical being and what they can produce. They have hopes. They have fears. They have concerns and anxieties. And all of this impacts their abilities to perform in the workplace.
The problem is we’re living in an age of soul ambush. Author and counselor, John Eldredge, wrote in his recent book, Resilient: Restoring Your Weary Soul in These Turbulent Times, that “[w]e have not yet paid the psychological bill for the pandemic.” Societally, we’re only beginning to uncover the impact the pandemic had on our families and institutions. Moreover, that impact was felt more profoundly than many of us might admit or realize. There was a psychological toll from the pandemic, alone, that was enough to burden any soul. This is to say nothing of the contentious political years that preceded COVID-19 and still rage, the deep and painful conversations surrounding race in our country, the abrupt end of our nation’s longest war and the beginning of a new one, strife over our education systems, the squeeze on our wallets and purses as the economy braced for inflation’s hard blows, the disruption to the supply chains – to the predictable comfort – that we have grown accustomed to. Further, these are all challenges and stressors that are felt universally. They don’t account for the unique difficulties that fill our individual lives day after day.
As we journeyed out of the havoc that COVID-19 wrecked on our world’s bodies, economies, and institutions, it became tempting to assume we were just marching back to “normal.” But that presupposes that “normal” was, at one time or another, a good thing.
The underlying truth is that life has always been and always will be a difficult battle for the soul. “Normal” is no refuge.
We can read about goal setting, vision casting, habit formation, managing commitments, navigating conflict, and self and organizational improvement, all day, but none of that will directly address the soul.
And it is weary souls that we encounter at home and at work.
Writing in September, 2014, in the wake of the brutal ISIS beheadings of American journalists in Syria, author David Brooks attempted to define the soul when he addressed what makes the human body sacred. In the New York Times, Brooks noted:
“Most of us understand, even if we don’t think about it, or have a vocabulary to talk about it…that the human body is not just a piece of meat or a bunch of neurons and cells. The human body has a different moral status than a cow’s body or a piece of broccoli. We’re repulsed by a beheading because the body has a spiritual essence. The human head and body don’t just just live and pass along genes. They paint, make ethical judgments, savor the beauty of a sunset and experience the transcendent. The body is material but surpasses the material. It’s spiritualized matter.”
The same spiritual essence in us that can savor the beauty of a sunset can also nurse the wounds or disappointments that come from trudging through life’s dark valleys.
Like us, the men and women we lead are carrying with them to work the myriad burdens of modern life, with its overwhelm, its overstimulation, and its limited rest and solitude.
If our leadership doesn’t account for this, we will miss major opportunities to influence our people – and by extension our teams – to perform at their highest potential.
And that is what leadership is all about – influencing others to consistently perform at their highest potential.
So how do we combat the ambush on our souls in the professional environment?
First, it’s going to look vastly different depending upon the size and nature of your office or team. Every organization has its own cultural DNA and its own challenges. There is no off-the-shelf approach to caring for the whole person. Since we’re talking about human beings and not robots, this should make absolute sense.
Second, it doesn’t mean coddling your people or insulating them from challenging work or circumstances. It also doesn’t mean invading their private lives.
On the other hand, it does mean engaging your people with an awareness that accounts for the burdens or dreams they carry with them. I’ll out myself right now – I have led teams before where my concern was almost exclusively the proverbial bottom line and getting the results I thought the team needed to succeed. The outcome was that I possessed a surface level of awareness of the men and women on my team. Caught up in the demands of the organization, I didn’t appreciate the complexities and nuance of the folks I worked with.
Awareness is the key principle.
Awareness is what makes people feel known. Are you aware that your employee just had her first baby? Are you aware that your new colleague is trying to buy her first house in a frenzied market? Are you aware that one of your junior team leaders is worried about a pending knee surgery? Are you aware that your officemate is a widower or has a child battling cancer?
When people feel known, they feel cared for. They feel cared for because the intangible part of them has been addressed. They are more than just their job. Maybe nothing was fixed. Maybe no amazing epiphany occurred. You just displayed awareness. You just extended soul care.
This is why anonymity and irrelevance comprise two of the three sides of Patrick Lencioni’s aptly named “job misery triangle.” All human beings need to be known, understood, and appreciated. We also need to know that we matter, that our work is relevant.
How does this look in practice?
Take the knee surgery, for example. You have a colleague who has an upcoming knee surgery. One day, as his supervisor, you stop and ask, “When is your surgery?” You learn it’s the following week. You ask how your colleague feels about it. Does he have post-op support in place? Could you bring him or order him a meal?
The point is not the particular questions you ask – it’s seeing your people. In one sincere exchange, you’ve communicated awareness. You’ve helped to mitigate the crush of the modern world on your colleague’s soul by reminding him that he is more than his job or position.
Do this consistently – across your team – and you will begin to influence the cultural fabric of your organization. You will begin to build a stronger team.
Quick Self-Assessment
Take a moment – in the morning before things get busy or at the end of your work day, before heading home – and jot down the first 3-5 adjectives that come to your mind to describe the way you relate to the people you lead. Don’t overthink it. Don’t stress about filtering it. Just write the words that come. What constellation of adjectives emerged?
What story do those adjectives tell you about your leadership? If that story is negative, don’t condemn yourself. You’ve just led yourself in a powerful way. You’ve prompted yourself to see the truth, which is the beginning of transformation.
Where to go from here?
Keep it simple. Who is one person on your team that you need to be more aware of next week? Who is one person on your team that you will communicate awareness to personally next week?
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